The Wrong Lessons from September 11

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Source: Human Rights Watch
One might have expected the governmental response to the terrorist attacks of September 11 to champion the importance of not treating people as means to an end but of respecting their rights as individual human beings. Human rights should be respected not only because it is the right thing to do but also because it provides the only hope of effectively undermining the destructive logic of terrorism. Sadly, the U.S. government never took that insight to heart. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were not only a tragedy for the victims and their families. They were also a searing reminder that radical groups today can commit acts of enormous violence and impact. The attacks showed with unmistakable clarity the extent to which certain extremist Islamist groups, far from the mainstream yet with global ambitions, have internalized the idea that the ends justify the means, that any civilian living in a state perceived as hostile is a legitimate target. One might have expected the governmental response to that threat to champion the principle so flouted by the extremists-the importance of not treating people as means to an end but of respecting their rights as individual human beings. Governments should have understood the need to respect human rights not only because it is the right thing to do but also because it provides the only hope of effectively undermining the destructive logic of terrorism.

Sadly, the U.S. government never took that insight to heart. As the target of the attacks five years ago, no government played a more important role in shaping the global response to terrorism. Yet Washington's response instead reinforced the dangerous view that laudable ends can justify brutal means.

Following the terrorist attacks, many Americans understandably wanted their government to do anything possible that might protect them from terrorism. The Bush administration exploited that fear to push through various measures with scant regard to international human rights standards. Systematic prisoner abuse, widespread detention without trial, and proposed kangaroo courts were the result. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and secret CIA prisons became the unfortunate symbols of U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Even within the United States, the rights of many Muslim men were compromised through the misuse of laws such as those on detaining immigrants and "material witnesses." Governments around the world, in turn, exploited the U.S. government's example to launch or defend repression of their own.

These abuses are wrong as a matter of fundamental rights. Though done in the name of protection from terrorism, they are also counterproductive. Fighting terrorism effectively requires not just stopping existing terrorists but also preventing the generation of new ones. By all accounts, U.S. abuses in the name of fighting terrorism have been a boon to terrorist recruiters. The loss of the moral high ground has made it harder to dissuade angry young men from resorting to the deliberate killing of civilians.

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