"I view this report as a warning signal that they had the program, they halted the program. The reason why it's a warning signal is they could restart it."
-- George W. Bush
This is George Bush talking about Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons program. He explains that a National Intelligence Estimate that says they have no program is a warning that they might have one. Obviously this has to win some sort of award for circular reasoning (come on, how ridiculous is it that he says the fact they don't have one proves they might have one later), but there is one other problem.
Couldn't this apply to almost any country in the world? Is President Bush really claiming the fact that someone could start a nuclear weapon program at any time is justification for threatening them, including keeping military attacks against that country on the table?
Couldn't the Philippines start a nuclear weapons program at any time? How about Canada? How about the dangerous folks in Botswana?
How could the fact that someone has ended their nuclear weapons program years ago be justification for attacking them because they might restart it? Can Bush really believe the things that he says?
And if he does believe this absurdity, then wasn't Japan justified in attacking us in Pearl Harbor?
They heard that we had a nuclear weapons program - and we did. And that we might be able to start it any time - which was relatively true. And that if we had nuclear weapons, we might use them against Japan one day - which obviously proved to be true. So, they launched a pre-emptive strike against the United States because we had a nuclear weapons program they feared we might use against them at a later time.
Under the Bush doctrine, isn't Pearl Harbor the perfect case for using a pre-emptive first strike? Japan was rightfully concerned about our weapons program and they rightfully struck us first.
Of course, the only problem with that theory is that there is an excellent chance we would have never used those nuclear weapons against Japan if they hadn't attacked us first. Gee, I wonder if this could be a decent argument against pre-emptive strikes.
Isn't it absurdly ironic that the country that suffered one of the most infamous pre-emptive strikes in history and called it "a day that will live in infamy" is now arguing for pre-emptive strikes across the world?
It's amazing to me that the so-called Bush doctrine has been considered a legitimate theory on foreign policy for this long. It is a doctrine for aggressive, first strike wars. According to Nuremberg, it is the highest war crime (they called it "the supreme international crime"). And one we specifically suffered in World War II. How has it been taken seriously for this long? It is an abomination posing as legitimate foreign policy.
For the record, our listener, Lexpix from Australia, was the first to suggest the Pearl Harbor analogy to me. So if there is any credit for this analogy, it should go to him first. If there is any discredit for it, it should go to me for publishing it.