Pre-emptive strikes must be “cost-effective” before they become policy, former United States Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb said at a debate Wednesday night in the School of Management.
But former Wall Street Journal Editor Max Boot, arguing the counter-position in the debate, said pre-emption should stop terrorists before they strike.
The debate, moderated by President emeritus John Silber, attracted a large crowd of students, administrators and professors from various local universities to hear the two senior fellows at the Council on Foreign Relations discuss pre-emption as a weapon against terrorism.
“The next time someone thinks about killing Americans, let’s kill them first,” Boot said at a formal dinner following the debate.
A policy of deterrence and containment, practiced by the Clinton administration, is not an effective way to combat terrorists, he said during the event. Now that small cells of terrorists independently use destructive weapons, pre-emption is more necessary and despotic regimes must be “uprooted” to combat terrorism. Boot said pre-emption is not always a military solution – it can also be political in a way that is “moral and diplomatic.”
But Korb said the cost of pre-emption for the United States cannot outweigh the gains that are made. He said one cost of the pre-emptive strike on Iraq was that U.S. military and intelligence attention has been diverted away from finding al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
“Had we told the American people ahead of time what the cost [of an invasion of Iraq] would be, they may not have been as supportive,” Korb said after the debate.
Korb said the United States should have waited for a United Nations resolution before pre-emptively attacking Iraq, and now there is no choice but to follow through with an occupation that he says will probably last 10 more years.
“We need to work with the international community and take a leadership role in responding to terrorism,” he said.
Responding to Korb’s criticism of the war in Iraq, Boot said the war has made progress in combating the threat of weapons of mass destruction because of instances such as Libya giving up its weapons. He said, however, that America will not get credit for preserving freedom in Iraq because of “some crackpot conspiracy theory” that America has selfish motives for invading.
Silber took Boot’s side during his closing remarks, a statement with which College of Arts and Sciences junior Alana Conway said she did not agree. She said she agreed with Korb because his comments were “more logistic rather than appealing to emotions.”
Journalism professor Chris Daly said the opinions of the speakers chosen for the debate may have misled students about the issue of pre-emptive strikes.
“It’s a bit deceptive to present these ideas as a whole range of outlooks on these topics,” he said.
Post-event dinner-time debate heated up when a man who did not identify himself said that Boot’s remarks were “inflammatory” and an “insult to the intelligence” of everyone in attendance. When Silber asked the man keep the debate “civil,” the man said to Silber, “don’t lecture me on civility,” and left the room minutes later.
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