Why discarding the rules is a bad strategy

Submitted by Jacob Fisher (Republic Of Korea), Aug 11, 2003 at 08:12

Why is the U.S discarding the rules of war?

A premptive war means that the U.S can declare war on a country if it suspects that that country may pose a security risk to it in the future.
Thus, even though Iraq did not pose an immediate threat to the U.S (hence the false claims about weapons of mass destruction) it is likely that it would in the future.

While it is clear that the attack on Iraq can possibly serve the world, if democracy is brought to the middle east (arab countries) it does not follow that this new premptive style of engaging in warfare is necessary.

The U.S and other nation states can use conventional violence (armies). But this option is not available to terrorists.

In fact the U.S does not need to attack muslims in the way they attacked us because it is much more powerful than they are.

Their suicide bombs are an sign of weakness.

While I would welcome retaliation in kind to the attack they brought to us, it will serve no purpose.

As the Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu noted, "to win without fighting is best". So, it is not necessary for the West to bring random violence to arab nations.

Rather we should seek to win them over through peaceful means.

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