Participants' Reports
Terror and Terrorism: Who is Responsible? What is to be Done?
On Sept. 11, 2001, during the first year of this new millennium, the
cities of New York and Washington D.C. were attacked by what most
political and military leaders and Western citizens have described as
"terrorists". The loss of life-- approximately 3,000 civilians-- was
exceeded in American history only by battles during the Civil War,
although cities in other countries experienced far greater civilian
casualties during World War II.
How might we try to account for this lamentable state of affairs, unique
in human history yet nonetheless illustrative of the usage of "terrorism"
as a political tactic and of terror as a predictable human response to the
violence, and threats of violence employed by terrorists against innocent
people? Is "self-defense" a sufficient moral justification for the use of
lethal force by the great powers against perceived terrorists, the states
that harbor them, and, usually indirectly, against the civilians
unfortunate enough to constitute the "collateral damage" of
counter-terrorist operations?
What are the moral and legal responsibilities of state and
non-governmental actors in the "war(s) against terrorism?" What rights are
to be accorded those deemed "terrorists" and/or "criminals" by powerful
state actors and by punitive non-governmental agencies, such as criminal
courts and war crimes tribunals? Do states and non-governmental
organizations that use lethal force-- ostensibly to "eradicate terrorists"
and/or to overthrow "criminal" governments that commit genocide and/or
"ethnic cleansing"-- have moral duties and legal obligations toward both
the civilian and non-civilian populations of nations into which external
military and/or police forces are inserted?
Finally, is there a common core experience of terror that links the
victims of contemporary terrorist attacks to populations who were
terrorized during the twentieth century? For example, are the survivors of
bombing raids conducted during the Second World War psychologically,
ethically, and/or phenomenologically similar to the concentration camp
survivors of the Nazi and Stalinist periods, and/or to the surviving
victims of terrorism at the dawn of this new millennium? What, if any,
obligations do the victors of counter-terrorist "wars" have to the
often-traumatized victims of such terrorizing military operations as
precision bombing? Do the norms and strictures of "just war" and
international law apply equally to all violent conflicts within and
between state and non-state actors? And what measures-- psychotherapeutic,
socioeconomic, legal, political, and diplomatic-- should taken to aid the
victims of terrorism and to minimize the risks of future terrorist
attacks?
In my forthcoming book (Terror, Terrorism, and The Human
Condition) I address these questions and will discuss a range of answers
to these, perhaps the most pressing, issues of our time.