International Crime, Not War
By
Tom Barry and Martha Honey
America
is living through a tragedy of unprecedented depth. Our might--military and
economic--has been targeted, and our vulnerability exposed. We are shocked,
outraged, determined to respond. Yet we awake to a new day sickened by the
cruelty and insanity of this political violence--and uncertain if we, too, want
blood on our hands.
Will
vengeance, even when guided by the best of America's surgical strike
technology, ease this tragedy and end the cycle of terror? Upon reflection and
based on past experience, we know better.
The
crime was horrific. Never have so many Americans died from violence on a single
day. It felt and looked like war. Our national security came under direct
attack, and the resulting carnage was comparable to the worst of war--Pearl Harbor,
firebombing of Dresden, Cambodia, and Normandy. President Bush and Secretary of
State Powell have call the crashes "acts of war." But having four
commercial airliners commandeered by political fanatics is not war, it is
international terrorism, albeit at its worst. No nation or peoples have
declared war on the United States. In terms of intent and character, the
political violence yesterday in Washington and New York bears more similarity
to the terrorist bombing of the federal bombing in Oklahoma City than to Pearl
Harbor. Yesterday certainly was a day of infamy, but it was not--and should not
be--the beginning of war.
America
and all nations concerned about peace, justice, and dignity will need to
respond. But the response should be deliberate, just, and humane. In the past,
the U.S. has responded to terrorist attacks with military strikes that were
misdirected, mistakenly targeted, and counterproductive. The 1986 bombing raids
on two Libyan cities, the bombing of a Baghdad neighborhood in 1993 in response
to rumors of a planned assassination attempt on former President Bush, and most
recently the air strike on a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant mistakenly believed
to be chemical weapons factory associated with Osama bin Laden are three cases
that should remind us of the folly--and terrorism--of vengeful retaliatory
strikes.
Talk
by our leaders of war and retribution, while possibly boosting our patriotic
spirit, is dangerous and irresponsible. The politics of vengeance will do
little to protect us, and will only fuel more terrorism. But neither can we
passively accept our helplessness and vulnerability.
We
need to mourn, bury our dead, and move on--but not to business and foreign
policy as usual. What's needed now is a new U.S. resolve to address--and not
simply react to--the causes of political violence in the post-cold war world.
Our president's father promised at the onset of the Persian Gulf War to
establish a "new world order" but it's a promise that has gone
unfulfilled. Instead, over the past decade we have seen rising global disorder
and conflict. Rather than gathering the world's nations together to address the
scourges of international terrorism, ethnic and religious conflicts, and the
polarization of poor and wealthy nations, the U.S. has relinquished its
leadership role. Arrogance, unilateralism, isolationism, and imperialism are
the terms now commonly used by the international press and scholars to describe
the U.S. role in global affairs.
The
attack on America's centers of power was an extremist reaction to what is
perceived as a new world order where only the U.S. calls the shots. But it was,
first and foremost, a crime against all humanity. If there is to be justice in
this incident and if there is to be the rule of law in international affairs,
the U.S. should seek the solace and support of the international community.
Despite differences with U.S. foreign policy, especially in the conflicted
Middle East, nations around the world have been quick to express their own
outrage and willingness to join with America to fight and reduce the causes of
international terrorism.
As
Americans deliberate an effective response to this tragedy and crime, we must
first reject the call for war. The gauntlet goading us to militaristic
responses that treat human life as callously as the terrorists treated ours
must be categorically rejected. As with any other crime, the perpetrators and
their accomplices must be brought to justice--in the courts of law, not
according to the fundamentalist "eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth"
precepts. In recent years, we have made encouraging progress in establishing
and enforcing international norms for human rights and crimes against humanity.
This is an opportunity to forge a broader international coalition--bringing disparate
nations together in a common determination to fight against such crimes against
humanity. A first principle, then, must be that we treat this as an
international crime, not an act of war, and that the rules of law should guide
international response.
A second
principle that should guide U.S. policy is that our investigation, pursuit, and
prosecution should as much as possible count on consultation with and the
cooperation of the world community of nations. Any government suspected of
harboring or otherwise aiding these international terrorists should answer to
concerted international pressure, not just American outrage. If indeed,
military action is deemed necessary, it should carry the approval of the UN
Security Council--otherwise the U.S. too will be violating the basic principles
of international law.
While
charting the appropriate response, the U.S. government must also begin the
long-overdue task of formulating a security policy that truly protects
Americans from new global threats. As critics have insisted, the Bush
administration's promise that a national missile defense system would protect
us looks increasingly hollow. If terrorists want to attack us, they can do so
from our own soil and with our own aircraft. Our politicians would dishonor the
dead, however, if they focused the new security debate solely on issues of
intelligence reform and defense technology. More fundamentally, the U.S. needs
to take a hard look at the policies and political structures that fan the
flames of terrorism--to understand why such anger in the Middle East and
elsewhere is directed at America. The task of forging a security policy not
just on our response capability but also on addressing the new causal factors
for war and terrorism is surely America's greatest challenge--and our success
will be the true measure of our character.
Terrorism
is mainly the weapon of the politically weak, frustrated ideologues, and
religious fanatics. The U.S. should not retaliate in kind--not allowing any
compulsion for revenge or the affirmation of U.S. military might to divert
America from its moral principles and global leadership responsibilities.
(Tom
Barry <tom@irc-online.org> of the
Interhemispheric Resource Center and Martha Honey <ipsps@igc.org> of the Institute
for Policy Studies are codirectors of Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org.)
From: http://www.fpif.org/commentary/0109terror-crime_body.html