The Moral Issues Of War On Terrorism - Essay Example

War on Terrorism In Defense of Democracy or An Attack on Civil Liberties? Democracy with civil liberties at its core is the pride of Western societies, particularly the USA. “Several empirical studies of America’s middle-class majority support the view that most Americans enjoy a strong sense of civil liberty” (Bellah, et al. 1985, 1991; Wattenberg 1985; & Wolfe 1998, cited in Zalman 2000: 184), broadly defined as “personal security… impartiality… individual liberty… and democracy” (Holmes 1993: 4) or specifically refers to practices of “religious toleration, freedom of discussion, personal security, free elections, constitutional government, and the freedom to buy and sell in a market of goods and services” (Holmes 1995: 13-14). These democratic principles, well imbedded in the American Creed can be summed up into “liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, and laissez-faire” (Lipset 1996: 19). Much more, these “political and ideological principles” (Zalman 2000: 184) of democracy have been proven necessary for the full development and modernization of societies (Fromkin 1999: 238-239), making life in democratic societies relatively safe (individual rights are respected and protected) and convenient (modern technology makes life easier). However, as life is full of uncertainties, democracy for its part has it own pitfalls that has to be assessed from a lens of truth and acceptance. This threatening reality has been introduced to us by the 9/11 bombing of the twin tower by Bin Laden’s al Quaeda. Osama bin Laden and his al Queada network of terrorists have demonstrated the West’s vulnerability. This vulnerability has been interpreted as largely the result of the freedoms enjoyed in the West, which al Queada took advantage to launch the most deadly attack in American history. (Jurgensen 2004: 55) After the 9/11 incident, which completely shocked the world, unbelieving that a superpower could be attacked with such sophistication utilizing the very technology that supports the US’s freedom of mobility, everything has changed. Fear has crept into the West with its citizens (especially the middle class) demanding for assurance of safety and with its governments (prominently, the US and the UK) resorting to tighter security measures in the name of national security. The fear it has inflicted impelled many people worldwide to believe that terrorism has evolved into its new form of global terror (Furedi 2005: 319), which feasibly must have been sensationalized by media’s exaggerated reporting compounded by the political leaders’ speechifying and overstatement (Mythen & Walklate 2008: 232), because psychologically, “threat not only motivates protective behaviors but also promotes support for protective government policies” such as … “increased surveillance policies… and policies that promise increased domestic safety but could threaten American’s civil liberties” (Huddy, Feldman & Weber 2007: 132). Now with the on going ‘war on terrorism’, the very principles of democracy are being challenged. The painful irony is this, we fight terrorism to defend the freedom our society has so long cherished, but statistics show that the manner we deal with terrorism is in fact eroding this very essence of our democracy – freedom. In the UK, as a result of the police’s overzealousness and the government’s political intrusion in terrorism investigations, twelve (12) young students were detained without any charge, and worse, were even detained longer than what is allowed by law. (Christian 2009: par. 1). Another example to this is the overkill attack of 250 police officers to a house in Forest Gate, London in search of a suspected chemical weapon. As a result, they detained Mohammed Kahar, (who in the process was shot) and his brother Abul by virtue of the Terrorism Act. After eight days of interrogation, they were released without charge. (Dodd 2006: 2) More alarmingly, Worthington (2009: par. 1) reported on the “use of secret evidence against terror suspects in British courts” wherein “one group of men…mostly foreign residents, but also including a handful of British citizens – are ‘terror suspects’, and some of them have spent up to three years imprisoned without charge or trial” (par. 2). Such act is a direct assault on our legal process – the very process that is morally obliged to protect the citizens’ civil liberty. More than that, there was a dramatic increase on incidences showing anti-terror laws’ promote racism especially against Blacks and Asians. Ministry of Justice figures show that stop and searches under the controversial section 44 of the counter-terror legislation soared from 37,197 in 2006-07 to 117,278 in 2007-08. The official statistics also disclose that black and Asian people were disproportionately targeted within the use of stop-and-search operations in the aftermath of the failed London bombing in the Haymarket. (Travis 2009: par. 2) These news stories only affirmed Mythen’s and Walklate’s (2008: 230) observation that the controversial use of control orders in the UK affords the home secretary personal power to tag and track suspects and to keep them under house arrest without formal charges being levied. Basic legal rights – such as the right to a fair trial, privacy, asylum and free movement – are being curtailed because of the fear of terrorism. If this is how the UK government handles ‘war on terrorism’, in the US on the other hand, the government uses an extraordinary rendition to transfer alleged terrorists to countries practicing torture. This practice blatantly bypasses due process and worse, such act is as good as kidnapping, perpetrated by the state itself (Gill 2006: 24) – a heinous act done by the supposed protector of the citizens’ human rights. As to freedom of speech of which Goodall (2006: 31) referred to as “the guiding principle of our democratic society that … is the primary instrument of all other freedoms…” one judge rules that “… when a nation is at war many things that might be said in time of peace are such hindrance… that their utterance will not be endured” (Lewinski, et al., 1988: 102). To Goodall’s (2006: 38) vivid description: Justice was reduced to war in Afghanistan and, later, using the same principle, in Iraq. At home, justice became something else entirely. It became the excuse for passing the ill-named “Patriot Act.” It became the excuse used by the FBI to round up more than 700,000 people on evidence no firmer than the thin suspicions of their neighbors and coworkers. It became a license for hate crimes against Muslims, as well as other women and men who were darker skinned and with foreign surnames or just unusual clothing. And it became a word used to discourage the freedom of speech and the freedom of assembly. With all of these, the question that nags at us today is whether national security justifies the curtailment of civil liberties or not. Is this the right path to strike balance? Is the ‘war on terrorism’ truly defends or negates our democracy? Especially so that “terrorism has an inverse relationship with democracy and human rights” (Mullerson 2005: 1642) that even democracies find it hard “fighting terrorism with clean hands” (1643). Is it right to perceive that compromising the very tenets of democracy in the name of national security would resolve the critical problem of terrorism? History reminds us that terrorism cannot be gotten rid of by sheer brute force and to reason out that one’s security relies on the insecurity that one can inflict on the other is perversion and self-defeating. (Ould Mohamedou 2007: 20) As Rehn (2003: 58) warns, if states choose to defy security regulations, violate human rights, and disregard fundamental freedom, then the basis of these cease, rendering these rules meaningless. In extension, democracy is directly threatened. In the first place, do we know whom we are dealing with? Do we truly understand what are we trading off for what? Just like any other problems, know first what the problem is. If the problem is terrorism, then, learn the terrorism we are dealing with right now. Terrorism “is the activity of dispossesses, the voiceless, in a radically asymmetrical distribution of power…” (Warner 2001: 11). It “involves the use of violence by an organization other than a national government to intimidate a target audience…” Pape (2005: 9). It is “an unbounded threat that could not be assessed with quantitative risk analysis. Unlike natural hazards such as hurricanes and earthquakes, the risk of terrorism has no fixed geography” (Woods 2007: 3) And today, modern terrorism as pointed out by the 9/11 incident and the successive bombings in the UK “communicate messages through the use of orchestrated violence” (Weimann, 2008: 69), because “the political effectiveness of terrorism is importantly determined by the psychological effects of violence on audiences” (Crenshaw 1986: 400). “The terrorist’s message of violence necessitates a victim, whether personal or institutional, but the target or intended recipient of the communication may not be the victim” (Karber 1971: 529). This nature of terrorism necessitates it to work in tandem with mass media. (Wilkinson, 2001: 177) And wittingly or unwittingly, new modern media technologies, specifically the Internet – a computer-mediated communication – a decentralized, uncontrolled and unrestricted medium, provides an easy and free transmission of messages by terrorist organizations. (Tsfati & Weimann 1999, 2002; Weimann 2006, cited in Weimann 2008: 70). With the above description of terrorism, how are we supposed to confront this critical social problem? Two opposing views emerge. One view states that the ‘war on terrorism’ should be understood not as war to “eradicate ‘terrorism.’ Terrorism is just a tool. It is fighting to defeat an ideology: Religious totalitarianism” (Friedman 2001:7). But Western liberals believe otherwise. “Terrorism is not religious totalitarianism in some Third World countries but rather, the policies of Western liberal-democracies in and toward Third World countries that are root causes of terrorism” (Mullerson 2005: 1634) International terrorism is a creature of the United States. It is a result of the unipolar world established in the 1990s and of the crisis of liberalism because Washington is using this international terrorism to finish with the failed liberal project at home and justify the American dominance in the world. (‘The BeslanTragedy’ 2004: 2) However, terrorism is not exclusive to Muslims or to the economically and socially disadvantaged, in like manner, not all Muslims and economically and socially disadvantaged are terrorists. Thus, there is no reason to pit these two views against each other, rather, both should be considered in confronting terrorism. “Responses to terrorism should involve a variety of methods; they should address all the causes and conditions favorable to its emergence and development” (Mullerson 2005: 1634). But, since terrorism is a direct threat to security, it will be unwise to “renounce the use of military and/or law-enforcement measures against terrorists and their accomplices” (1635). It would be preposterous to believe that terrorism could be ended by giving-in to their demands, because “there is no way to appease a fundamentalist” (Etzioni 2004: 65-66), but to work out for a “cultural and humanitarian dialogue across this divide” (Trenin 2002: 196) would be a good approach to lessen the tension. As Goodall (2006: 32) asserts: “We communicate with each other to reduce uncertainty.” In fact, “America was founded on the singular idea that shared communication matters” (31). Terror is the next-to-the last stop along a known trajectory of what happens when people born to use language together fail to communicate… the last stop is not only the end of our cherished democratic way of life but also the end of the possibility of peaceful coexistence within our global community. (32) Although it is true that providing security to its people is the state’s primary duty (Etzioni 2004: 117), especially now, against terrorist attacks – the most blatant disregard of human rights; it should not be construed that this gives the state license to do the same thing, because, terror cannot be won by terror; subverting freedom cannot protect freedom; disregarding civil liberties will not provide security. In other words, “terrorism should not bring any benefits … to terrorists or to their alleged causes” (Mullerson 2005: 1638). As Lord Craig of Radley said: “Terrorism… should never be equated with a threat to ‘national survival’… Curtailing civil rights is playing the game by terrorists’ rules… Creeping irreversible curtailment is the danger today” (cited in Travis 2009: par. 5-6). Government officials typically respond to terrorist attacks by proposing and enacting “antiterrorism” legislation. To assuage the wide-spread anxiety of the populace, policymakers make the dubious claim that they can prevent terrorism by curtailing the privacy and civil liberties of the people. Because everyone wants to be safe and secure, such legislation is usually very popular and passes the legislative process relatively smoothly during times of trouble. . . . This cycle of terrorist attack followed by government curtailment of civil liberties must be broken—or our democracy will eventually lose the key attribute that has made it great: freedom. (Lynch 2002: 1) The risk of international terrorism has become a primary concern of Western governments. Billions of dollars are being spent for the ‘war on terrorism’. Unfortunately, however, “in the affluent West, the penumbra of the politics of risk is shading out pressing global issues” (Mythen & Walktale 2008: 237). For example in the US, the range, degree and nature of international terrorism that threaten the US are profoundly connected with other critical issues. Terrorism has become its big convenient excuse to militarily attack Afghanistan and Iraq and to increase soldier deployment to Iraq in 2007 (Woods 2007: 14-15) of which the US has political and economic interest. “The War on Terror was interpreted … as a war being waged for oil” (Goodall 2006: 51). The message is clear, terrorism is definitely a threat to national security, “although we clearly must defend our societies better against terrorism, we must not in the process erode the very qualities and values that make our societies worth defending” (Weimann 2008: 82). If this is the case, we are no different from the terrorists, because “intensifying repression of civil liberties and exploitation of privacy are far more sinister in the long run than the threat of terrorism, international or domestic” (83). How can we say we are safe, when our basic rights are violated; our civil liberties are curtailed? How can we triumph over a war against terrorism being won at the expense of our democratic principles? Blinded by our fears – rooted from “cultural fear” (Goodall 2006: 39), we willingly support our government wage war to preserve our way of life, yet we consent to the curtailment of our civil liberties – the essence of our democracy, which is the very thing that we are fighting for. We tell ourselves that liberty has its limits; that it is not absolute; that it should be balanced with the need of national security, especially in the face of the threat of terrorism, but we failed to define what national security is – that national security is interwoven into the fibers of our democratic principles; it is where it resides. Meaning to say, national security is the defense of our basic democratic principles. Without these what is being secured in the first place? Yes, we need to fight terrorism, and we have to do that by perfecting the imperfections of our democratic institutions and not by disregarding them or manipulating them to legalize our demonizing of the enemy just to emphasize fear and financing our war not of terrorism but of terrorizing. However, we cannot do that until we come to recognize our fundamental fear. So, what defines the limit of civil liberty? It is no other than the responsibility inherent in it – that civil liberty should be well-protected especially at times when it is most convenient for it to be disregarded, at times when it is seen as an impediment than a guiding light in securing our nation. To fear terrorism is understandable, but abusing terrorism to advance our sinister agenda and to lose our liberty is more frightening. Goodall (2006: 52) is correct to say: We should fear our loss of respect in the world. 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