Quote:
Originally Posted by powerclown
OK, but how was Iraq a threat to America by invading Kuwait?
Why is it ok for America to spend blood and treasure fighting someone else's war?
Are you saying that Iraq's aggression towards Kuwait was, by extension, aggression towards America as well?
If so, wouldn't this by definition be an act of preemption?
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I do not think that argument needs to be made. We can justify the war as a matter of law. Iraq's invasion was clearly unprovoked and illegal, as a matter of international law we had a duty to defend Kuwait. Moreover you could simply make the argument that there was a moral justification to involve ourselves in the conflict. While either an international law or a moralistic argument might have applied to Iraq II, those justifications were never offered and instead the WMD/pre-emption justification was offered up.
However, I think you could use the extension argument and still not come to the pre-emption conclusion. You could make a strong argument for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait possibly destabilizing the region plus you could throw in some discussion about oil prices/reserves being jeopardized by Iraq's invasion. If I wanted to make that argument and say that those actions were, by extension, aggression towards the US then that would still not be the same as pre-emption because if we considered those actions against Kuwait to extend to actions against us we would merely be retaliating to those actions already committed against Kuwait/ourselves.