Maroon Weekly

By Tony Listi

Preemptive war is valid because self-defense, including preemptive self-defense, is valid. If someone has both the ability and intention to harm you, you may justly act first and exercise force to prevent that harm from coming upon you and those you love. This moral prerogative applies to both individuals and nations, both personal and international conflicts. Thus a nation may justly preemptively attack another nation that has the ability and intention to attack it first.

Of course, easier said than done correctly and prudently. Because of the tragic fallen nature of human beings and the limits of human knowledge, the appropriate application of this precept to specific concrete situations is typically more complicated and difficult than mere moral theorizing removed from details and the pressure and anxiety of the moment. The real debate is not whether preemption in itself is valid or not but whether it is valid in a particular set of circumstances or not.

Determining the real motives of those exercising force is not always easy. Various interests and motives may exist simultaneously in a nation or even an individual. Not everyone engaged in a war may be acting in sincere self-defense. The right of preemptive self-defense can be and has been abused and perverted throughout history into an excuse for unjustified aggression and expansion.

However, such abuses have no bearing on the validity of preemption itself. The right to self-defense is not invalid merely because many aggressors themselves have appealed to it as a rationalization and excuse for their aggression. Until the parousia, unjust aggressors will always exist and attack whether we uphold the right of self-defense or not, so, as both a practical and moral matter, we must support the innocent in their attempts to protect themselves and their own. Merely outlawing aggression and war doesn’t work. We’ve tried that hippie delusion before (cf. Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928).

Additionally, determining with reasonable certainty whether an enemy has both the ability and intention to inflict harm is not easy. Many nations are understandably not very open and honest about the extent of their offensive capabilities. Finding out their true capabilities can be quite difficult. Intelligence gathering is not infallible.

The controversy over whether Saddam Hussein possessed “weapons of mass destruction” (WMDs) is a case in point. Currently, the truth about Iran’s nuclear program has also been clouded in some uncertainty with various inconsistent reports about its nuclear capabilities. And with regard to intentions, how is one to know when a nation’s leader is sincere in their hostile threats or not? Perhaps it is merely tough talk intended to intimidate or deter but with no real intention to use force. Or maybe they say what they mean and mean exactly what they say. Some nations intentionally and actively try to withhold and veil their real intentions from other nations through the use of secrecy or misdirection.

The unique and immense power wielded by not only modern nations but also transnational terrorist organizations potentially makes the exercise of correct and prudent moral judgment all the more difficult. The devastating effects of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons make the potential consequences of inaction, of submitting to the first blow of an attack to supposedly secure the moral high ground with certainty, more catastrophic and thus immoral than ever before in the history of humanity.

Moreover, the revolutionary power of communication and transportation technology (e.g. the internet, the cell phone, and the airplane) has enabled relatively small sub-national groups and even individuals to organize and execute massive attacks on innocent life that are not easily detected beforehand without concerted effort to uncover the conspiracies.

Before this recent technological revolution in weaponry, communication, and transportation, one could easily see the gathering forces of an enemy before their charge, and the impact of any guerilla attacks was relatively minor in scope. But warfare and the moral reflection that must accompany it have now fundamentally changed in the short span of a few decades.

There are no easy answers. But we can demand that our leaders actually care about protecting American lives, pray for wisdom and guidance, and study each situation carefully so that they may act prudently to protect us and our loved ones. Our leaders should not sacrifice American lives in order to appease and avoid offense to foreign peoples or to certain ethnic or religious populations here at home.

Yet the great poet Robert Frost had a wonderful definition of a liberal: a person “too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.” Indeed, the American political left sees its own country of residence, the United States, both militarily and culturally as the ever-present global threat and aggressor. There can be no legitimate self-defense for America, which, in their mind, deserves every violent attack it receives, whether they be from the likes of Bill Ayers, Black Panthers, Osama bin Laden, or Nidal Malik Hasan. America is deemed collectively ever-guilty of racism and exploitation.

Thus the left has no interest in protecting innocent American lives, only in protecting ideologically favored groups of people. American Christianity and capitalism are the twin “oppressors” that must be subverted if not purged, and so leftists are happy when those with more “courage” than they employ violence on behalf of their warped worldview.

In Marxist fashion, leftists judge whether self-defense or force in general is appropriate in a certain situation not based on moral principle but on identity politics. Thus violence against perceived “oppressors” (i.e. whites, males, Christians, the rich, heterosexuals, Americans, etc.) is rationalized, if not explicitly declared legitimate. And people of the “oppressed” classes (i.e. blacks, Hispanics, females, non-Christians but especially Muslims, the poor, homosexuals, foreigners, etc.) can do no wrong.

When asked “who is at fault?” the leftist does not contemplate “what exactly did each party do?” but merely “who are the parties involved?” Is this not precisely what President Obama did when asked about Professor Gates’ arrest?

Everyone thinks preemptive self-defense is legitimate. It is just a matter of who and what should be defended.