Just War on Terror?

A Christian and Muslim Response

Brian Wicker, David Fisher

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317109860
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Following the 9/11 attacks by Al-Qa'ida, President Bush declared war on terror. In the succeeding years, Western governments have struggled to find the right way to respond to the new and deadly threat posed by terrorism. With the election of President Obama the rhetoric has softened and policies have been adjusted but the underlying problems and challenges remain the same. Meanwhile, the war on terrorism in Afghanistan has been intensified. Drawing on just war teaching as developed within both Christian and Muslim traditions, this book examines whether, and how, liberal democracies can combat the new global terrorism both effectively and justly. The authors, including distinguished academics from both sides of the Atlantic, Christian and Muslim theologians, former senior civil servants and a General, deploy a wide range of experience and expertise to address one of the most difficult and pressing ethical challenges to contemporary society.

Chapter 1
Introduction: A Clash of Civilisations?

David Fisher and Brian Wicker

Very occasionally there are events of such dramatic, world-wide impact that nearly everyone can remember where they were when the news broke. One such event was the terrorist attack on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001 that killed nearly three thousand civilians.

Why was the event so memorable? In part, because we all saw the riveting TV images of the two, apparently slow and cumbersome, civilian airliners crashing into the Twin Towers, in what was thought initially to be an accident. It soon became clear that this was no accident but a devastating attack by a terrorist group, whose name – Al-Qa‘ida – would soon echo chillingly around the world.

Terrorism and terrorist attacks killing many innocent civilians are not new phenomena. But there were a number of disturbing novel features in this new brand of terrorism.

It came as a terrible shock to Americans that their country was once more under direct attack, the first time since Pearl Harbor. With the ending of the Cold War, it had been fondly supposed that such threats had gone away. It was thought that, if military forces were to have continuing utility, it would be to fight distant wars in support of broader national and even humanitarian interests, such as the 1999 NATO operation to protect the Muslim inhabitants of Kosovo from Serbian ethnic cleansing. The 9/11 attack – as it quickly became known – once more put self-defence at the top of the security agenda. It underlined, with stark clarity, the duty of a Government to defend its citizens – innocent civilians – from such hostile attack.

Attacking civilians is not a new terrorist tactic. But what was disturbing about the 9/11 assault was that it had been aimed at maximising civilian deaths, with apparent disregard for how this might adversely affect support for the terrorists’ cause. It had also been perpetrated by people willing to lose their own lives in the process. Against such unrestrained and suicidal attacks it was difficult to offer direct defence, as the 9/11 assault itself dramatically illustrated. But nor did it seem likely that such terrorists could be deterred by the threat of force, however great the threat posed. Indeed, the terrorists might merely welcome the chance of self-immolating martyrdom. In the Cold War we had relied for our protection upon deterrence through the threat of reprisal and direct defence. But neither now appeared effective against the new terrorist threat.

A further worrying feature was that the attack had been mounted in the USA from far afield, in Afghanistan. It demonstrated that the terrorists had a global reach and capacity. This was achieved by a novel approach of outsourcing their operations through local operatives, both local groups and individuals. It also soon became clear that the terrorists were very adept at exploiting new technology, as illustrated by the way they used the internet to recruit and train their operatives, as well as to publicise their grisly exploits.

But for many in the West what was the most disturbing feature of the new terrorism was its overtly ideological and religious origin and objectives. This was made clear by Osama bin Laden in a variety of pronouncements and fatwas. In these he declared that, ‘to kill the Americans and their allies – civilians and military – is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible.’1 Such assaults were to be mounted not just in support of specific objectives, such as the withdrawal of US forces from Saudi Arabia, but also to achieve much broader aims, such as the abolition of democracy and the establishment of a universal Islamic caliphate and sharia law. Moreover, while the 9/11 attack had not employed weapons of mass destruction, bin Laden, when asked about acquiring chemical or nuclear weapons, had declared that, ‘acquiring such weapons for the defence of Muslims is a religious duty.’2 The devastation that could be wrought by such determined terrorists, if armed with weapons of mass destruction, presented a chilling prospect.

The diffusion of aims of the new terrorists was doubly disturbing. It was disturbing because such broad aims appeared beyond the reach of political negotiation. Terrorist campaigns often end in some form of political negotiation. But how could one negotiate with terrorists who apparently wanted to plunge Western society back to a pre-Reformation, pre-democratic past?

It was also very disturbing that this declaration of war on behalf of Islam against the Christian West seemed to betoken a new religious crusade. But this time the crusade was in reverse, from East to West. It seemed to signal the opening shots in the very ‘clash of civilisations’ and ‘war between civilisations’ against which Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington had prophetically warned at the start of the previous decade.3 Muslim and Christian scholars, including the present editors, had devoted much time and effort trying to disprove Huntington’s thesis and affirming the substantial overlap between the Muslim and Christian traditions. Indeed, the concluding words of a 1998 book by such scholars had been that, ‘The much vaunted clash between Islamic and Christian cultures is thus a myth.’4 But had Huntington been right all along? The 9/11 attack seemed to suggest that, far from a myth, the war between civilisations had already begun.

Faced with a new and deadly terrorist threat, Western Governments have been uncertain how it should be countered. President Bush promptly declared war not just on the terrorists who had attacked America but on Terror itself. With the election of President Obama, the rhetoric of war has been softened and some policies adjusted. But the problems and challenges to liberal democracy posed by terrorism still remain. Obama may talk less of war but he has substantially increased the US commitment to the war being waged against terrorists in Afghanistan. The need for liberal democracies to wage war on terror has also recently been robustly defended by Philip Bobbitt, a distinguished US academic and former Democrat adviser, in his widely acclaimed book, Terror and Consent.5 His views are critically examined by a number of contributors.

Is a war against terror the right way to proceed? The American public mostly rallied behind the flag of a ‘war on terror.’ It is argued that only war will mobilise the resources and effort needed to defeat the new enemy. But many Europeans have expressed doubt whether a war against an abstract noun and a policy that appeared to prejudge the appropriate response always in favour of military action was the right way to proceed. Such doubts have been most clearly articulated by the British military historian Michael Howard who explains and develops his concerns in Chapter 5. Philip Bobbitt offers a response to these and other criticisms in the Afterword.

But, even if it is conceded that war is, at least sometimes, an appropriate response, there is still confusion on what grounds and how that war is to be conducted. Force can be used to protect a democratic society from attack. But can force be used to promote the spread of democratic values as a way of countering the spread of terrorism? If defence and deterrence are no longer effective against the new terrorist threat, how is a Government to fulfil its duty to protect its citizens? To counter the new threat it was argued that a new strategy was required, based on a doctrine of pre-emption – attacking the terrorist enemy before he can attack our country and people. This doctrine may offer a way to protect innocent civilians from attack but faces its own challenges and is difficult to reconcile with just war thinking, as David Fisher explains in Chapter 7. There are concerns over the legitimacy of using force not just to protect democracy but to promote democratic values, as Shenaz Bunglawala, Rosemary Durward and Paul Schulte examine in Chapter 9. There are also concerns whether Western Governments have given sufficient attention to non-military options for countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The risks of nuclear terrorism and options to counter this by non-military means are explored by Nick Ritchie in Chapter 12.

A further challenge is how to acquire intelligence about the activities of the terrorists. In the Cold War intelligence had been acquired primarily by technical means, including satellites tracking the movement of men and materiel. But such operations are of little assistance against the new threat. There is no massing of armies and armaments to observe. Locally recruited terrorist operatives can hide themselves amongst the civilian population. Their weapons, though few and secret, can be deadly. Information about forthcoming attacks is in the terrorist’s head, not visible from military manoeuvres on the ground. So how is life-saving information to be acquired? It was argued that new intelligence-gathering techniques, including new interrogation methods, were required. Pre-emptive intelligence can save lives. But, as David Omand explores in Chapter 8, if public trust is to be maintained, the methods employed to acquire such intelligence have to be morally acceptable. A delicate and difficult balance has to be struck, not between public security and human rights, but rather between an individual’s right to security and his or her right to privacy and liberty.

The confusion amongst Governments has been not only about the right strategy and tactics to counter the new terrorist threat. There is also moral confusion. We are living in extreme times, so extreme measures have to be considered. In such dangerous times old-fashioned ethical constraints, it was suggested, are no longer relevant. Just war teaching might help guide our thinking about conventional, industrial inter-state, war. But could it help with this new kind of war and the many and multifarious responses that might be required to counter the new terrorist threat?

Paul Schulte explores some of these difficulties, including those presented by the battlefield application of new technology and tactics – the so-called Fourth Generation Warfare – in Chapter 11. These doubts are real and insistent. But we believe that the challenges they present to ethical thought can and must be overcome. In responding to a terrorist threat – however new and deadly it may seem and by whatever means are required – a liberal democracy must still exercise ethical restraint. For, otherwise, we risk compromising the very values we are seeking to defend. Moreover, whatever its imperfections, there is no better source for ethical guidance than the just war thinking that has developed since the times of St Augustine.

That tradition, as it has developed, insists that a military operation will only be just if undertaken with competent authority, for a just cause, with a right intention, as a last resort, and if the harm judged likely to result is not disproportionate to the good to be achieved, taking into account the probability of success; while in its conduct the principles of proportion and the immunity of innocents from direct attack should be complied with; and the operation should end in the establishment of a just peace.

These just war counsels, while couched in the language of war, apply to any use of military force. Their teaching is not tied to a particular mode of warfare, such as industrial inter-state warfare. Indeed, the tradition, dating back to St Augustine in the fifth century AD, long predates the nineteenth- and twentieth-century model of industrial inter-state war.

So, just war teaching, suitably refashioned, can still help guide our thinking about the new terrorist threat. Just war principles underpin our moral appraisal of the actions of terrorists. The 9/11 attack, aimed at maximising civilian casualties, is condemned because it was in clear breach of both the principles of proportion and the immunity of innocents from direct attack. The principles also furnish the ethical constraints that should guide how we, in turn, respond to terrorist attacks. We explore this in more detail in subsequent chapters. In Chapter 11 Hugh Beach traces how just war thinking has helped shape the development of a new US counterinsurgency doctrine, now being implemented in current operations in Afghanistan.

The just war principles, while most fully developed within a tradition of Christian thinking about war, are not, nor were ever intended to be, principles of appeal only to Christians. Indeed, the principles were developed by Aquinas and others within the natural law tradition of the church and were intended to be of appeal to men and women of reason anywhere. Most importantly, these ethical constraints are also reflected within Islamic thinking about war and peace, as the chapters by Tim Winter and Ahmad Achtar make clear. Islamic teaching sets tight limits to defensive jihad. The slaughter of innocents is as roundly condemned in mainstream Islamic teaching as it is in mainstream Christian thought, as well as in enlightened secular thinking.

So did 9/11 signal the start of a war between civilisations? Our answer is that it did not. Nor should it be allowed to be presented as if it did. Within both Christian and Islamic traditions there are extremist fringes, whether right-wing Christian fundamentalists in America, whose views Richard Lock-Pullan examines in Chapter 4, or the Salafist/Islamist extremists within Islam, whose influence Ahmad Achtar traces in Chapter 3. Al-Qa‘ida – Achtar concludes – is a new, unique and fringe phenomenon within the Islamic scene. Such extremist fringes should not be confused with the central core of believers. Nor should their exaggeration of differences be allowed to obscure the common ground shared by both traditions. For Christians, as Brian Wicker explores in Chapter 5, there is an alternative vision of how mankind could be organised, as a community of diverse peoples, each with its own culture and history, but united in love for the common good of all.

Concern for the common good is central to the three Abrahamic faiths. Islam and Christianity are religions ‘of the book’, sharing, along with Judaism, a prophetic tradition, sacred literature and moral code. Our histories and cultures have been intertwined, each drawing from the other and both drawing from secular, particularly ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, that itself inspired the just war tradition. There always was, is and will remain an immense overlap between the traditions. The Al-Qa‘ida extremists are thus as much at war with mainstream Islamic thinking as with mainstream Christian thinking and enlightened secular thought. The clash of Islamic and Christian cultures was a myth when Huntington first proclaimed it in 1993. It is still a myth.

1 World Islamic Front Statement, 22 February 1998. The text is quoted in full in the Appendix to Chapter 4, ‘Arguments Concerning Resistance in Contemporary Islam’ by John Kelsay in Richard Sorabji and David Rodin (eds.), The Ethics of War (Aldershot, 2006) pp. 89–91.

2 Osama bin Laden, ‘Conversation with Terror,’ interview by Rahimilla Yusufzai, Time, (11 January 1999), p. 39.

3 ‘A clash of civilisations’ was forecast by Bernard Lewis, ‘The roots of Muslim rage,’ Atlantic Monthly, 266, (September 1990), p. 60. It was taken up by Samuel Huntington who warned against ‘a war between civilisations’ in Samuel Huntington, ‘The clash of civilisations?’ Foreign Affairs, 72 (3) (Summer 1993), pp. 22–49.

4 Harfiyah Haleem, Oliver Ramsbotham, Saba Risaluddin, Brian Wicker (eds.), The Crescent and the Cross – Muslim and Christian Approaches to War and Peace (Basingstoke and New York, 1998), p. 214.

5 Philip Bobbitt, Terror and Consent –The Wars for the Twenty-First Century (London and New York, 2008).

PART ONE
The Role of Religion in Shaping Terrorism and the Responses to it

Chapter 2
Terrorism and Islamic Theologies of Religiously-Sanctioned War

Tim Winter

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Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• 1 Introduction: A Clash of Civilisations?
• Part One The Role of Religion in Shaping Terrorism and the Responses to it
• 2 Terrorism and Islamic Theologies of Religiously-Sanctioned War
• 3 Challenging Al-Qa‛ida's Justification of Terror
• 4 Challenging the Political Theology of America’s ‘War on Terror’
• Part Two Responding to the Terrorist Threat
• 5 Philip Bobbitt's Terror and Consent: a Brief Critique
• 6 Just War and State Sovereignty
• 7 Terror and Pre-Emption – Can Military Pre-Emption ever be Just?
• 8 How Much of Our Liberties and Privacy do We Need to Give Up for Public Security?1
• Part Three New Ways to Counter the Threat
• 9 Just Wars, Just Outcomes – Reconciling Just Outcomes in Military Intervention
• 10 ‘Eating Soup with a Knife' – Counterinsurgency and Just War.
• 11 Going Off the Reservation into the Sanctuary–Cross-Border Counter-Terrorist Operations, Fourth Generation Warfare and the Ethical Insufficiency of Contemporary Just War Thinking
• 12 Countering the Threat of Nuclear Terrorism
• Part Four Afterword: Concluding Reflections
• 13 A Re-emphasis more than a Reply
• 14 Countering Terrorism Justly – Reflections Nine Years After 9/11
• Bibliography
• Index