We know, for example, that according to the CIA Fact Bookthe population of Afghanistan, a few months back, was just under 27 millionpeople. Life expectancy at birth was 47 years. More than two thirds ofAfghanistan’s citizens were not only unlikely to reach 50 years of age, butwere also illiterate. Telephone service and use was sporadic. There were about100,000 TVs, or less than one for every 200 citizens. In the whole country,there were 24 kilometers of railroad—yes, that’s what the CIA site Iconsulted said—and under 3,000 kilometers of paved road, or roughly the sameas a single highway across the U.S. If that’s off, the point is still evident.There were ten airports with paved runways.
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Even worse than the stark poverty of the country,Afghanistan had undergone nearly ten years of war with the Soviet Union and theaftermath of that had been ruinous. Thus, weeks back UN and other internationalAID agencies announced that without a substantial effort at relief this wintercould see up to 7 million deaths from starvation.
Into this already woeful context the U.S. first infusedpanic that in turn aggravated hunger by demanding that Pakistan close itsborders and curtailing food for nearly four weeks. The threat of bombingprovoked mass migrations of fearful civilians seeking solace. Not satisfied withthat contribution to this desperate country, the U.S. has now added to the mixB1 and B52 bombers, stealth missiles, and who knows what other deadly ordnance.And having put the population into hysteria and flight, having disrupted meagerpaths of travel and what little electrification and other services the countryhad, having closed borders, having curtailed food deliveries, having induced anexodus of AID workers, all at a time of possible calamitous starvation, we havebegun dropping along with the bombs enough food to feed about 30,000 people aday, one out of every 100 to 200 of those at risk, assuming it continues. Askedwhether food was dropped in Taliban regions its been reported that the answeroffered was no, so, supposing that was accurate, we are dropping the food inregions covering about 10% of the country.
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The current strategy of all this is not complex. Firstthrow the nation into turmoil. Aggravate conditions of life and deathdesperation in the population. Undermine, in that way, support for the Taliban.Collapse the Taliban, and presumably, in time, find and kill bin Laden. Leave toacclaim. Turn the journalistic cameras in another direction. Hope the innocentdeaths go unnoticed, obscured by the hoopla proclaiming our largesse.
Of course, international law has been violated. Worse, themechanism for attaining illegal vigilante prosecution has been a policy whichknowingly and predictably will kill many, perhaps even huge numbers of innocentcivilians. We take access to food away from millions and then give food back totens of thousands while bombing the society into panic and dissolution. This isterrorism, attacks on civilians to gain political ends, with a patina of publicrelations. It is utmost injustice, masked by utmost obfuscation.
Why? The answer is not to reduce the prospects of terrorattacks. The U.S. government and all mainstream media warn their likelihood willincrease, both out of short term desire to retaliate, and, over the longer haul,due to producing new reservoirs of hate and resentment. The answer is not to getjustice. Vigilantism is not justice but the opposite, undermining internationalnorms of law. The answer is not to reduce actual terror endured by innocentpeople. Our actions are themselves hurting civilians, perhaps in multitudinousnumbers.
No, all the rhetoric aside, the answer is that the U.S.wishes to send a message and to establish a process. The message, as usual, isdon't mess with us. We have no compunction about wreaking havoc on the weak anddesperate. The process, also not particularly original since Ronald Regan andGeorge Bush senior had similar aspirations, is to legitimate a "war onterrorism" as a lynchpin rationale for both domestic and internationalpolicy-making.
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This "war on terrorism" is meant to serve like the ColdWar did. We fight it with few if any military losses. We use it to induce fearin our own population and via that fear to justify all kinds of elite policiesfrom reducing civil liberties, to enlarging the profit margins of militaryindustrial firms, to legitimating all manner of international polices aimed atenhancing U.S. power and profit, whether in the MidEast or elsewhere.
The coming days are not going to be easy. The attacks ofSept 11 produced immediate fear and reflex nationalism devoid of attention toevidence and logic. But progressive voices were heard, and were making greatprogress, opening ever wider constituencies to consider broader issues ofinternational policy and prospects. There will be a reversal in that momentum inthe next few days, but if progressive voices persist, lost ground will quicklybe regained. Questions as to the morality and rationality of answering huge andawful Sept 11 terror with even greater terror, of answering barbariccalamity with barbaric catastrophe, of answering ignorant fanaticism with highlyeducated jingoism will surface, and such questions will begin to turn back thetide of this militarism.
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(By arrangement with Zmag)
