No Negotiations?

"I said no negotiations, and I mean no negotiations.You're harboring a terrorist. Turn him over."

So said George Bush, after the Taliban's latest offer toturn bin Laden over to a third party. 

No negotiations. Even if it could save seven and a halfmillion lives. 

7.5 million lives. That's one third of Afghanistan'spopulation.

We are willing to kill 7.5 million people because we wantone man handed over directly to us and not to a third party.

Data before the War Against Terrorism was launched saidthere were 22 million displaced people in the world (that's the UNHCR estimate,and it's a severe underestimate according to other data) and that 4.7 million ofthem were Afghani. It said that 13 million children died globally each year fromstarvation, and that the infant mortality rate in Afghanistan was 257 per 1000.After the War Against Terrorism, we're looking at 3.7 million more refugees(according to the Center for Economic and Social Rights) for a total of 8.4million Afghani refugees.

The population of Afghanistan is 22.5 million. Before ourwar, 1 in 5 of those people were refugees. The war takes us to 1 in 3. Beforeour war, they were dying at a rate of about 400,000 a year, according to an oldestimate from 1998. By the end of the war 1/3 of the population could be dead.Yes, that's the same percentage as the projected percentage displaced.

How can anyone make sense of numbers like this? Do you livewith more than three people? Imagine one of them gone. Think about where youwork. Imagine what it would be like with one third of the people dead, or fled,or both, because of starvation and bombs.

The war is illegal, but what if it was legal? There areother diplomatic and legal options that could result in bin Laden's capture, butwhat if there weren't? The Taliban have offered to turn him over to a thirdparty, but what if they didn't mean it? What if the only option was to doabsolutely nothing at all to capture bin Laden? What if the only alternative tothis war was simply to wait for a chance to catch him? To leave him free to planterrorist attacks and leave North America trying to figure out how to protectitself from them? To leave unavenged the deaths of the thousands of people fromall over the world who died on September 11th? Would we then be justified inkilling 1/3 of a country's population? Would we be justified in displacing 1/3of a country's population? Would it then be okay to drop tons of bombs, toreduce the few buildings Afghanistan has to rubble, to fly around in helicoptersat night, land, kill people, and fly away?

These are just projections, though. Maybe it won't be 7.5million people. The figure is always 'as many as 7.5 million'. The refugeeestimates are also, maybe, upper limits.

Fears of instability in Pakistan are now so serious thatthe US and Israel are training commandos to raid that country's nuclear weaponsstore in the case of a coup. But what if the coup doesn't materialize?

The bombs aren't that smart and they aren't that surgical.Red Cross buildings and UN de-mining facilities have been bombed, it's true, butit isn't a 'target-rich' country. (Perhaps the operating principle is that ifyou can't kill who you want, kill who you can reach?) It's been said before,that the country's already been bombed to rubble, so how much damage can morebombing really do?

Reports of civilian casualties in Afghanistan come alwayswith the proviso that 'the Taliban claims.' 'The Taliban claims 10 civilianswere killed in the raid. There is no way to verify this claim.' 'The Talibanclaims the US is using chemical weapons.' The burden of proof is on the peoplewe're bombing.

So what if it's really not so bad? Then the questionbecomes: how many innocent people are you willing to kill and displace in orderto 'get' bin Laden instead of having him turned over to a third party? Forgetthe catastrophic projections and take the absolute most conservative reports ofwhat has already happened. Several thousand refugees and several hundred dead.Is that okay? How much higher are we willing to go? At what point does it becomeno longer worth it? When the bombs themselves kill as many people as died in theWTC?

The Gulf War was called a success because it killed about100,000 Iraqis to less than 300 Americans, a much more favourable ratio than the2 million Vietnamese to 50,000 Americans in the Vietnam war. If we want toenforce the Vietnam ratio, we'll have to stop at 240,000 Afghanis in exchangefor the 6000 Americans who died on September 11. But even attaining the Gulfratio, we have to stop killing long before we reach the upper limits of theprojections of starvation deaths, at 2 million. The sanctions, however, give usthe flexibility we need. If the goal is the ratio of Iraqi deaths from the warand the sanctions combined to the ratio of American deaths, then we have theflexibility we need to wipe out the entire Afghani population.

There was a joke that circulated during Russia's war withAfghanistan that the US was willing to fight Russia 'to the last Afghan'.Perhaps the same applies today. If it doesn't apply to someone you know, pleaseask them to choose a number of Afghanis they are willing to allow to die, andonce that number is reached, ask them to join yourself and those of us whooppose this war.

(By arrangement with Znet)