Re: The Tragedy of Sarah Palin

I think that the line between imminent and preemptive is very grey

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Peter T. Chattaway
Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2011 1:20 PM
To: DADL (off topic)
Subject: Re: [DADL-OT] The Tragedy of Sarah Palin

On Thu, 12 May 2011, Karl Swenson wrote:

>> As I recall, Palin made significant use of the word "imminent" in her 
>> response.  But as we all know, kind of the whole *point* of the Bush 
>> doctrine -- however we define it -- is that Bush didn't sit around 
>> waiting for threats to become "imminent".  So Palin's answer was a 
>> non-answer.
>
> ***not really.  Once he actually clarified the question her answer was 
> legit.

Um, no, not really.  Here's the relevant bit:

> GIBSON: The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the 
> right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a 
> preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to 
> attack us. Do you agree with that?
>
> PALIN: Charlie, if there is legitimate and enough intelligence that 
> tells us that a strike is imminent against American people, we have 
> every right to defend our country. In fact, the president has the 
> obligation, the duty to defend.

See what happened there?  Gibson talked about "anticipatory self-defense" 
and "preemptive strikes", and Palin talked about defending the nation
against "imminent" attacks.  But Bush explicitly rejected the option of
waiting "until the threat is imminent" in his 2003 State of the Union
speech, so Palin wasn't really commenting on his "doctrine" here.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aasou2003_text.htm

Mind you, I do think that Gibson was oversimplifying things himself a
little.  Note how he says (in another part that I snipped) that the "Bush
doctrine" was enunciated in September 2002.  If he was referring to the
speech that Bush gave to the United Nations, then I think there was a bit
more going on there than simply "we have the right to a preemptive strike
against any other country that we think is going to attack us."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/12/national/main521781.shtml

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