The “wish-washy moderate must be conversely thinking in his timid brain- I haven’t felt this alone since 2003.
Who Caressays
I just want to point out that that imminent is not the one most people know but the one formulated by a Daniel Bethlehem which basically redefines the word to mean:
The concept of what constitutes an “imminent” armed attack will develop to meet new circumstances and new threats.
. Which brings us into Humpty (from Alice in Wonderland) territory by allowing redefinition on the fly.
Developed by Daniel Bethlehem when Legal Adviser to first Netanyahu’s government and then Blair’s, the Bethlehem Doctrine is that states have a right of “pre-emptive self-defence” against “imminent” attack. That is something most people, and most international law experts and judges, would accept. Including me.
What very few people, and almost no international lawyers, accept is the key to the Bethlehem Doctrine – that here “Imminent” – the word used so carefully by Pompeo – does not need to have its normal meanings of either “soon” or “about to happen”. An attack may be deemed “imminent”, according to the Bethlehem Doctrine, even if you know no details of it or when it might occur. So you may be assassinated by a drone or bomb strike – and the doctrine was specifically developed to justify such strikes – because of “intelligence” you are engaged in a plot, when that intelligence neither says what the plot is nor when it might occur. Or even more tenuous, because there is intelligence you have engaged in a plot before, so it is reasonable to kill you in case you do so again.
D_smithsays
@#2 “when i use a word, it means precisely what i wish it to mean”
The “wish-washy moderate must be conversely thinking in his timid brain- I haven’t felt this alone since 2003.
I just want to point out that that imminent is not the one most people know but the one formulated by a Daniel Bethlehem which basically redefines the word to mean:
. Which brings us into Humpty (from Alice in Wonderland) territory by allowing redefinition on the fly.
Former UK ambassador Craig Murray has a fairly extensive post on the history of the “Bethlehem Doctrine” and its twisting of the meaning of “imminent” here: Lies, the Bethlehem Doctrine, and the Illegal Murder of Soleimani.
@#2 “when i use a word, it means precisely what i wish it to mean”
humpy dumpty, alice in wonderland.