Paul: It just strikes me as rather silly that a lot of people think that an 'near-distant' threat OR a just-past crime is somehow not a valid reason to strike. You have to react IN the moment or not at all. I think that it's actually backwards and that someone who deliberates and carefully thinks about retribution or preemption has done a much greater service than one who reacts and kills someone out of anger and passion in the heat of the moment.
Two things to add to the debate.
(1) The availability of mass-death weapons changes traditional assumptions about honor, rules of war, even what qualifies as a "combatant." Remember Pierre in _War and Peace_ going to the hill to watch the battle? What a difference from the battles of World War I! And how quaint the WWI trench wars seem compared to Hiroshima. And how different WWII is from modern terror wars, where civilians die without even the declaration of war or a nation to be held accountable.
(2) A more general point about civilization. Ninety-five percent of the world could be "civilized," but if that five percent remain uncivilized, they will compel the rest to resort to "uncivilized" behavior and tactics. Maybe when the oil runs out we can expect pockets of high civilization that can endure unchallenged because the uncivilized will find it too difficult to contact them.
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