Un-Just War Against Terrorism and the Struggle to Appropriate Human Rights

Abstract

Although there are compelling reasons not to define the struggle against mega-terrorism as a "war," for purposes of moral evaluation of defensive measures, Just War standards provide an essential second line of defense for human rights norms as well as a counsel of strategic prudence. Taking the sum of its policies in the wake of 9/11 it is evident that the Bush administration has failed to satisfy those standards even as it continues the effort of the American Right, launched during the administration of Ronald Reagan, to appropriate human rights for their purposes.