McCain and the media continue the myth that preventive war is the same as pre-emptive war

McCain Won't Rule Out Pre-Emptive War

Apr 9, 6:49 PM (ET) WESTPORT, Conn. (AP) - Republican Sen. John McCain refused Wednesday to rule out a pre-emptive war against another country, although he said one would be very unlikely.

The likely Republican presidential nominee was asked Wednesday at a town-hall style meeting if he would reject "the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war," a reference to Bush's decision to invade Iraq without it having attacked the United States.

"I don't think you could make a blanket statement about pre-emptive war, because obviously, it depends on the threat that the United States of America faces," McCain told his audience at Bridgewater Associates Inc., a global investment firm.

"If someone is about to launch a weapon that would devastate America, or have the capability to do so, obviously, you would have to act immediately in defense of this nation's national security interests."...

COMMENT: How the media can report on this issue and not de-code the propaganda is beyond me. The question to McCain was about attacking a country that had done nothing to us. It was about the Bush doctrine of "confronting emerging threats before they are fully formed." Confronting means using force at times. This is called preventive war, and it has historically been the province of tyrants. The Bush administration calls it pre-emptive war and it has become the American way.

True pre-emption, though, is different from the Bush doctrine of preventive war (which the neo-cons call "pre-emptive war"). True pre-emption is completely legal and moral. You can legitimately fight against a military which is about to, or is in the process of, launching an attack on you. You pre-empt their undoubtedly imminent attack. The neo-cons have simply re-named and re-packaged the imperial principle of “preventive war” for which any excuse can be found.

The point here is this. Notice how McCain merges the two (preventive and pre-emptive war) as if they're the same. The Bush doctrine of so-called "pre-emption" has now become equivalent to true pre-emption in peoples’ minds. The distinction has gone down the memory hole. And this double-think is completely lost on the mainstream media.