Abstract

In the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, two things happened. The United States went to war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and the Bush administration chose to wage that war without regard to the laws of war and human rights. Samuel Moyn argues that civil liberties and human rights advocates erred in focusing their critiques on the latter rather than the former, and that by doing so, legitimized war by cleansing it of its worst excesses. Instead of worrying about civil liberties and human rights abuses, he suggests, the left should condemn endless war.

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