re: nambucca/us and australia will eventually lose
Alan,
It was not the Government of Afghanistan per se that caused 9-11, but al Qaeda. The terrorists of 9-11 were dead so why did the US seek to pursue (and kill) the al Qaeda inside Afghanistan?
Surely so the potential this group had to mount attacks against US interests would be eliminated. (In fact the US could have stepped up security at it's own entry points to achieve a similar outcome).
That's getting in first or essentially pre-emption.
The US asked for the al Qaeda leadership to be handed over. And when the Afghanistan Government refused the US invaded Afghanistan.
The US likewise is saying to Iraq you have WMD which we know about and that are a potential threat to us. Hand them over or we will invade Iraq and remove them.
Is that not ,in principle, the same doctrine being applied in each case.
You might say but I don't think the US has the correct information on Iraq. The same was said by many before Afghanistan.
So if you're saying attacking Afghanistan was OK, it is pretty hard to argue, on the pre-emption ground, that attacking Iraq is not because that would be pre-emption and Afghanistan was not.
