Why We Fight: In Defense of Preemptive Offense

I believe it is peace for our time... And now I recommend you to go home and sleep quietly in your beds.
--Neville Chamberlain upon signing the Munich Agreement, September 30th, 1938

Every one of the hundred million Arabs has been living for the past nineteen years on one hope – to live to see the day Israel is liquidated…There is no life, no peace nor hope for the gangs of Zionism to remain in the occupied land.
--Cairo Radio, on the eve of the 6 Day War

One never knows when aircraft come towards you what their intention is.
--Abba Eban, explaining Israel's actions before and during the 6 Day War

The United States reaps the thorns its rulers have planted in the world.
--Saddam Hussein, referring to the 9/11 attacks, September 12, 2001

Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken. Today the reason for the Zionist regime's existence is questioned and this regime is on its way to annihilation.
--Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, May 9, 2008

והתורה אמרה: אם בא להורגך – השכם להורגו
And the Torah said: if he comes to kill you - rise up to kill him (first)
--The Talmud, Berachot 62B

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World events do not happen in a vacuum.

In the history books, intentions are not remembered - only results are. If I intend to save a life by driving my car recklessly in order to reach an injured person in time and in the process run over and kill someone else...society will not be impressed that I attempted to be a hero, history will only remember the fact that I took a life.

Likewise if a nation's leader signs an agreement that sacrifices another nation in the name of peace...and that agreement not only doesn't result in peace but is a direct path to WAR - his intention is meaningless. His actions led to the destruction of innocent lives. Those extinguished lives are as much his responsibility as they are the responsibility of the actual aggressors of the conflict.

Furthermore if a nation's leader directly threatens to destroy another nation, or even to harm one single life in that nation and he has the means to do so, his intention is irrelevant. It doesn't make a difference why he says it...whether it's to distract his people from a bad economic situation or to win an election...it matters not. If someone has a loaded gun pointed at your wife, has his finger on the trigger and says to you that he is going to kill her right in front of you, are you going to take the risk that he is indeed bluffing?

Because it also follows that if you have the means to prevent the murder of your wife and you choose not to because you feel the gunman did not have the INTENTION of pulling the trigger or because you had the INTENTION of resolving the conflict peacefully - and you turn out to be wrong when he shoots her in the face - that you are nearly as culpable as the actual murderer himself. No one will care WHY you stood by and allowed her to die, all they will remember is that you had the opportunity to act but chose not to for some misguided reason.

And finally, if a weaker nation threatens to overrun a stronger nation and does not have the ability to do so what should happen? Should the stronger nation take the steps to prevent this from occurring? Or should the leaders of that country wait until their enemy actually has the means to do so? Or even worse, should they give their enemy the means to do so? It would be preposterous if they did. No one, no matter how naive, no matter what misguided intentions they had, would actually willingly give their rival the ability to destroy them, right?

Did you read the first quote in this essay? Because that's exactly what happened in 1938.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made a deal with the devil and effectively gave Hitler control of all of Czechoslovakia's vital industries and natural resources. He also gave him the courage to continue his plan to dominate all of Europe to the point that Hitler later remarked:

Our enemies are little worms, I saw them at Munich...Now Poland is in the position I wanted...I am only afraid that some bastard will present me with a mediation plan at the last moment.



In fact, if you believe this site, Chamberlain may have inadvertently kept Hitler in office and thwarted a plan to have him removed from power by his generals. You see at the time, Germany had little military might to back up their threats. A war with Britain and France at this point would prove disastrous. Hitler's generals knew this and planned to have him arrested the moment he gave the order to invade. The Munich Agreement prevented this invasion and gave his staff no pretext to have him deposed. If this is indeed a fact, than the blood of millions is on Neville Chamberlain's and the rest of the appeasers' hands.

So instead of averting the greatest nightmare of the 20th century, the wheels of history continued to turn. Evil was permitted to win the day, Germany was granted the time to continue building its war machine and the prestige of the British Empire dwindled to the point that Hitler became fearless of it. By the time the West decided to act, in defense instead of on offense, it was too late. One Holocaust, two nuclear fireballs and countless battles later, over 50 million people paid the price for Britain's lack of resolve at Munich. Chamberlain's intentions and ideals are irrelevant in the grand scheme of history. Sleep quietly in your beds everyone, your government has it all under control...

Fast forward now to June, 1967. The newly established State of Israel has fought two full-scale wars for survival, dozens of pitched battles against her Arab neighbors and has somehow beaten the odds to claim victory both times. Prime Minister of Israel, Levi Eshkol finds himself in a highly precarious situation. Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser has united the Arab states of Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Iraq under the banner of finally destroying the 18-year old "Zionist entity" (the phrase that is still used by many Arab and Iranian leaders when referring to the as-yet-unrecognized state of Israel). Egypt was blockading Israeli shipping interests, had recently evicted UN peacekeepers from the Sinai peninsula and was mobilizing huge numbers of soldiers. All across the Middle East, state-run newspapers and radio broadcasts screamed about the impending doom that the Jews of Israel were facing. The United States and Israel did not yet have the relationship they have had in recent years and besides that, the Americans were too busy trying not to win the Vietnam War to get involved anyway.

Not willing to sacrifice Israeli sovereignty by surrendering territory and not willing to wait until his country was completely surrounded by Arab forces, Levi Eshkol decided to act.



On the morning of June 5th, 1967, 200 Israeli planes took off from various airfields throughout Israel. In what was arguably one of the most successful air campaigns in the history of warfare these planes effectively destroyed the combined air forces of all four enemy nations - mostly while they were still on the ground. With instant air superiority, Israel smashed the armies that surrounded it and more than tripled its land size. The gains it made during this war allowed Israel to eventually make peace with Egypt, previously its greatest rival and instigator of several wars against it. In addition, the divided city of Jerusalem was reunited and Jews returned to their ancient capital for the first time in 2,000 years.

Two cases. Both are situations where a militarily weaker nation threatened to destroy a military stronger nation. In one case the result was appeasement. The weaker nation (Germany) used the time it was granted to catch up militarily to the stronger nations (Britain and France). Utter disaster followed. In the other situation, the result was a preemptive strike. Israel (the stronger nation) did not allow the instigator, Egypt (the weaker nation) time to build its defenses. Israeli leaders, with the memories of the Holocaust still fresh in their minds, would not repeat the mistakes of Europe from 30 years earlier. They would not allow Egypt to fight on its own terms, when it was ready for battle. Israel would not allow Syria and Egypt to sit on her border, having their militaries trained by Soviets and getting more access every day to the latest in Soviet military technology.

This is war. This is war for survival. And in a war for survival you do not sit around and allow your enemy to fight on equal footing. If you have the advantage, you must take it. Your ideals and your intentions go right out the window when there are hordes of AK47-toting barbarians rampaging through your cities, destroying your farms, raping your women, slaughtering your children and laying waste to the society you've built up out of the sand.

Hitler said to Chamberlain: "I am going to destroy you." Chamberlain responded by giving him the tools to do so.

Nasser said to Eshkol: "I am going to destroy you." Eshkol responded by rising up to destroy him first.

Intentions are meaningless, only results matter.

If we apply this logic now to the Iraq war, the motivation for going becomes a little more understandable. Put aside any conspiracy theories or oil nonsense. Taken in the context of a post-9/11 world and with this historical background, acting preemptively should have been the only option on the table.

People often forget (or choose to forget) that Saddam Hussein had been terrorizing his neighborhood for decades and made frequent threats against America and her allies. This site has a list of anti-American, anti-British, anti-Saudi Arabian and anti-several-other-countries quotes from Hussein and his state-controlled media that span many years. Regardless of what his intentions were, President Hussein made it clear with those statements that he was clearly on the side of the 9/11 terrorists when it came to killing Americans in Manhattan, Riyadh or wherever they could be found. His statements threatened international terrorism against Americans as well as chemical and biological attacks. Here are a few select quotes, some of which were made within weeks of the attacks on New York City and Washington:

"If the attacks of September 11 cost the lives of 3,000 civilians, how much will the size of losses in 50 states within 100 cities if it were attacked in the same way in which New York and Washington were? What would happen if hundreds of planes attacked American cities?"
Al-Rafidayn, September 11, 2002 (State-controlled newspaper)

"[I]t is possible to turn to biological attack, where a small can, not bigger than the size of a hand, can be used to release viruses that affect everything..."
Babil, September 20, 2001 (State-controlled newspaper)

"The United States must get a taste of its own poison..."
Babil, October 8, 2001



This goes along with YEARS of belligerence against American and allied interests. Keep in mind, we are dealing with a dictator, who quite frankly was responsible for a LOT WORSE than Nasser was before the 6 Day War or Hitler was before WWII. The ruins of the Twin Towers are still smoldering and a genocidal maniac is talking about biological warfare and viruses. Remember, intentions are irrelevant here, only results matter.

Shall we wait to see if he is bluffing for publicity? Do we wait to see if he is serious, knowing he has already performed all the acts he is threatening us with on his own people and neighbors? Keep in mind that this man fired dozens of scuds during the first Gulf War into civilian areas of Israel which was a non-participant in the fighting. Keep in mind that he was still viewed by many Arabs as a hero for standing up to the mighty US military during the first Gulf War and living to talk about it. Keep in mind that like Hitler, he had already attempted to annex a neighbor previously. Keep in mind that even if he wasn't directly involved in the 9/11 attacks he had contributed at least $35 Million to international terror campaigns and housed an al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist-training center.


An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
--Sir Winston Churchill

Regardless of what weapons inspectors said. Regardless of whether or not in 2003 he posed an actual threat to you or me living in our nice American suburbs. Regardless of whether or not Colin Powell was given good or bad intelligence. Regardless of all of that, we were dealing with a very dangerous regime that either possessed or was trying to possess the means to attack the United States and its allies. The information I am sharing with you here was all publicly available at the time...and several of us who followed the news and history of the Middle East felt that regardless of what the administration said were its reasons for going to war - these facts, when viewed through the prism of history meant that preemptive action was REQUIRED.

We could either take the path of Chamberlain and seek to appease a man who told us he wanted to kill us or take the path of Eshkol and rise up to destroy him before he had the ability to.

Now we have a new President Hussein, this time in charge of the United States of America. And a new threat is rapidly approaching the breaking point. A new evil has been menacing the Middle East in the guise of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and the Ayatollahs that pull his strings. The time will soon come that we find out whether Iran is serious about incinerating Israel and instigating a nuclear war that will consume the entire Middle East. Or perhaps we will find out if Iran will simply balance out Israel's perceived nuclear deterrent and allow the Palestinians and their puppet masters to launch full-scale attacks on Tel Aviv once more.

We stand once more on the precipice of all-out destruction, with the United States in the position of Britain and Iran in the position of Germany.

Israel will never allow herself to be sacrificed in the name of mindless appeasement the way Czechoslovakia was.

But the fight will only become more difficult with every day that passes. Everyday brings Iran closer to military-equivalence to the West. Everyday brings Iran closer to the Bomb which will make the situation exponentially more precarious.

Please Mr. Obama, do not allow this day to come. Do not be fooled, like Chamberlain was, that the enemy's ambitions will end with a few regional power plays. It will start with Israel, like Germany started with the Sudetenland, but it will not end there. The goal of this evil is to overrun every last corner of the Earth where freedom and liberty are a way of life. We have been down this road before.

Although we will never know what would have happened had Israel not struck first against Egypt, we know for a fact what the result was of allowing Germany carte blanche to do as it pleased - the greatest terror the world has ever known. Therefore, in the end it boils down to two options. You can either:

1. Allow your enemy the time to prepare his attack, build his strength and eventually reach and kill you...

2. Or rise up before he can and kill him first.

It's either one or the other. The history books will only remember the results of the choice, not the intentions behind it.

The clock is ticking...




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