No more preemptive wars please

  *  At least 10 recent syndicated columns contain the endorsement of preemptive war: "We need to fight them over there so we won't have to fight them here." This pernicious sentiment holds "them" to be sub-human, as did our slave holders, our KKK and Adolph Hitler. It is music to bin Laden's ears. Al-Qaida and other Islamists couldn't contrive a more effective recruiting scheme.
  *  People resent foreigners killing their kinfolk on their own soil, and they don't forgive the humiliation of armed foreigners breaking down their doors. Occupation generates hatred and resistance by those directly affected and their sympathizers, and it eventually demoralizes the occupiers.
  *  Considering the above dynamic, one can predict that preemptive invasion and occupation of Muslim states by western states will look like a crusade morphing into something approaching genocide - adding to a long history of betrayal, domination, colonization, population dislocation, arbitrary geographic divisions, political interference and exploitation.
  *  It's time (before attacking Iran) to try a regime of improved international cooperation on intelligence and policing, international good will, cooperative problem solving and development of non-carbon energy sources - this along with a moratorium on preemptive war, proportional military response to attacks on American interests abroad and disproportional military retaliation (without occupation) in response to attacks on our own soil.
  *  The risk to any given American, incident to such a regime, would be far less than those of our own medical errors, transportation mishaps, criminal behavior, neglect of vulnerable people, natural disasters, etc.