Ultimatums and War
'"You don't issue ultimatums. The other guy is unlikely to comply with them, and when he doesn't, you will have to do what you said you would do." Of course, Mrs. Smith?s observations were based on the assumption that no sane person would really want to go to war... Little would poor Mrs. Smith have imagined that the day would come when the United States of America would issue ultimatums precisely in the expectation that the other guy would not back down, thus affording us a window of opportunity to clobber him.'

'Dwight Eisenhower rejected this idea [preventive war] as unacceptably outdated in 1953 when some of his advisors suggested a “preventive war” against Stalin's Soviet Union. Speaking with considerably more authority on the subject of war than George Bush will ever have, Eisenhower observed: "All of us have heard this term 'preventive war' since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it. In this day and time . . . I don't believe there is such a thing; and frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing"'

'The current administration rushes eagerly from diplomatic fiasco to military initiative, mindlessly oblivious of the fact that this scenario has been enacted before, by others who dismissed the possibility that military initiative might lead to global disaster. When will the self-styled masters of the new world order learn that there is no future in reaping the whirlwind? When will the rest of us tire of sitting in front our TV sets, regarding international catastrophe as a spectacle provided for our entertainment?'

Ultimatums and War
'"You don't issue ultimatums. The other guy is unlikely to comply with them, and when he doesn't, you will have to do what you said you would do." Of course, Mrs. Smith?s observations were based on the assumption that no sane person would really want to go to war... Little would poor Mrs. Smith have imagined that the day would come when the United States of America would issue ultimatums precisely in the expectation that the other guy would not back down, thus affording us a window of opportunity to clobber him.'

'Dwight Eisenhower rejected this idea [preventive war] as unacceptably outdated in 1953 when some of his advisors suggested a “preventive war” against Stalin's Soviet Union. Speaking with considerably more authority on the subject of war than George Bush will ever have, Eisenhower observed: "All of us have heard this term 'preventive war' since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it. In this day and time . . . I don't believe there is such a thing; and frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing"'

'The current administration rushes eagerly from diplomatic fiasco to military initiative, mindlessly oblivious of the fact that this scenario has been enacted before, by others who dismissed the possibility that military initiative might lead to global disaster. When will the self-styled masters of the new world order learn that there is no future in reaping the whirlwind? When will the rest of us tire of sitting in front our TV sets, regarding international catastrophe as a spectacle provided for our entertainment?'