‘This is a just war, it has so far been conducted in a just manner, but it runs the risk … of being not only unjust, but catastrophic.’
By: Jeff Milgram
America’s airstrikes against targets in Afghanistan are morally justified, a panel convened by Princeton University’s Center for Human Values said Wednesday.
But expanding the fighting to other countries would be "morally dicey," said panel member Gideon Rose, the managing editor of Foreign Affairs magazine.
Richard Falk, a Princeton University professor emeritus and expert on international law, called the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon "genocidal terrorism" that is "directed by a political animus that seeks to kill indiscriminately Jews and Americans wherever they are."
Dr. Falk, who was a member of a United Nations Commission that investigated human-rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza, said the American military response more than meets the standard for a "just war."
The forum, moderated by bioethics Professor Peter Singer, was to be held in room 101 of McDonald Hall but the audience filled every seat and available floor space. The forum was moved to nearby McCosh Hall after a university Department of Public Safety officer said the crowd presented a fire-safety hazard.
The message from most of the participants was unequivocal.
"This is a just war, it has so far been conducted in a just manner, but it runs the risk … of being not only unjust, but catastrophic," Dr. Falk said.
The precept behind a just war is that force is justified if all efforts short of war have been exhausted, when there is a reasonable chance of winning and the combatants do not deliberately target civilians.
Dr. Falk warned that American overreaction "could ignite an intercivilizational war between the West and Islam." He also said the United States must not use the fight on terrorism "as a pretext for pursuing a much larger agenda" and must minimize civilian deaths.
Michael Walzer of the Institute for Advanced Study, an expert on just wars, also stressed the point that "you must take risks to avoid risks to civilians."
He criticized the rhetoric from the American and European left and said it is more important to defeat terrorism than to understand it.
Dr. Walzer said it is especially wrong to think the terror attacks were the inevitable result of large disparities in wealth.
"Vast inequality just doesn’t work as an explanation for contemporary terrorism," Dr. Walzer said.
Dr. Walzer urged mainstream Muslim intellectuals to "respond to every sermon, every commentary that calls for jihad, and leftist intellectuals need to respond to op-ed pieces defending terrorism.
"Terrorism is wrong no matter what cause it serves," Dr. Walzer said.
"If we can stop terror attacks, it will be a real victory," he added.
James Turner Johnson, a professor of religion at Rutgers University, called the Sept. 11 terror attacks an "overwhelming evil."
"We need to say what evil is and we need to know when to make more distinctions," Dr. Johnson said.
He said the attacks were both criminal acts and an act of war.
He also urged people to understand the distinction between mainstream Muslims and the extremists.
"There is a religious element … but at the same time we have to recognize that it is a religious element that has been condemned by mainstream Islam," Dr. Johnson said.
He said the terrorists’ belief that religion can require violence is "deeply mystifying" to most Westerners.
Mr. Rose looked beyond the current campaign over the skies of Afghanistan.
"We have a moral obligation to help with nation building and help see to it that Afghanistan and its people get a better shot of life," he said.
He also said the American response should not extend the attacks to countries not directly involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Professor Singer was the only one of the panelists who did not endorse the military response. He pointed out that the American government showed evidence that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks to NATO countries and to Pakistan, but refused to show the evidence to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
"At the very least, the U.S. should have presented that evidence to the Taliban" before launching the airstrikes, he said.

