BY YOSHI JOHNSON

In print | Published February 14, 2008

The headline is the result of a paper I wrote last semester; it’s a moral quandary that unsettles me still. Check it: So, I don’t know if you’ve heard it through the media grapevine of late, but al Qaeda cells have been pursuing nuclear capabilities. The terrorist cells would presumably launch a nuclear attack on an American city. Aww-right, tawk amungst yaselves cuz I’m feeling verklempt.

Seriously, though, not to feed into “war on terror” hype, but it’s a scary thought, and it hits close to home for some of us job-seekers of the hope-to-be-New-Yorker variety. One BBC retrospective on 9/11 that I read gave the response of one man who, although afraid, deplored the plans of these “murderers” as morally bankrupt. This statement got me thinking, though, about these sorts of reactions. It struck me as so self-righteous, especially in light of current and past U.S. actions, the kind that have contributed to the rise of blowbacks like 9/11. Hadn’t we, after all, heard the same charges of moral depravity from countless Vietnamese families affected by the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War? Haven’t Iraqis, more recently, decried Americans as imperial murderers for the shameful actions of American soldiers at Haditha?

These examples, of course, are of actions not expressly ordered or condoned by our government. Still there is a host of morally inconvenient, direct actions by our government: namely, our involvement with nefarious elements around the world, which is a well-documented historical trend. Remember, for example, our Saudi-coordinated and widely cited collusion with Osama bin Laden back in the 1980s, when he was waging a terrorist campaign to oust Soviet occupiers from Afghanistan? (Or wait, was it freedom fighting back then?)

And how about the U.S. government’s consistent failure to obtain a democratically vetted mandate for many of its military and political actions abroad? Saying that our government acts in the national interest—that is, the interest of its people—is about the only way to render this question as a moral one. Unfortunately, though, this way of thinking doesn’t lead to clear answers either. Our leaders, you see, have consistently undertaken violent actions without obtaining the constitutionally mandated consent of the people, which, pursuant to the constitution, means a declaration of war from the Congress, or by looser standards of democracy, the widespread, sustained support of the people. The national will was never mobilized in support of the Vietnam War, and yet the U.S. maintained a presence in the region for a decade. Neither was it mobilized for various interventions in Central and South America or the humanitarian interventions of the 1990s.

In a democracy, the will of the people is foundational to the state’s legitimacy—the national will is “the moral factor,” if you will—and so the lack of formal mandates for U.S. military actions is a crucial determinant of the relative morality of the United States’ violent political actions. Without the support of the people, in fact, the United States’ violent political actions are little more than elites acting in what they conceive to be the nation’s best interests. A small group of elites acting in the name and on behalf of a large, non-consensual mass of people—sound familiar? That’s exactly how al Qaeda is dismissed when it claims to act on the behalf of, say, Iraqis, but that is exactly how I conceive of the Bush administration’s misguided foray into Iraq.

In pointing out these moral ambiguities, my intent is not to equivocate endlessly. Rather, I am simply attempting to illustrate the nebulous moral distinctions between the United States’ violent actions and those of an al Qaeda cell. From a strictly moral perspective, I am emphasizing just how immoral, or more appropriately, amoral any violent action is, regardless of the perpetrator. Simply put, perhaps the moral question is not the right question to ask when considering al Qaeda, the United States and issues of political violence – terrorist- or state-perpetrated.

So with all of this said, is Al Qaeda morally justified in attacking an American city with a nuclear bomb? In a word, yes. Not to be mistaken, I believe that killing innocent civilians is morally wrong, and that more generally, killing is just plain wrong. As with any supposedly democratic state actor, though, I would expect that terrorist cells operate opportunistically and strategically to achieve their objectives. Morality may be the talk on both sides, but that doesn’t mean that either side walks the walk. Rather, the walk is a decidedly brutal dance of power, which leaves no question as to the amoral nature of the game: All’s fair in war and war. As much as I hope that a nuclear attack doesn’t happen, I am loathe to cast stones so quickly and smugly when, from someone else’s perspective, there is just as much blood on my hands as anyone else’s. Perhaps I’ve just come to accept the fact that I will be held responsible for the government that purports to represent me.

I cried when I got home from school on September 11, watching the towers fall over and over again on TV. I was afraid and helpless, and of course, angry. But now, I feel ashamed of those selfish tears, and the next time around, I don’t know exactly how I’ll react. If I cry nowadays, there are still some selfish tears, but there are a lot for the people who die by my complicity. I can indict people as murderers all I want, so long as I save some moralistic vitriol for me and mine, but I should probably stick to serious self-reflection—and leave the moralizing to the hypocrites I elect to do my dirty work.

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