Commentaries
How the U.S. Should Respond
By Raja Halwani
Ever since the horrific events of Tuesday, September 11, the U.S. official reaction has been one of an unwavering promise to wage war on terrorism. The rhetoric often used is that of "revenge," "avenging America," "retaliation," "bringing them to justice," "making them pay," "punishing them," and a host of other phrases and concepts that certainly do not mean or amount to the same thing. Philosophically and ethically, this plethora of concepts calls for rational scrutiny. More importantly, it calls for the need to pinpoint the right moral concept to be used. Furthermore, a number of students, and faculty, and staff at our school have been struggling with the question of how the U.S. should respond to the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. As I understand this question, it calls for an answer that is moral, rather than just pragmatic or political. What follows is my answer to this question. But I begin with a couple of preliminary remarks.
First, the answer I will offer is rough, i.e., it serves as a guideline for how to think about this issue rather than a detailed program of the actual steps that should be part of the response. Second, it is ideal: given the way the United States has been conducting and pursuing its political and economic foreign policies, it is not realistic in the sense that the U.S. government will in all likelihood not follow in its footsteps. However, the idealism of the answer should not be downplayed. Moral guidelines are important in that they serve as goals to which we must aspire and as ends with which we can regulate our behavior. Third, the answers I will offer should not come as a surprise to many. Still, they might help some in organizing their thinking about these difficult circumstances we are in right now.
It seems to me that the response by the U.S. government, officials, and people should be twofold. First, whoever is responsible for the acts of horror must be brought to justice. This implies that the US should conduct a careful investigation - with the help of other nations given that emotions are running high and U.S. investigators are human and so not immune to the highs and lows of emotional reaction - as to who committed these acts. Second, out of all the plethora of concepts I mentioned above, the only morally acceptable one is bringing the perpetrators to justice. This means that whoever did this is entitled to a trial, and as much as we hate Usama bin Laden, he is, much like the Nazi war criminals, entitled to one. The reason for this is not just that this is the only morally acceptable course to take, but is also found in the very ideals for which this country stands. Democracy, freedom, autonomy, and liberty are notions which constitute the core ideals of the U.S., and they are ones that imply that individual human beings cannot be treated in ways that disrespect their fundamental human rights.
Notice also that this first response pretty much rules out the option of war. If Usama bin Laden refuses to surrender (which is likely), and if the Taliban regime refuses to hand him in (and at this point it is not clear what its response is), then the U.S. must find acceptable means of capturing him. These should not involve the killing of innocent Afghani civilians. It is of course difficult to know what these means are, especially to those of us who have little to no knowledge of the necessary classified political and military information. But care must be taken that the U.S. not have blood on its hands once again in its dealings with another nation.
The second response is more important than the first in the sense that it aims at combating not just Usama bin Laden, but the very conditions which create and sustain people like him. The response is this: the U.S. must take a hard and critical look at its foreign policies towards the nations of the world, especially the non-European ones. The U.S. cannot continue to support dictators around the world, and it cannot continue to support regimes which posit as democratic but which really are not. Anyone who is familiar with the nature of the ruling family in Saudi Arabia, for example, knows that it is a monarchy that leaves its people few precious rights. The U.S. has relentlessly supported it. Anyone, to give another example, familiar with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must know the kind of oppression that the Palestinians have to endure under Israeli rule. The U.S. has supported Israeli hegemony over Palestinian lives without so much as lifting an eyebrow. And last, but certainly not least, anyone who is familiar with the role that the U.S. plays in the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank must know of the imposing and heavy economic conditions that such institutions impose on developing countries, often leaving their populations living under extreme poverty, lack of education, and malnutrition.
It is important to take a critical look at these policies because they are the ones that allow for the very conditions under which people like Usama bin Laden grow. They create a tremendous amount of justified resentment against the U.S. and its policies, and they create a general feeling that the U.S. is responsible for much that has gone wrong in the world. This is not to say, of course, that the U.S. is responsible for the attack on the WTC and the Pentagon, but that the U.S. is partially responsible for allowing the very ability for people with no compunction at killing innocent civilians to plan and execute their murderous designs. Moreover, there is no guarantee, of course, that even if the U.S. did achieve such a balance, that no Usama bin Ladens will crop up again. After all, our world has a history of deranged individuals who often need little by way of excuse to commit all sorts of heinous deeds. But there is one guarantee that can be achieved: even if another bin Laden did come up in the future, if the U.S. policies towards the world were genuinely moral, he would not have the type of support that our own bin Laden has. And the reason is simple: there would be no rampant anti-American sentiment out there which nourishes and supplies bin Laden with the human power and other non-human tools which he needs to carry out his plans.
True patriotism is the desire and willingness to see one's country in its best light. And this best light is a thoroughly moral one: making sure that one's country is indeed freedom-loving, that one's country is indeed respectful of human rights and of people's liberties. A few people out there might be willing to murder and maim and plunge others into despair. We shouldn't.
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