Thus, initially, the U.S. was the victim of a terrorist attack. However, the perpetrator-victim dichotomy was eliminated with the U.S.'s offensive attack against Iraq, or as the Bush administration specifically claimed, 'Saddam Hussein's regime.' When this happened, institutional violence was enforced, giving the U.S. The "license" to seek revenge because of the extent and seriousness that the attack has caused the country and the world. However, the target of the U.S. offensive attack was like McVeigh: Hussein is considered innocent until proven guilty. Indeed, the absence of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq only reflected that the offensive attack was made to destabilize Hussein, and not simply a case of seeking justice for the 9/11 attack. Justice, then, becomes retributive and unfair justice. In Sarat's analysis,...

is "a killing state in which violence is met with violence, and the measure of our sovereignty as a people is found in our ability both to make laws carrying the penalty of death and to translate those laws into a calm, bureaucratic bloodletting."
Iadicola and Shupe's and Sarat's analyses of institutional violence reinforced the thinking that in the contemporary society, there exists various interpretations and meanings for violence and justice. Because of this non-universality of meanings and interpretations, human society continually deal with the question of what is right and wrong, what is just and unjust.

Works Cited

Iadicola, P. And A. Shupe. (2003). Violence, Inequality, and Human Freedom. Rowman & Littlefield.

Sarat, A. (2001). When the State Kills: Capital Punishment and the American Condition. Princeton UP.