A Radical Humanitarian Doctrine

For many Americans, what takes place out in the world only occurs in the newspapers or online, and never knocks at their door. The 9/11 terrorist attack changed things but only for a short time, and after several years, the fear of another large-scale attack on the home front died down, while the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan took place far beyond the border. Since then, a noble idea has flourished in certain quarters: the notion that we should do everything we can to avoid causing other people to suffer, even if it means putting our own lives at risk.

So long as the risk was mostly theoretical, given America’s wealth and power, such posturing came without a price. I once asked a professor at a prestigious university if he would be willing to torture someone who knew the whereabouts of ten nuclear bombs about to explode in American cities, so as to disarm them and prevent a catastrophe. With the face of a man who never lived in real life, but who lived in thought, he proudly said no, and declared that he would rather die than inflict pain on another person.