History lesson on war

The rhetoric coming out of Washington relative to North Korea reminds me of the speech given by Vice President Dick Cheney to the national convention of the VFW at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville on Aug. 26, 2002.

Cheney said, “Simply stated, there is now no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. Time is not on our side. The risks of inaction are far greater than the risk of action.”

Seven months later, the U.S. hit Iraq with a preemptive strike to prevent Hussein from hitting us with weapons that he did not have.

I don’t care if North Korea has a means of delivering a nuclear weapon to the U.S., or an ally. Man’s greatest instinct is his instinct for survival. It would be an idiotic act for North Korea to hit us, or an ally, with a nuclear weapon — except in self-defense. The only idiot I am familiar with is not in North Korea.

This story was originally published August 9, 2017 at 6:53 PM with the headline "History lesson on war."