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US counterterrorism measures since 9/11: The politics and morality of law and exception

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Abstract

Despite the proliferation of studies concerning 9/11, the academic field struggles to find a coherent framework within which to position arguments over terrorism and the measures to which it has given rise. The political, moral and ethical sensitivities of these topics – especially heightened in the United States– have become manifest as an uncomfortable, ambiguous relation between governance and the production of knowledge. The scholarship reviewed here reflects upon this relation at different times and from different perspectives, and as such takes on a new significance when explored comparatively.

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Notes

  1. subsequently, ‘AUMF’.

  2. subsequently, ‘WoT’.

  3. This seeming totality is impressed repeatedly upon us in particular via the global media, who – despite the fact that Obama called an official end to the ‘War on Terrorism’ (only to replace it with the far less memorable title of ‘overseas contingency operations’) in 2009 (Ralph, 2013, p. 46) – are likely nonetheless to continue to advertise such a successful brand (see Hoskins & O’Loughlin, 2007).

  4. A term coined by the Legal Advisor to the US Department of State, Harold Koh in 2010. In ‘The Obama Administration and International Law’. Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law, 25/03/2010. Cited in Ralph (2013, p. 139). Available at: http://www.state.gov/s/l/releasese/remarks/139119.htm.

  5. Library of Congress, Cline papers, box 53, folder 1, ‘Conferences and meetings’. Jonathan Institute Bulletin, October 1979. Quoted in Stampnitzky (2013, Loc. 2194).

  6. The authors make reference here to a Gallup poll in which 7 per cent of those surveyed thought that the 9/11 attacks were ‘completely’ justified, while only 1 per cent thought the same of terrorist attacks in general (Pew Research Centre, 2006).

  7. The intention to maintain US hegemony while acting as if it were just one among a number of equal states is alluded to on a number of occasions (Blum and Heymann, 2010, p. 38).

  8. This silence is understandable given the time of its publication, only a short time after Obama’s inauguration, and what’s more the moral portrayal of the new President is representative of the atmosphere of intense hope surrounding his victory.

  9. Barack Obama, ‘Wars of Reason, Wars of Principle’. Speech to Chicago Anti-War Rally, 26/10/2002. Quoted in Ralph (2013, p. 42). Available at: http://www.tnj.com/archives/2004/september2004/final_word.php.

  10. Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, US Supreme Court. 2006. Available at http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2005/2005_05_184.

  11. Boumediene v. Bush, US Supreme Court. 2008. Available at http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2007/2007_06_1195. Cited in Ralph (2013, p. 96).

  12. In purely practical terms, Blum and Heymann suggest that the impasse on this particular point may be circumvented by an adaptation of the criminal law paradigm so as to allow the trial process to be undertaken ‘virtually’ in US federal courts, thus giving the terrorist criminal status and the right to due process under Rule 5 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (2010, p. 101), while simultaneously easing the fears of conservatives. This is certainly a fix that deserves further exploration.

  13. The view of Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, John Brennan. Harvard Law School, 16/09/2011. Cited in Ralph (2013, p. 52). Available at: http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/09/john-brennan-remarks-at-hls-brookings-conference/.

  14. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 9. Available at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm. Quoted in Ralph (2013, p. 88).

  15. John Brennan. Harvard Law School, 2011. See above, footnote 11.

  16. President Bush, commencement address at the United States Military Academy, West Point, reprinted by The New York Times, 1 June 2002. Quoted in Stampnitzky (2013, Loc. 3251).

  17. Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion in Boumediene v. Bush. 2008. Available at: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/06-1195.ZD1.html. Quoted in Ralph (2013, p. 98).

  18. Many have reflected of 9/11 that they felt they had seen something like it before in Hollywood blockbusters (Stampnitzky, 2013, Loc. 3128; Žižek, 2002), a notion that perhaps inspired the task of ‘imagining’ the exceptional event put to the film directors Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich) and David Fincher (Seven; Fight Club) among others at a 2001 emergency meeting of what James Der Derian (cited in Diken and Laustsen, 2004, p. 91) calls MIME-NET (The Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment-Network).

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Mutter, S. US counterterrorism measures since 9/11: The politics and morality of law and exception. Int Polit Rev 2, 19–29 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/ipr.2014.5

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