American Statecraft and the Response to Terrorism

As I write this, only three months after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, I am well aware that any wide-angle evaluation of American actions in response to those attacks must be preliminary and cautious. Too much is happening too quickly in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and elsewhere in the world. Nevertheless, President Bush has set an American course and it is not too early to begin a comprehensive, even if only tentative, assessment.

The September attacks were violent acts of terror, launched without warning against innocent people by foreign conspirators willing to commit suicide to accomplish their mission. The immediate goal of the aggression was nothing other than the destruction of life and property, as was the case in earlier attacks on the World Trade Center, U.S. embassies in Africa, and others.

What Kind of Aggression?

Besides calling the attacks terrorism, what other language should be used to define them, and should that make any difference in assessing the way the U.S. has responded and continues to respond? The terrorists were not the military force of a foreign government even though we now know that the network of which they were a part has military capabilities and is bound up closely with the Taliban government of Afghanistan. Moreover, in violation of every international military convention, the terrorists targeted innocent civilians not American military forces. Given our government's responsibility to protect the innocent and to punish criminal and other unjust acts, the federal and state governments were certainly obligated to respond, just as they were after the Timothy McVeigh bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City and to many other recent acts of terror committed within this country. The government's immediate responses sought both to thwart future attacks by increasing domestic and international security and to capture and punish any living conspirators who helped to perpetrate the crimes. Moreover, as soon as President Bush learned that the attacks originated from the Al Qaeda organization, he was completely justified in holding the Taliban responsible for bringing the terrorists in Afghanistan to justice. As happened, the Taliban refused to cooperate and even declared itself complicit with Al Qaeda. The U.S. was then justified, on internationally recognized grounds, to declare war against the Taliban in order to achieve what a legitimate Afghanistan government should have done, namely, bring the terrorists in that country to justice.

Now, the judgments just made are grounded in a long-standing Christian tradition, called the "just war" tradition, which articulates conditions and criteria for the justifiable use of force. Legitimate governments, through their police and judicial systems and through their military forces, are obligated to protect the innocent and to punish those who commit unjust acts of violence. For this purpose, they may, and, at times, must use force. As Paul says in Romans 13, they do not bear the sword in vain.

International Conspiracy

One consequence of the fact that the attacks were spawned by Al Qaeda, whose cells had spread throughout many countries, is that the U.S. could not by itself punish or destroy all of Al Qaeda. For the U.S. to launch a war against all terrorists in all countries, without regard to the responsibilities of the legitimate governments in those countries, would be to commit multiple acts of unjust aggression that would undermine rather than reinforce legitimate authority. And the entire just war doctrine depends on the recognition and exercise of legitimate authority. Why, for example, would the U.S. send its military after Al Qaeda cells in Germany, one of our allies in NATO, rather than seek the cooperation of the German government to bring the terrorists in Germany to justice? In fact, the U.S. has not launched a military assault on Germany, but instead has asked for and received the German government's cooperation in tracking down the terrorists.

What the U.S. has actually been doing, in other words, is taking the lead in developing a cooperative international police and intelligence campaign against a terrorist conspiracy by means of which all of the cooperating governments are working to find and punish terrorists. This, I would emphasize, is not war, but cooperative international policing, and as such, it should be conducted in accord with domestic and international laws of criminal punishment for unprecedented conspiratorial acts of violence and destruction.

Having said this, however, the question of war does not evaporate altogether. As we've already said, the Taliban government was, in essence, a co-conspirator in the Al Qaeda aggression, and the United States is justified, according to the principles of the just war tradition, to defend itself and seek redress of grievance by war, if necessary, against such a government. Nevertheless, terrorist networks of the kind that launched the September attacks will ultimately be stopped, punished, and eliminated only if many strong and legitimate governments police their own territories and cooperate with one another to capture and punish terrorists. The fact that the U.S. is justified in launching a counter-offensive against the terrorists is precisely because it is a legitimate government obligated to protect its citizens from internal and external threats to life. The use of force against criminals, Mafia organizations, violent urban gangs, or foreign and domestic terrorists—none of whom have legitimate public authority—can be justified only by legitimate governments held accountable by public law and their citizens to fulfill precisely this kind of responsibility. The ultimate American responsibility in fighting terrorism, therefore, is to help strengthen and to cooperate with other legitimate governments throughout the world so that terrorism can neither gain nor keep a foothold in any of their countries. No matter how powerful the American military is, if terrorists can find safe harbor in countries incapable of, or unwilling to dislodge them, there will be no end to terrorism.

Sir Michael Howard, writing in The Times of London (10/2/01) makes the following point: "Today we are threatened by a transnational conspiracy; not against any specific national or imperial authority, but against the entire international order. In dealing with it the rhetoric and expectations of 'war' are counter-productive and much military experience irrelevant. With skillful political management and patient police-work, backed up where necessary by armed force 'in aid of the civil power', this particular conspiracy can, perhaps, be eradicated. But 'the war against terrorism' cannot be won, for terrorism will always be available as a weapon in the hands of people desperate and ruthless enough to use it."

Both Policing and Warfare

While Howard's dismissal of war rhetoric is legitimate with regard to defining the response to a "transnational conspiracy," his remarks do not adequately encompass the situation in Afghanistan. There the government was a co-conspirator, and to halt and punish that source and base of terrorism, warfare was required. Although, for all of the American talk of war, the president has not officially declared war on Afghanistan.

In sum, I would contend that part of what the U.S. campaign against terrorism entails is legitimate warfare against the Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan. However, it is indeed unfortunate that American officials, the media, and many citizens, including many Christians, are using war rhetoric to describe and advocate to the entire campaign against terrorism. The dangers of using the word so loosely are many, not the least of which is that important, hard-won distinctions between police and military responsibilities, which are part of the rule of law that Americans prize so highly, could be confounded and perhaps lost. This is, in fact, at the heart of the debate, now unfolding, over the president's plans to try foreign terrorists (not only those captured in Afghanistan) by American military commissions.

Another reason why the loose use of war language is unfortunate is because the ultimate goal that the U.S. and its allies must hold out even for Afghanistan is not merely the defeat of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but the establishment and strengthening of a legitimate government. One of the major principles of just war teaching is that the goal of justified warfare is peace, which means, among other things, a post-war situation in which a legitimate government can govern. Military action by itself will not produce an accountable and responsible government in Afghanistan. Thankfully, diplomatic efforts toward this end are underway, though it is too early to tell whether they will be long lasting and successful and whether the U.S. will hang in for the long term to help achieve this goal.

My main argument is a simple one. In the multifaceted campaign against a terrorist conspiracy the U. S. government and American media should be stressing the goal (and using the language) of "achieving justice and strengthening the rule of law." Responding to unjust foreign aggression by means of war can, under certain limited conditions be part of "achieving justice." However, the slogan, "war against terrorism," is insufficient and overly broad. A true end to conspiratorial terrorism requires, for the most part, cooperative international policing and the strengthening of just governance under the rule of law throughout the world. This is what Americans should be most anxious to shout from our rooftops.

Having emphasized the importance of the distinction between war and a cooperative international police campaign, and having stressed that even in war between countries the proper goal of war is peace, we have opened the door to a much wider and even more complicated set of considerations, only two of which we will introduce here.

The Regional Context

First, the argument that a legitimate war effort must aim for a peaceful outcome raises important questions about the regional context of Afghanistan. U.S. forces went to Afghanistan because the Taliban refused to cooperate in bringing the terrorists to justice. The U.S. and its NATO allies have been working energetically to engage countries like Pakistan, India, and Russia in the anti-terrorist cause. However, apart from the American concern to destroy Al Qaeda, there are many other concerns that weigh on the countries of that region. Think of nothing more than the ongoing strife between Pakistan and India over Kashmir; the fact that Pakistan's government is itself not entirely legitimate; the likelihood that Iraq's Saddam Hussein is implicated in the terrorist conspiracy; and the seemingly irresolvable, now flaming conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. All of these situations have been significantly affected by the terrorist attacks and the American-led response to them. In this rapidly shrinking world, it is no longer possible to keep one major problem isolated from all others, especially when a campaign to stop terrorism requires the cooperation of many countries, all of whom have economic, political, and military relationships with other countries and face their own problems of governance.

Consequently, for all of President Bush's attempt to keep a sharp focus on fighting the terrorist threat to the United States, his administration has not been able to stay aloof from the manifold changes and new demands that are now emerging, particularly in the Middle East and South Asia. This highlights the fact that America's global leadership will be a positive force for good to the extent that it is truly global leadership, addressing wisely the legitimate concerns of other countries even as we ask those countries to help us address ours. Ours will not be true or long-lasting global leadership if it proves to be merely the temporary "pushing power" of the world's only superpower as it scrambles to get what it wants whenever and wherever it wants it.

Religious Roots

The second complication I want to highlight lies beneath or behind the actions of terrorists and the responses of governments. What are the deepest convictions, worldviews, and motivations that shape our interpretation of, and judgments about America's response to the terrorist attacks? We may not know exactly what the terrorists intended when they committed the terrible acts of September 11, but we do know that Osama bin Laden articulated for his movement a vision of life and death and judgment that he grounds in Islam. His religiously deep view of life and sense of mission may be rejected by many Muslims as deviant and offensive, but it may not be written off by Americans as merely the passion of a madman, or a man without conscience, or someone filled with hatred. Those in the American media and political leadership who paint bin Laden with this brush make a serious mistake, especially when they couple their moral dismissal of bin Laden with an uncritical and approving nod toward the peace-loving, civilized religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and the goodness of all civilized people generally.

The error here is at least two-dimensional. In the first dimension, the error leads Americans away from seeking to understand Islam and Al Qaeda's place within Islam and makes it impossible to grasp why bin Laden's exploits have met with such enthusiastic sympathy from millions of people. In the second dimension, the identification of bin Laden as a moral degenerate keeps Americans from reflecting on our own deepest motives and reasons for needing, for example, to constantly repeat "God bless America" and "America fights back." The challenge for Christians in these circumstances is especially acute.

At Home

Let's begin with the second dimension of the problem. Americans were horrified by the September attacks, as we should have been. But if, in response, we adopt a picture of the world divided quite simply and generally between American goodness and the odd villains like Osama bin Laden, then, from a Christian point of view, all kinds of dangers emerge. If we consider bin Laden and Al Qaeda to be mere deviants, as judged by our moral/cultural context, then we allow ourselves to ignore what bin Laden represents in the Muslim world. Moreover, an oversimplified picture of ourselves as the good guys and Al Qaeda terrorists as the embodiment of evil, allows us to jump too easily from a focused judgment about illegitimate violent aggression to a more general confession that God is on our side and fully behind our righteous warfare—"God bless America." Although it is bin Laden who first used the language of "holy war" against the American Satan (which has a particular meaning in his Islamic context), if we respond by turning that charge back on him as the real Satan, we run the danger of getting sucked into the very framework of holy war and counter holy war that bin Laden's version of Islam establishes. Evidence of a counter holy war reaction among many Americans, in fact, witnesses to a long tradition of American civil religion that is a perversion of Christianity.

This is not to say that the U.S. government should not respond with the use of force to punish and overcome the violent Taliban-bin Laden consortium in Afghanistan. Those Christians who react negatively to overzealous cries for American revenge, by arguing that the U.S. should not respond with the use of force at all, ignore the very responsibility of government. A Christian argument for government's responsibility should not be in favor of either national vengeance or for pacifism, but should make a clear case for the very criteria of public justice (including those for just policing and warfare) by which to affirm and to criticize our government's actions as well as to condemn bin Laden's and the Taliban's unrestricted and unjust aggression. Christians throughout the world, including American Christians, should be calling their governments to accept their proper and limited task of using force when necessary to uphold justice, including protecting the innocent and punishing those who commit crimes and take innocent lives. In calling for this, we may certainly express patriotism and rejoice when justice is done by our government. But we should do so remembering that no human government or nation has been authorized by God to rid the earth of evil. The U.S. is not God's chosen people and its government is not the messianic judge of the earth, but only one fallible government among others, all of which stand under the judgment of God.

Christians should take this approach not only because we believe that the worldwide church of Jesus Christ, rather than America, is God's chosen people, and not only because we are obligated and privileged to help shape a government that should be modest before God, but also because we need to become conscious that within the United States itself there is a deep struggle going on between competing religious views of life. The conduct of politics, government, and warfare in our country today is not, as many believe, a purely "secular" affair (meaning "not religious") in contrast to bin Laden's religious (Islamic) fanaticism. To the contrary, in the United States there are at least three major religious orientations that grip people as they go about shaping and defining our republic and its laws. First, there is secularism, whose adherents refuse to recognize the religious character of their own worldview even while they dismiss the public authority of all others. Second, there is the American civil religion, to which many secularists as well as Christians accommodate themselves. And third, there are the comprehensive, whole-life claims of Christ whose patient governance of all nations does not allow believers to confine their faith to private life or to relinquish the public square to either secularism or civil religion.

Christians should not be thinking politically in terms of "Christian America" or the "Christian West," thereby allowing Christianity to be identified with the syncretistic amalgam of religions that now partially define and compete for control of our country and many others. Christians should not let stand bin Laden's reference to the "Christian West," because that phrase not only mischaracterizes both Christianity and the West but also overlooks Christianity's growth throughout the non-western world. American Christians should be self-critical about both secularism and civil religion precisely because of our commitment to Jesus Christ, who is Lord of the whole world and all of life, including politics. Our desire should be to live as the kind of citizens who recognize God's sovereignty over all nations, refusing either to claim him as America's own special deity or to think of him as disconnected from human politics and government altogether.

And in the Muslim World

The second dimension of the error of dismissing bin Laden as simply beyond the pale of civilization is that we will fail to understand why he, in his Muslim context, can inspire so much sympathy. Bin Laden believes that the God of Islam has authorized him to lead in acts of violent judgmen—holy war—against impious governments within Muslim countries, against infidel Jews and Christian crusaders, and against the American Satan, because all are enemies of God. Many Muslims and others from northern Africa on through the Middle East and over to Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, and the Philippines believe that, on Muslim terms, bin Laden's tactics and actions are illegitimate and unjust. But many of them cheer him on and give him financial and moral support because they have learned from childhood to this present day that Western culture—which in their minds is Christian—is morally corrupt, a threat to Allah's will for the world, and imperialistic in its global aims. And if a single symbol is needed to represent this western, Christian devil, then they point to Israel, a western imposition on Palestine that defiles the land where Allah should be served above all.

All of this dogma—this entire interpretation of reality—must certainly be countered from a Christian point of view. But we do ourselves a disservice if we dismiss and thereby fail to understand Islam and bin Laden's use of it, including the call for holy war. Salman Rushdie is of little help to Christians at this point when he merely confesses faith in modern secularism, contending that Muslims need to learn how to confine religion "to the sphere of the personal" and to "take on board the secularist-humanist principles on which the modern is based" (New York Times, 11/2/01). Here faith in "the modern" confronts and abruptly dismisses old-fashioned faith in Allah, yet that feeds right into the fuel that inflames Islamist antagonism to the West. The dynamics behind bin Laden very likely will continue to shape the Muslim world long after he and Al Qaeda are gone. If the worldview and agenda of much of the Muslim world, including that of its political extremists, is different from a secularist worldview and agenda, different from the American civil religion's worldview and agenda, and different from a Christian worldview and agenda, then it is all the more urgent that Christians seek to fathom everything about all of these religions wherever they are influential.

Terrorism, as Americans experienced it last September, is wrong and requires a publicly just response, and in such circumstances Christians need to articulate a Christian view of just government and its properly qualified use of retributive force. Neither Western secularism's mistaken dismissal of non-secularist religions, nor the American civil religion's simple division of the world between good guys (us) and bad guys (them) provides the basis for a Christian view of government's purpose, obligations, and use of force. The terrorist attacks should serve as a wake-up call to Christians. We have much important and urgent work to do if we are to follow our Lord in obedient service in all spheres of life and in all regions of the world.

Recommended Reading:

Fouad Ajami, The Dream Palace of the Arabs (Vintage Books, 1998).

Nazih Ayubi, Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World (Routledge, 1991).

Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (Harvard University Press, 1991).

Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (Simon and Schuster, 1996).

James Turner Johnson, The Holy War Idea in Western and Islamic Traditions (Penn State University Press, 1997).

Douglas Johnston and Cynthia Sampson, eds., Religion: The Missing Dimension of Statecraft (Oxford University Press, 1994).

Bernard Lewis, "The Revolt of Islam," The New Yorker (November 19, 2001), pp. 50-63.

Bernard Lewis, "What Went Wrong?" The Atlantic Monthly (January, 2002), pp. 43-48.

David Scheffer, "Options for Prosecuting International Terrorists," a Special Report by the United States Institute of Peace, November 14, 2001.

Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power (Simon and Schuster, 1991).