"The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction--and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively."
--The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002
And what an immense mass of evil must result . . . from allowing men to assume the right of anticipating what may happen. Ninety-nine percent of the evil of the world is founded on this reasoning--from the Inquisition to dynamite bombs."
--Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You, 1893