FIGHTING TERROR WITH TERROR IN THE WAR ON TERROR
"If all of mankind minus one were of one opinion...." (John Stuart Mill)

    As Pollock (2007) argues, there is now a third factor, besides cynicism and burnout, leading to unethical practices in criminal justice -- and that third factor is fear.  Fear of crime, of course, has always been around, but fear of terrorism is now the new imperative of modern life.  Fear has also always been a terrorist threat vector.  Unconfronted or uncoped-with fear has mental health implications as well as the potential for sustaining unrealistic beliefs which lead us into trouble.  The terrorist attacks of 9/11 and subsequent sense of global vulnerability have produced a state of public fear so great that questions may be asked about whether we are making the right choices in the war on terror.  For example, questions might be raised about overzealous law enforcement procedures, the protection of individual rights, and the ethical treatment of prisoners.  Questions might also be raised concerning the ethics and morals of the war in Iraq.  Some basic questions are as follows: 

    First of all, it is essential to ascertain all the facts that are possible to collect.  This step must be taken neutrally and meticulously since facts only tell us what is, not what ought to be.  It is an important step because an ethical approach will "talk it over" before acting, while an unethical, terrorist approach will not "talk it over" (Elshtain 2004).  Once the many facts are ascertained, it is best to think then in terms of overall consequences, considering the benefits and harms to as many parties as possible.  This is the utilitarian view, and on war, it usually promotes the "necessity" argument for creating the greatest balance of good over evil.  If "necessity" becomes the reason for answering any or all of the above questions in the affirmative, then utilitarian ethics is the justifying ethical system for a war on terror.  The ethical action is the one that provides the greatest good for the greatest number.  Individual rights are diminished.  Utilitarianism justifies the "ends" of deterring and preventing terrorism, even if individual human rights are diminished.  Yet, some major problems exist with utilitarian ethics.  The most significant problem is that we cannot always foresee the results.  It is possible that individual rights might be diminished for only a short time until the emergency plays out, or it is possible that a bureaucracy of sorts will entrench itself and the practices engaged in become wasteful and inefficient.  Perhaps more significantly, it is possible that an efficiency-oriented "war on terror" will create more terrorists.  This is a point returned to later.

    Ethical formalism, or what is sometimes called retributivism, is another ethical system to consider.  From this point of view, what makes human beings different from mere things is that people have dignity based on their ability to choose freely what they will do with their lives.  People have a fundamental moral right to have their choices respected.  Truth and dignity are not just virtues to guide behavior, but the basis for principles to be worked out.  Truth principles, for instance, might be worked out that eliminate all forms of government secrecy; i.e., fighting terror with openness, for example, might telegraph to terrorists exactly what our intelligence services are up to in tracking them.  Such an open war on terror might be like turning fear back upon the terrorists.  Ignatieff (2004) makes a similar point when he says that at times, to prevent the "greater evil" of our demise, we may need to do a "lesser evil" like suspend civil liberties, but when we do so, we should continue to say that whatever good such actions serve they nevertheless retain a measure of evil.  An ethical war on terror should not move backwards on progress.

    Dignity as a source of principles might make use of ethical formalism's emphasis upon the right not to be injured.  This perspective strongly embraces the principle of forfeiture, or the idea that someone who impinges on another's rights forfeits their own rights to the same degree.  This doesn't make someone an "enemy" or "other," but it does make them someone who has freely chosen a path which leads to punishment, and emphasizing that point should stress that choosing terrorism is the same as choosing punishment, but it's the choice, not the punishment, which matters -- a war on terror deserving of respect.  Rights are not trump cards, and a terrorist's right to choose must be balanced by the public's right not to be afraid.  All the time, in everyplace and everywhere (even the terrorist's place), we must become more and more unafraid.  We must find a way to turn a war on terror into a way to make us all more just. 

    There are other ethical perspectives which could be discussed, but utilitarianism and formalism are the two big ones, and it is time to move onto more interesting theses.    

THE THESIS THAT FIGHTING TERROR CREATES MORE TERROR

    The thesis that fighting terror creates more terror is, at its root, based on the idea that lethal terrorist attacks are rare.  It is usually argued that 9/11 was a rarity.  More people die every year from cancer or malnutrition than from terrorism, and even if those analogies can be said to be self-inflicted, consider that the odds of getting fatally hit in a vehicle accident is forty times greater than the chance of getting killed by terrorism.  Household accidents even kill more people than terrorists. Schneier (2006) is typical of those who advocate that by fighting terror aggressively, we are giving the terrorists exactly what they want, along with, of course, our fearful, security-conscious overreactions.  The way he puts it on his Schneier on Security blog goes like this: "It's time we calm down and fight terror with antiterror. This does not mean that we simply roll over and accept terrorism. There are things our government can and should do to fight terrorism, most of them involving intelligence and investigation -- and not focusing on specific plots.  Our job is to remain steadfast in the face of terror -- to refuse to be terrorized is the surest defense.  We must recognize that terrorism is just one of many risks we face, and not a particularly common one at that. And our job is to fight those politicians who use fear as an excuse to take away our liberties and promote security theater that wastes money and doesn't make us any safer."

    A different version of the above thesis is that fighting a long war on terror creates a cultural environment where children grow up either modeling themselves after terrorists or coming to idolize them.  In other words, it alienates a target population who come to feel they are treated as scapegoats.  The world is full of potential terrorists as well as delinquents.  It's better to make them repent and swear never to even think about committing terror.  Newer, asymmetric forms of terrorism don't require indoctrination anyway.  The hate makes them indoctrinated upon arrival.  Anybody with too much hate can easily turn to terrorism, and turning to terrorism can be seen as an example of a bad decision driven by fear.  To repeat: fear leads to bad decisions; and bad decisions lead to hate.      

THE SLIPPERY SLOPE/MORAL DECLINE ARGUMENT

    It is sometimes argued that believing our enemies deserve no justice will lead to a deterioration of justice for ourselves.  Just as a population riddled with fear is likely to submit to ever-increasing restrictions on liberties, so-called "noble cause" corruption, where the rules are bent or broken to get the job done, leads to a slippery slope where anything goes.  At the root of the problem is the notion that noble cause elevates a person's responsibility to the level of impunity.  The fact of the matter is, however, that anyone fighting terror needs to be braver and cleverer than the terrorists, though not nearly as ruthless or cruel.  Fighters cannot afford demoralization, for that gives into the enemy.  And, they need not have more morale than the enemy.  Somehow, you've got to keep civilization going in a civilized fashion while fighting a long war against terror.  And, you can't give up and rely upon torture.  Torture is the crack cocaine of antiterrorism.  It works for a short while, but pretty soon, everybody gets sick of it.  Democracies cannot lose the values they are fighting for.

    Pollock (2007) borrows the definition of "noble cause corruption" from Crank & Caldero (2000:9) who define it as "a profound moral commitment to make the world a safer place to live."  Noble cause is an underlying value orientation; it's more than an attitude of "whatever it takes."  The argument that it's a value system is an argument that it is the basis for socialization of rookies, among other things like many of the dysfunctional subcultures in law enforcement.  Entrapment is just one expression of noble cause.    

    Losing more than one could ever hope to gain is the danger of noble cause.  Once justice is parceled out differently for one group and differently for another, this opens the door to those (who admittedly may be "rogues") who are looking for an excuse to abuse and victimize.  The "end justifies the means" thinking is insidious.  Even a good end cannot justify certain acts. 

MORAL SUPERIORITY AS COUNTERTERRORISM

    Some would say that moral superiority is how to win the war on terrorism (Netanyahu 1986), and indeed, Prof. Chris Harmon (in How al-Qaeda May End) suggests this also.  Most terrorist movements do come to an end, and doctrinal ideologies can be defeated.  Winning a war on terrorism requires that there be some moral conviction in the justice of the fight.  A terror war must give expression to the morality involved, and fight as if it were a war of ideas.  Terrorism, in may ways, is an attack on national will.  Terrorists count on the fact that their targets are "soft and weak" and will not be able to sustain a coordinated grand strategy.  Terrorists know that their targets will critique themselves, and debate among themselves.  They know their targets will argue among themselves, and in fact, they are often counting on this kind of moral skepticism among their targets before they attack again. 

    The moral argument that terrorism is permanently unjustifiable should be forcefully restated time and time again, and by as many voices as possible, globally.  The language of morality can be powerful.  Not only does it appeal to foreign audiences, but it can help with domestic morale also.  Democratic-minded and moderate leaders of organizations in the host nations for terrorists should be assisted in having their "voices" amplified by the democratic nations.  Religion can play a part, but as Temes (2003) wonders, how can a Christian nation like the U.S. get Muslim nations to reign in their extremists?  Perhaps it is best if religion stays out of it.  Morality should not be confused with religion.

THE ETHICS OF JUST WAR

    A just war, according to Hugo Grotius (1625), is a war which should not only be just in its origin, but just in its prosecution.  Adding further, there are "logically independent" distinctions, as Michael Walzer (2000) puts it, between the requirements of jus ad bellum and the requirements of jus in bello.  The former basically refers to criteria that are consulted before engaging in war along with determination of whether entering into war is justifiable in the first place, while the latter concerns acceptable practices while engaged in war, an example being adherence to the Geneva Conventions [See Lecture on Just War Theory].

    On the jus ad bellum side, the most important criteria is "just cause" which requires, in ethical formalism terms, some sort of moral liability on the part of the terrorist attackers.  The wrong that they engage in must be so wrong that it is impermissible to let it go unrectified.  On the jus ad bello side, the most important criteria is "proportionality" which requires, in utilitarian terms, a weighing of costs and benefits.  In the end, utilitarian ethics has the front end covered too, since, overall, the good to be achieved by going to war must outweigh the evil to be incurred while prosecuting the war.  The ethics of going to war are just as important as the ethics of carrying out a war.  Expanding or prolonging a war runs the risk of producing and propagating evil.  A war on terror should avoid mission creep and be a short-lived thing, and ethicists should have a greater say about grand strategy. 

INTERNET RESOURCES
A Civil Libertarian View of America's Noble Cause
FareedZakaria.com
Full Text of Hugo Grotius' On the Law of War and Peace
Godless Liberalism on the War on Terrorism
Salon.com Article: Lessons on How to Fight Terror
Schneier on Security: What the Terrorists Want

PRINTED RESOURCES
Barber, B. (1996). Jihad vs. McWorld. NY: Ballantine.
Barber, B. (2003). Fear's Empire: War, Terrorism, and Democracy. NY: Norton.
Crank, J. & Caldero, M. (2000). Police Ethics: The Corruption of Noble Cause. Cincinnati: Lexis/Nexis Publishing.
Crank, J. & Gregor, P. (2005). Counterterrorism After 9/11: Justice, Security and Ethics Reconsidered. Cincinnati: Lexis/Nexis Publishing.
Decosse, D. (Ed.) (1992). But Was It Just? Reflections on the Morality of the Persian Gulf War. NY: Doubleday.
Elshtain, J. (2004). Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World. NY: Basic.
Etzioni, A. & Marsh, J. (Eds.) (2003). Rights v. Public Safety After 9/11: America in the Age of Terrorism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Grotius, H. (1625/1901). The Rights of War and Peace. London: M. Walter Dunne.
Ignatieff, M. (2004). The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.
Lackey, D. (Ed.) (1989). The Ethics of War and Peace. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Netanyahu, B & B. (1997) Fighting Terrorism. Jerusalem: Noonday Press.
Netanyahu, B. (Ed.) (1986). Terrorism: How the West Can Win. NY: Farrar Straus Giroux.
Pollock, J. (2007). Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions in Criminal Justice, 5e. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.
Schneier, B. (2006). Beyond Fear. NY: Springer.
Temes, P. (2003). The Just War. NY: Ivan Dee.
Walzer, M. (2000). Just and Unjust Wars. NY: Basic.
Walzer, M. (2004). Arguing About War. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.
Zakaria, F. (2003). The Future of Freedom. NY: Norton.

Last updated: Oct 15, 2006
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