Five years after the only September 11 that will ever seem to matter, the world is awakening to the potential consequences of the Bush Administration’s apocalyptic reaction to the events of that most horrible day. Public opinion in Europe and the United States is growing toward consensus: President Bush’s all-or-nothing “war on terror” is itself a grave threat to global stability in the 21st century. The 9-11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington were so horrifying the early tone of absolutism adopted by the Bush Administration seemed natural enough. Nobody blanched when on September 14, 2001 President Bush intoned, “every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” In his greatest fit of hyperbole, President Bush declared that the aim of America’s war on terror was to “to rid the world of evildoers”? This desire is understandable, even admirable, as a visceral reaction to the events of September 11. Who would
Life & Death, Faith & Doubt, Here & There