Putting the Focus in Context

SEPTEMBER 21, 2001--President George W. Bush presented a stirring and highly focused challenge to the world last night. His call to demolish the network of international, extra-legal cell groups, whose purpose is to wreak havoc through willful violence on American and other western interests, could not have been clearer. There can be little doubt that this is the preeminent cause to which the president will dedicate his energies in the years ahead. Given the threat of long-term degradation that terrorist attacks like those of September 11 represent for ordinary life in open societies, the president's call to arms is justified.

The government and American citizens must not, however, lose sight of the larger context of this focused call to action. Peripheral vision must be strengthened not weakened as the country concentrates on the struggle against terrorism. Three dimensions of that context are especially important to highlight immediately.

The purpose of surgery on cancerous cells is to remove danger to an otherwise healthy body. However, many political bodies around the world, including those in Afghanistan and a number of other countries, are not healthy. The terrorist cells feed on those unhealthy political bodies. A sharply focused campaign to rid the world of terrorist cells will not by itself help to create or strengthen the healthy states that are needed. In fact, some countries now being torn by conflicts between "secular" Muslim governments and Islamist "reformers," between those sympathetic to democratic reforms and those highly opposed to them, may only be further destabilized by the international campaign that the United States will lead. Concerns about this larger context do not provide a reason for ignoring or failing to fight terrorism. But in the long term it is the political health of nations and of international relations that must be strengthened. The fight against terrorism must not lead the U.S. and its anti-terrorist allies to take their eyes off the larger context and thereby fail to do all the other things necessary to encourage the growth of just governments and healthy societies.

A second dimension of the larger context that must not be lost from view is the full framework of justice within and among countries--a framework that we typically refer to as the rule of law in constitutionally defined states. Retributive justice--punishment of unlawful behavior--does not stand on its own. Retribution is grounded in a right order that makes it possible for judges, juries, police officers, and military organizations to know what should be penalized and how. Punishment itself does not establish a healthy order; it can only confirm the legitimacy of the right order by showing that unlawful behavior will not be allowed to go unpunished. Right now, it is self-evident to Americans and many others that the terrorist acts of September 11 were unjust and deserving of punishment. That is the president's clearly focused aim. Yet a long-term campaign of retribution against groups--enemies--that are clearly wrong takes for granted that the avengers--the U.S. government and its allies in the cause--are clearly right. And if an entire nation becomes preoccupied with a drama of this kind, it can begin to interpret all of reality as a battle between the good guys (us) and the bad guys (them). Everything about us is right; everything about them is evil.

If we were in a domestic court setting, we would recognize that the criminal party stands confronted by the judge (or jury) that is called upon to mete out a just penalty. Outside the narrow focus of the case, however, we do not assume that the judge or jury in totality represents pure righteousness and goodness while the guilty party represents nothing but the embodiment of evil. The judge is not God and the guilty party is not Satan. The court's retributive decision is recognized as taking place in the larger context of a society in which all kinds of decisions must be made about constructive and distributive justice. One potential danger of a long, international fight against terrorism is that the larger context of justice that undergirds retributive justice will be lost from view. The whole world becomes the courtroom in which one party represents right and the other wrong. Those who are trying to exercise just retribution may begin to see themselves as fully righteous, standing over against those perceived to be the embodiment of evil. This danger is especially likely when the enemy, in this case, sees itself as authorized by God to pass judgment on satanic America. If in the days ahead all the acts of retribution and counter-violence on the world stage cause us to lose sight of the larger context of justice which governments are called, as humble servants, to uphold and nurture, we could find ourselves caught up in "holy war" fervor. Even those governments that set out to punish justly may begin to act as if they are God's righteous, messianic judge of the whole earth. Whoever is not with us may be seen as a representative of the evil one.

Finally, the larger context in which retribution against terrorist cells should now be carried out is one in which the governments of the world work together not only to stop that kind of violence but also to strengthen a healthier international order of states. Prior to September 11, many struggles for economic, environmental, and social justice were the focus of different kinds of international organizations and summit conferences. If all of these ongoing negotiations become sidelined or are subsumed under the "war" against terrorism, the international order could become further unbalanced. Moreover, since it is evident that the United States is the lead country on many of these fronts, its leadership in the anti-terrorist campaign could drive it to demand more for itself and for its purposes in the world than can be justified by the demands for international justice. Here again, this is no reason why the nations of the world should not cooperate to fight the widespread, highly complex network of terrorist cells. Nevertheless, a sharp and prolonged focus that gradually loses sight of the larger context of international justice could only cause greater problems in the future and lead to new conflicts among nations that will be even more difficult to resolve.

We applaud President Bush's determination to lead the United States in an international, cooperative campaign against the terrorism that has taken and intends to take innocent lives. We urge him and the Congress and our fellow citizens to put this new focus in proper context.

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Respond to this at jack@cpjustice.org