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From an Associate Press article on NBC about a Stephen Hadley speech:

“The president believes that we must remember the clearest lesson of Sept. 11: that the United States of America must confront threats before they fully materialize,” national security adviser Stephen Hadley said.

“The president’s strategy affirms that the doctrine of preemption remains sound and must remain an integral part of our national security strategy,” Hadley said. “If necessary, the strategy states, under longstanding 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.”

While self-defense is a longstanding principle, preemption is roundly condemned by treaties and conventions to which the United States is a signatory.

Hurricane Katrina vividly showed that this administration would rather stay on vacation than confront obvious and growing threats to the people of the United States.

The Iraq invasion was a preemptive strike based on selective intelligence that ignored the reality that Saddam Hussein was telling the truth and had destroyed his weapons of mass destruction. Thousands are dead and the United States is still trapped in a quagmire with no exit strategy. “We will stand down when the Iraqis stand up” isn’t a strategy, it is a sound bite and a prayer.

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Who writes these headlines: Jessica Simpson Snubs Bush.

The woman does not want to lend her celebrity to a Republican Party fundraiser as she lobbies for her favorite charity, Operation Smile, which provides free surgery for poor children.

She’s not comfortable with helping a political party raise money, while she’s trying to raise the visibility of the charity. Apparently the only way you get to talk to the President is by raising money for the Republican Party.

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The Cold War is over, would someone please tell the Shrubbery. State-sponsored terrorism went with it. Osama bin Laden was financing the Taliban as well as al Qaeda, and the illegal drug trade is the “bank” for most of the terrorists in the world.

When CBS posts a headline like, Rice: Iran ‘Central Banker’ For Terror, you are forced to realize that she still hasn’t figured out that the world has moved on from the Cold War model.

Iran has, for an extended period, given money to Hezbollah, a Shi’ia group in Lebanon, that is miffed by the fact that Israel invaded southern Lebanon and still occupies the Syrian Golan Heights.

The US is protecting the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq [MEK], a recognized anti-Iranian terrorist group, so it becomes a color squabble between pots and kettles.

This “pot-kettle” has just expressed itself in another way when: UN creates new human rights body. John “The Walrus” Bolton told them not to do it, but only Israel, Marshall Islands and Palau joined the US in voting against the plan. When you lose a vote 170 to 4 you might want to consider the reality that you have a credibility problem.

Now is the time to consider the US response when the new panel cites the US for its human rights violation at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, etc.

That credibility gap is not going to be filled by the Iraq Study Group writing a report. No one on the planet with an IQ above room temperature is going to accept the conclusion of a panel headed by Bush family consigliere, James Baker III.

In talking about the re-statement of the National Security Strategy, which amounts to what was said before invading Iraq with Iraq changed to Iran, the Shrubbery said: “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…”

If you use deadly physical force against another person and it is shown that the person you injured or killed was not actually a threat, you should expect to find yourself in prison.

The gang in Washington needs to understand that, based on the lying that took place prior to the invasion of Iraq, if the US Capitol was reduced to a smoking crater, most of the rest of the world would want further proof that the US had been attacked. Our credibility is gone. No one is willing to accept our word about anything.

Looking at the latest The Pew Research Center polling, two-thirds of the US population would be skeptical about the claim of an attack.

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