Of War and Law
Introduction
WAR TODAY
War is a profound topic-like truth, love, death, or the divine.
Intellectuals from every field have cut their teeth on it: political
scientists, historians, ethicists, philosophers, novelists, and literary
critics. But war is not one thing, always and everywhere. People write about
the wars of their own time and their own country.
The wars of my time and my country-the America of the
"postwar" half century-have been varied. We have fought a
cold war, postcolonial wars, and innumerable metaphoric wars on things like
"poverty" and "drugs." Our military has intervened here
and there for various humanitarian and strategic reasons. The current war on
terror partakes of all these. When framed as a clash of civilizations or modes
of life-secular and fundamentalist, Christian and Muslim, modern and
primitive- the war on terror is reminiscent of the Cold War.
Like the Cold War, the war on terror seems greater than the specific conflicts
fought in its name. It transcends the clash of arms in Iraq or Afghanistan. On
their own, those wars res ... read full excerpt from Of War and Law ebook
