Pre-emptive Strike
‘THE doctrine of pre-emption under which America and Britain invaded Iraq has also been extended to cover matters domestic as well.
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| George was shocked that not everyone had been taught to read by Dan Quayle |
And last week Home Secretary David Blunkett announced an extension of his plans to lock up indefinitely anyone he suspects of being a terrorist.
But if the failures of the intelligence service (on whose evidence these detentions will rely) werent enough to undermine the whole plan, we read in this mornings Guardian how a group of Customs officers systematically committed perjury and lied to judges in secret hearings.
A document seen by the paper says officers deliberately withheld information from judges and defence teams, failing to admit, for instance, that a prosecution witness in more than 200 cases was a Customs informant.
Meanwhile, President Bush has been forced on the defensive by critics of the war in Iraq, even submitting himself at the weekend to his first interview on network TV since he took office.
In it, he ratcheted up the doctrine of pre-emption still further, arguing that it did not matter whether Saddam Hussein actually had weapons of mass destruction.
He had the capacity to have a weapon…and we thought he had weapons, Bush told NBCs Meet The Press.
The international community thought he had weapons, but he had the capacity to make a weapon and then let that weapon fall into the hands of a shadowy terrorist network.
In other words, no longer do we need evidence that a country is actively engaged in procuring or developing weapons of mass destruction to launch a pre-emptive strike.
It is enough to think that they might and to know that they can a standard by which just about every country in the world is vulnerable.
We wonder if Bush used a similar standard of proof with the 152 people he was responsible for executing as governor of Texas.’
Posted: 9th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
