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Ethics & International Affairs
Annual Journal of the
Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs
Introduction
Paige Arthur
Abstract
There is no single September 11 effect, if by “effect” we mean the way in which something—an event, for example—has influenced our lives. The simple fact is that last year’s attacks have reorganized the world in which we live in many ways. One year later, Afghanistan has a new government, the United States has a new cabinet-level department, and whole regions of the world have taken on a new significance through their relation to the antiterrorism campaign: Kashmir, Israel and Palestine, Central Asia, the Philippines, and Malaysia, to name a few.
A rather incongruous new language has emerged in September 11’s wake, one that unifies the various discourses on humanitarian intervention, just war, mock war (like the “war on drugs”), the politics of good and evil, and the security concerns of a potent realism. In the rush to provide reasons for particular actions, policymakers and pundits seemed to choose from these discourses at will. This is, perhaps, inevitable when one’s target keeps moving—is it al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Iraq, any terrorist group anywhere, an “axis of evil”?—but it is unsettling. Since it seems that the leaders of the antiterrorist campaign are not starting with well-defined objectives, but rather scripting them to fit as they go along, the public should be more careful in deciding which policies it wants to support.
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