Gary Dempsey

About the author: Gary Dempsey is a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian public policy think tank.

Some people have described the September 11 terrorist incidents in New York and Washington as "crimes against humanity" and have argued that the perpetrators should be captured, charged, and tried in an international court. However, treating terrorism as a criminal justice problem has failed in the past to deter terrorists or to hold foreign governments responsible for harboring or sponsoring terrorists. The terrorist assaults were acts of war against the American people. The U.S. government must respond accordingly by going to war against the perpetrators of those acts in order to protect Americans from more attacks.

Aglobal coalition of human rights groups described the ghastly terrorist...