War, Terror, and the Ethics of Extinction
“Violence begets violence” is a phrase famously used by Martin Luther King, Jr. And the “cycle of violence” is a well-known concept in the study of domestic abuse. In the days following 9/11, Harry Browne applied both to war and terrorism.
In those fevered days, Browne was one of the heroic few who bravely stood up to the “tripartisan” consensus among conservatives, liberals, and libertarians then baying for indiscriminate vengeance and displaying a rabid intolerance for dissent. On September 12, he wrote an editorial on Antiwar.com titled “When Will We Learn?” in which he cited the primary role of American state violence abroad in engendering retaliatory violence against the American people, which is what the 9/11 attacks were.
“Did we think the people who lost their families and friends and property in all that destruction would love America for what happened?
When will we learn that violence always begets violence?”
This drew a predictable flood of vituperation (much of it coming from libertarians), to which he responded with a follow-up editorial titled “The Cycle of Violence.” In that piece, he extended the “violence begets violence” principle to the terrorist attacks themselves.