Mr. Cheney, pressing the party's attacks of recent days, asserted that Mr. Kerry had embraced a "global test" for the pre-emptive use of force in last week's debate.

The evolving Bush Doctrine implies a pre-emptive use of conventional force to take out missile launchers, industrial enterprises and facilities that appear to be involved in the fabrication of unconventional weapons.

Recently, the Urapmin required gold prospectors to sacrifice to these spirits before digging on their land, although this pre-emptive use of sacrifice is new to the Urapmin.

"Actions in Iraq must come in the context of an American-led, multilateral approach to disarmament, not as the first case for a new American doctrine involving the pre-emptive use of force."

It is about what level of threat warrants pre-emptive use of force.

Our military manufacturers have had pre-emptive use of most of our scientists and engineers, and through noncompetitive porkbarrel, have dominated growth in world arms markets.

Similarly, there is opposition to the Bush doctrine of the pre-emptive use of force as justification for going to war against Iraq.

Despite White House justifications of the pre-emptive use of our military forces, all Americans, especially our political leaders, must remember that the longevity of most nations greatly exceeds that of empires.

The resort to the pre-emptive use of force is not a new idea.

Europe has seen all too well the tragedy that results from the pre-emptive use of force to impose messianic notions of order.