terrorism
9/11: Ten years later
To mark the anniversary of 9/11, we asked five Century contributors to reflect on the attacks and the decade that followed.
Why do we call it 9/11?
Despite all the attention given to remembering the al-Qaeda attacks of
September 11, 2001, little attention has been given to one conspicuous
aspect--the event has no name.
Tortured: A dangerous policy
It's easy enough to say that torture is bad (though it took President Bush a while to do so). But how does one address this classic ethical dilemma: a nuclear bomb is ticking somewhere in an urban area. The bomb-setter has been captured but refuses to divulge the bomb's location. Does one honor the rule against torture, or use whatever methods it takes, including torture, to get information that will save millions of lives?
Even in this case, there's no guarantee that torture will produce accurate information. But the argument remains—an undeniable good might be done for innumerable innocents at the expense of evil performed on a single evil one.