USATODAY.com - Pre-emption is effective tool

"The concept of pre-emption, hitting an enemy before he hits you, has been integral to U.S. foreign policy for four decades. During the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy said: 'We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation's security to constitute maximum peril.'"

This is, at best, a specious argument. Pre-emption is also known as "aggression" or as an "act of war". International law is very specific about "acts of war", however the US has consistently ignored international law, considering itself as having a "get-out-of-jail-free" card in this respect. It's perhaps this ignorance of international law that has been a part of foreign policy for 4 decades but it is not a justification for Iraq War II and not a justification for lying to Americans and Congress.

But aside the lying, what is interesting about this article is that it underlines, justifies and exemplifies one of the three pillars of Orwell's 1984: WAR IS PEACE.