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Rich Hailey wonders about the morality of pre-emptive strikes. I don't think he has anything to be worried about. In the movies, a lot of things are possible, including firing fifteen shots from a six-shooter without reloading and invariably outdrawing the black hat. Life would be much simpler if we could reliably. We could just sit around waiting for villains to draw box cutters, revolvers, or dirty bombs, and cut them down at our leisure, secure in the knowledge that we could do so. Indeed, we could even use that to determine morality, not in a "might makes right" sense, but certain that Heaven has granted the good guys the faster reflexes. Alas, it is not so. When the black hats announce that they will strike, that they will cause as much suffering and death as is in their ability, are we still constrained to sit quietly and wait for them to do so? Let us note that we are not even talking an individual basis here; rather, it is those who are ostensibly responsible for our safety whose hands would be stilled here. As to a specific instance, of course, it is our right - our obligation, in fact -- to demand facts and details. If the Bush administration, or such as follow him, announce, "We are pre-emptively striking against X", it is right and proper for us to say such things as, "What is the history? What are the indications that X intends to strike us in the near future?" An reply of, "You should have been following the news; then you would such things" is not acceptable. Neither is the argument, "They haven't done anything yet, therefore we may not". No doubt the loony left will deride this as macho posturing. It is in fact the opposite; it is macho posturing to pretend that we can always wait for the black hats, and then draw and shoot afterwards. It is a sign of maturity to acknowledge that we cannot do this even with the degree of reliability that Heaven grants to mortal men, that we need to think and to plan in this floating world. John "Akatsukami" Braue Tuesday, June 11, 2002 |
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