Part II: Action vs. Reaction
I thought I would expand a bit on the concept of national defense which I touched on in the previous post. The key here is that the threat of harm is just as urgent as the harm itself. In other words, if a nation considers itself to be threatened, it needs to be equally concerned (if not more so) with the danger as with an actual attack. This idea has recently entered the limelight with the release of the report of the 9/11 Commission, which lays out many U.S. Government failures at pre-emptive activity that quite possibly could have prevented the attack of September Eleventh.
In a battlefield situation, striking first and striking hard is not only very cut-and-dry, it's do-or-die. Heh. Anyways, what I mean is you bomb the factory before it produces the tanks; you destroy the Scud site before it launches its missile; you demolish the bridge before the enemy can cross it. This idea of hitting the enemy before he hits you is also essential to national defense. If you know a nation is planning to attack you, you can't sit back and wait for it to happen. You need to do something before the lives of your citizens are at risk.
Does this mean that every threat needs to be dealt with using war? By no means. But steps must be taken to neutralize the threat, or the government is not doing its sworn duty. If the leader of a nation believes that war is the only way to truly bring about safety, then when he acts on that belief by mobilizing the military he is fulfilling the duties of his office.
I also wanted to say something about anti-war types. I'm not going after anybody who opposes any war at all. But I am going after the ones that oppose any war under any circumstance. You know the type. Personally, I love when I can sit down with a person and discuss specific aspects of a conflict to hash out the real motives, objectives, and repercussions entailed. But every now and then you run into some people who are just peace nuts who believe all war is evil (which it is, mind you) and that the government should never take such measures. How they could possibly expect to be protected by their government under such restrictions is beyond me.
In a battlefield situation, striking first and striking hard is not only very cut-and-dry, it's do-or-die. Heh. Anyways, what I mean is you bomb the factory before it produces the tanks; you destroy the Scud site before it launches its missile; you demolish the bridge before the enemy can cross it. This idea of hitting the enemy before he hits you is also essential to national defense. If you know a nation is planning to attack you, you can't sit back and wait for it to happen. You need to do something before the lives of your citizens are at risk.
Does this mean that every threat needs to be dealt with using war? By no means. But steps must be taken to neutralize the threat, or the government is not doing its sworn duty. If the leader of a nation believes that war is the only way to truly bring about safety, then when he acts on that belief by mobilizing the military he is fulfilling the duties of his office.
I also wanted to say something about anti-war types. I'm not going after anybody who opposes any war at all. But I am going after the ones that oppose any war under any circumstance. You know the type. Personally, I love when I can sit down with a person and discuss specific aspects of a conflict to hash out the real motives, objectives, and repercussions entailed. But every now and then you run into some people who are just peace nuts who believe all war is evil (which it is, mind you) and that the government should never take such measures. How they could possibly expect to be protected by their government under such restrictions is beyond me.
