September 11: A Clash of Civilizations?

Fourth Quarter 2001

The judgments began to pour forth almost immediately—in contradictory abundance: This is war and terrorists deserve no mercy. No, the U.S. should restrain itself and not retaliate with force because that will only perpetuate violence. Islam is to blame. No, American arrogance is the deeper cause.

Cutting through simplifications and mistaken judgments will require a careful assessment of complex realities joined by sound judgments about what the United States should do now. In this and subsequent issues of the Public Justice Report, and on our website, we will try to make a constructive contribution to the interpretation of the events of September 11 and their aftermath.

The immediate issue is how to respond to the most aggressive acts of terrorism ever unleashed. An American response must be a governmental response to achieve justice, both retributive and restorative, while continuing to protect the innocent, including innocent Muslims and Arabs. American citizens and officials must not allow their response to become a counter-holy war. Americans are not the children of pure light and God has not granted us or our government messianic, earth-cleansing authority. If those who launched the attacks see themselves as God's agents to destroy the American Satan, we should work to disabuse them of such pretensions by balanced acts of justice, not by a counter crusade. If the horrors of September 11 manifest a "clash of civilizations" and not merely the unconscionable acts of a few immoral villains, then the deeper meaning of that cultural and religious clash must be fathomed by critical self-reflection and attention to the motives of the terrorists. Military and police actions cannot resolve deep civilizational conflicts.

The comment by one observer that we are now engaged in a "war without boundaries" makes little sense. If those who foment terrorism control no government or political territory, they nonetheless hide out in, or are harbored by, states whose governments either support them or will cooperate in overcoming them. This is why the U.S. must cooperate with other governments (or identify those complicit in the terrorism) in order to achieve territorial justice. War is something that takes place between states; punishing and stopping nongovernment terrorist bands will, ultimately, require cooperative international police action. U.S. and/or U.N. military actions against terrorists in other countries will not finally achieve justice or peace without actions taken by the governments of those countries to enforce and uphold justice.

The U.S. government does have an obligation to respond, however, because the very nature of its responsibility (and that of other governments) is to defend the innocent and to thwart or punish those who would deprive the innocent of life. In this case, a proper response must be very wide in scope. We have known for some time that the aims of the terrorists are grand and long-term, crossing many international borders. Just as any attempt to break up urban gangs or Mafia operations requires uncorrupted police forces, solid court systems, and healthy urban communities, so too, a long-range effort to overcome international terrorism will require strongly coordinated international alliances, the strengthening of international law and security systems, and the advancement of economic and social developments that benefit the poor and not only the rich.

These are only a few of the dozens of considerations that must now be taken up with patience and seriousness if we are to respond to the demands of justice.

—The Editor, September 17, 2001