March 12, 2003
Washington, DC - Today, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) introduced a congressional resolution calling on the Congress to disavow the "Doctrine of Preemption", foreign policy introduced last year by the Bush Administration that could be used to justify any military first strike made against another country without provocation.
Lee rolled out her resolution at a press conference with a number of other Members of Congress opposed to war in Iraq. At that conference, Lee called the doctrine "a statement of extreme arrogance and disregard for international and U.S. law and a recipe for disaster."
Lee said that the doctrine "fundamentally endangers U.S. interests: it does not make us safer; it makes us less secure."
"President Bush does not need to issue a doctrine proclaiming the right to genuine self defense — he already possesses every authority to protect the United States from imminent or actual attack. This doctrine threatens to set a dangerous precedent that might then be cited by other countries, including other nuclear powers, to justify preemptive first strikes against perceived future threats. That is not a world we want to live in and not an example we want to set."
Lee also claimed that the doctrine would "undermine any moral authority of the United States in counseling other countries to seek peaceful resolutions to their conflicts."
Lee praised her colleagues who had repeatedly stood up "against this unnecessary, unwanted war and against the doctrine of preemption." Lee also thanked the "millions and millions of people across the country and around the world who have stood up for peace, stood up for justice, and demanded that the United States find an alternative to war."
Even with war seemingly inevitable, Lee insisted that "we have alternatives. We always did and still do. Inspections and international engagement are working. War is not the answer. It never was. The Bush Administration, however, seems to be determined to go to war and claims that war is fully justified, not because we have been attacked, not because we have proof of an imminent threat to our nation, but because our president has declared that the United States has the right to wage war under what has been termed the ‘Doctrine of Preemption.’"
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Congresswoman Barbara Lee Introduces House Resolution Disavowing "Doctrine of Preemption"
Leads Colleagues in Press Conference on Opposing the War
Washington, DC - Today, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) introduced a congressional resolution calling on the Congress to disavow the "Doctrine of Preemption", foreign policy introduced last year by the Bush Administration that could be used to justify any military first strike made against another country without provocation.
Lee rolled out her resolution at a press conference with a number of other Members of Congress opposed to war in Iraq. At that conference, Lee called the doctrine "a statement of extreme arrogance and disregard for international and U.S. law and a recipe for disaster."
Lee said that the doctrine "fundamentally endangers U.S. interests: it does not make us safer; it makes us less secure."
"President Bush does not need to issue a doctrine proclaiming the right to genuine self defense — he already possesses every authority to protect the United States from imminent or actual attack. This doctrine threatens to set a dangerous precedent that might then be cited by other countries, including other nuclear powers, to justify preemptive first strikes against perceived future threats. That is not a world we want to live in and not an example we want to set."
Lee also claimed that the doctrine would "undermine any moral authority of the United States in counseling other countries to seek peaceful resolutions to their conflicts."
Lee praised her colleagues who had repeatedly stood up "against this unnecessary, unwanted war and against the doctrine of preemption." Lee also thanked the "millions and millions of people across the country and around the world who have stood up for peace, stood up for justice, and demanded that the United States find an alternative to war."
Even with war seemingly inevitable, Lee insisted that "we have alternatives. We always did and still do. Inspections and international engagement are working. War is not the answer. It never was. The Bush Administration, however, seems to be determined to go to war and claims that war is fully justified, not because we have been attacked, not because we have proof of an imminent threat to our nation, but because our president has declared that the United States has the right to wage war under what has been termed the ‘Doctrine of Preemption.’"
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