Nation-Building >> pre-emptive vs. preventive war | return to front page

From the comments thread of this post comes this email written by Charles Knight, who wrote the original critique that prompted Dean's rebuttal in Common Dreams (and sent out to the campaign mailing list). I think it's a great acknowledgement of how responsive Dean is to critics:

This past Monday a commentary I wrote critical of a Gov. Howard Dean speech to Democratic foreign policy specialists in DC was published by the Website Common Dreams. On Thursday Gov. Dean responded to my piece with his own article on Common Dreams. Dean "sets the record straight", so to speak, in a very progressive direction which strikes hard at key components of Bush foreign and domestic policy. I find myself in agreement with most of what he says, but that matters little. What does matter is that a pointed piece of political criticism has resulted in clarifications from the candidate and the clarifications are in a progressive direction. A good moment for "the power of the pen" or power of the keyboard, in my case.

I do have to nit-pick a bit. Dean still doesn't address clearly the difference between preemptive war and preventive war. It is a very important one and I hope that progressive politicians will learn to talk clearly about it. So I nit-pick! A short article with links to more in depth discussion about this issue can be found at http://www.comw.org/pda/0303kroening.html .

Charles Knight, Project on Defense Alternatives

Talk about winning over your critics! Still, after reading the Kroening piece to which Knight refers, I think that the distinction between pre-emptive war and preventive war is indeed one that needs to be addressed.