Get these guys out of office NOW!

Think Progress:

The Washington Post reported Sunday that the Pentagon has drafted plans to use nuclear weapons preemptively against countries or terrorists with suspected WMD stockpiles:

The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

A few obvious questions to ask before Rumsfeld approves this doctrine: would the Bush Administration be capable of gathering accurate intelligence before launching our nuclear weapons? Would a nuclear strike do more harm than good by sending deadly chemical and biological agents into the atmosphere? And would this new policy push North Korea and Iran to develop nuclear weapons more quickly?

We’re sure Donald Rumsfeld will provide some clear, concise answers.

Could there be a more wrong-headed idea that developing a doctrine of nuclear preemption, no less while we are still in the midst of a war that was launched on the “unassailable certainty” that Iraq had WMDs, which turned out, of course, to be entirely fucking incorrect? A doctrine of nuclear preemption is vile, reckless, and insane on its face, but in light of the egregious Mesopotamian mistake we’re not even finished making, it’s mind-blowingly hubristic as well.

Of course, all of that presumes that WMDs are of genuine concern to the current architects of our foreign policy, but, as with everything that the Bush administration does, the public rationale isn’t exactly, uh, the same as their real motives. When the real motive is imperialism in the interest of resource procurement—or, if you prefer, 21st century rape and pillaging—I suppose a doctrine of nuclear preemption isn’t so much stubbornly and stupidly arrogant as it is just willfully evil.