The war against terror must have higher aims than returning us to undisturbed normal life. The war against terror implies a rejection of blackmail as a method in international relations, it implies a demand that power and accountability be articulated coherently, and it implies that the expression of resentments be directed toward the enhancement and clarification of existing modes of civility and reconciliation rather than their destruction. And the war on terror has led to a historic break in American foreign policy, an alignment of American interests with liberty throughout the world which requires an alignment of the world with this shift in order to ensure its permanence. All this suggests the need for international associations that are sympathetic with declared U.S. aims, first of all in Afghanistan and Iraq, but at the same time capable of gaining the credibility to act as an independent judge of the correspondence of those aims with actions. The traditional human rights community (like Amnesty International) and the international left have completely destroyed their own credibility on these concerns, and the right, even the neo-conservative universalists, can never be unequivocally devoted to them. Perhaps petitions like this represent a fresh start in this direction. |
