Achieving Human Rights by Richard Falk

Achieving Human Rights by Richard Falk

Author:Richard Falk [Falk, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Social Sciences
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2008-11-30T18:30:00+00:00


Part IV

Human Rights After 9/11

9

A Descending Spiral

Scope of Inquiry

This chapter is written in the context of discussion within the United States, but seeks to be sensitive to what might be described as “a global perspective.” In this regard, the central point is the degree to which much of the rest of the world, especially at the level of civil society, has grown over time far more disturbed by the American response to the September 11 attacks than by the attacks themselves, and the continuing threat posed by such forms of non-state political violence. In this regard, the impact of September 11 on adherence to human rights standards and on American foreign policy is different than in any other country, including the main American ally, Britain. In one sense, this uneven response is an understandable reflection of the degree to which the United States, its people and interests around the world, are the main target of Al Qaeda-type political violence as exemplified by the 9/11 traumatic experience and by the emphasis given to the United States as “the head of the snake” in the diatribes of Osama Bin Laden. But in another more important sense, this unevenness expresses the critical view of the American governmental response as exaggerated and manipulated, primarily motivated by a geopolitical project to achieve global domination, and related domestic initiatives that inflate the terrorist threat to justify suppressive legal moves within the United States. The overall tactic is to gain a free hand for the government, especially the executive branch, by inducing and sustaining fear of further terrorist attacks among the citizenry.

In view of such considerations, it seems worth questioning whether the label “Age of Terror,” so widely used in American discussions of world order since September 11, including as the subtitle of Michael Ignatieff’s influential A Lesser Evil, is a helpful reminder that there has occurred a seeming shift in perceptual focus from globalization to terrorism.1 Or is this supposed shift motivated by hegemonic ambitions? I believe it is. To describe the global setting in this period as “an age of terror” tends to bias discussion by adopting the rhetorical stance of the U.S. government, which tends to validate a mobilization of energies and resources to conduct the supposed “global war on terror,” conveniently ill-defined as to scope, enemy, and duration. My skepticism about such an attempted centering of terrorism on the global policy agenda serves as the background for assessing the diminished adherence to the core norms of international human rights, especially overseas, as integral to the American response to 9/11. The most truculent of neoconservative militants have provided a rationale for this wartime approach that includes the encouragement of a jingoistic mentality.2 A concluding section depicts three alternative patterns of counter-terrorist policy, each with practical advantages as compared to the American approach: the Turkish push for human rights, the Spanish response to the Madrid train attacks of March 11 (2004), and an enhanced law enforcement model.

An “Age of Terror”? Before moving on it seems



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