Law and Right

摘要

Within a few days after the al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001 (9/11), I found myself at a vigil for its victims in Berlin, Germany, with the Cardinal-Archbishop of Berlin, Georg Sterzinsky. Stripping away the verbiage about "just war," Cardinal Sterzinsky said the United States had the right to bring the perpetrators to justice through violence but should not overreact, that is, should respond only in a way commensurate with the attack itself.