The Bush Adminstration's recently released "National Security Strategy" is not merely recycled material, as the media has taken it to be. Dismaying as its obliviousness to experience is, what is even more so is the new bombshell it contains: the threat of preemptive nuclear strikes against possible attackers. According to Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS):
"The National Security Strategy was the Bush administration's last opportunity to demonstrate that it has reduced the role of nuclear weapons after the Cold War.... Instead it has chosen to reaffirm their importance and in the most troubling way possible: preemption."
Under the headline "The Need for Action," the new National Security Strategy says:
"Safe, credible, and reliable nuclear forces continue to play a critical role. We are strengthening deterrence by developing a New Triad composed of offensive strike systems (both nuclear and improved conventional capabilities)... These capabilities will better deter some of the new threats we face, while also bolstering our security commitments to allies....If necessary, however, under long-standing principles of self-defense, we do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack. When the consequences of an attack with WMD are potentially so devastating, we cannot afford to stand idle by as grave dangers materialize. This is the principle and logic of preemption."
Another "regime change" for the worse, for all of of us.
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