9-11 (13 page)

If these reactions are accurate, then the immediate effect of the bombing and the air drops of food that accompanied it was therefore to reduce significantly the food supplies available to the starving population, at least
in the short term, while bringing the “nightmare scenario” a step closer. One can only hope that the torture will stop before the worst fears are realized, and that the suspension of desperately-needed food will be brief.

It is not easy to be optimistic about that, considering the attitudes expressed. For example, a
New York Times
report on an inside page casually mentions that “by the arithmetic of the United Nations, there will soon be 7.5 million Afghans in acute need of even a loaf of bread, … but with bombs falling,” food deliveries by truck (the only significant contribution) have reduced by about half and there are only a few weeks before the harsh winter reduces the possibility of food distribution sharply (Barry Bearak, Oct. 15, B8). The further calculations are not given, but are not hard to carry out. Whatever happens, the fact that these appear to be the casual assumptions of planning and commentary defies comment.

We should also bear in mind that from the first days after the 9-11 attack, there has been nothing to stop massive food drops by air to the people imprisoned within the country that is once again being cruelly tortured; nor, apparently, the delivery of far greater quantities by truck, as the UN effort showed before it was suspended.

Whatever policies are adopted from this point on, a humanitarian catastrophe has already taken place, with worse to come. Perhaps the most apt description was given by the wonderful and courageous Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy, referring to Operation Infinite Justice proclaimed by the Bush administration: “Witness the infinite justice of the new century. Civilians starving to death while they’re waiting to be killed” (
Guardian
, September 29).

Her judgment loses no force from the fact that administration PR specialists realized that the phrase “infinite justice,” suggesting the self-image of divinity, was another propaganda error, like “crusade.” It was therefore changed to “enduring freedom”—in the light of the historical record, a phrase that defies comment.

The UN has indicated that the threat of starvation in Afghanistan is enormous. International criticism on this score has grown and now the U.S. and Britain are talking about providing food aid to ward off hunger. Are they caving in to dissent in fact, or only in appearance? What is their motivation? What will be the scale and impact of their efforts?

The United Nations estimates that some 7-8 million are at risk of imminent starvation. The
New York Times
reports in a small item (September 25) that nearly six million Afghans depend on food aid from the UN, as well as 3.5 million in refugee camps outside, many of whom fled just before the borders were sealed. The item reported that some food is being sent to the camps outside Afghanistan. Planners and commentators surely realize that they must do something to present themselves as humanitarians seeking to avert the awesome tragedy that unfolded at once after the threat of bombing and military attack, and the sealing of the borders they demanded. “Experts also urge the United States to improve its image by increasing aid to Afghan refugees, as well as by helping to rebuild the economy” (
Christian Science Monitor
, September 28). Even without PR specialists to instruct them, administration officials must comprehend
that they should send some food to the refugees who made it across the border, and make at least some gesture towards providing food to starving people within: in order “to save lives” but also to “help the effort to find terror groups inside Afghanistan” (
Boston Globe
, September 27, quoting a Pentagon official, who describes this as “winning the hearts and minds of the people”). The
New York Times
editors picked up the same theme the following day, twelve days after the journal reported that the murderous operations were being put into effect.

On the scale of aid, one can only hope that it is enormous, or the human tragedy may be immense in a few weeks. If the government is sensible, there will be at least a show of the “massive air drops” that officials mention but have still not carried out as of September 30, not for lack of means.

International legal institutions would likely ratify efforts to arrest and try bin Laden and others, supposing guilt could be shown, including the use of force. Why does the U.S. avoid this recourse? Is it only a matter of not wishing to legitimate an approach that could be used, as well, against our acts of terrorism, or are other factors at play?

Much of the world has been asking the U.S. to provide some evidence to link bin Laden to the crime, and if such evidence could be provided, it would not be difficult to rally enormous support for an international effort, under the rubric of the UN, to apprehend and try him and his collaborators.

It’s not impossible that this could be done through
diplomatic means, as the Taliban have been indicating in various ways, though these moves are dismissed with contempt in favor of the use of force.

However, providing credible evidence is no simple matter. Even if bin Laden and his network are involved in the crimes of 9-11, it may be hard to produce credible evidence. And for all we know, most of the perpetrators may have killed themselves in their awful missions.

How hard it is to provide credible evidence was revealed on October 5, when British Prime Minister Tony Blair proclaimed with great fanfare that there is now “absolutely no doubt” about the responsibility of bin Laden and the Taliban, releasing documentation based on what must be the most intensive investigative effort in history, combining the resources of all Western intelligence agencies and others. Despite the prima facie plausibility of the charge, and the unprecedented effort to establish it, the documentation is surprisingly thin. Only a small fraction of it even bears on the Sept. 11 crimes, and that little would surely not be taken seriously if presented as a charge against Western state criminals or their clients. The
Wall Street Journal
accurately described the documents as “more like a charge than detailed evidence,” relegating the report to a back page. The
Journal
also points out, accurately, that it doesn’t matter, quoting a senior U.S. official who says that “The criminal case is irrelevant. The plan is to wipe out Mr. bin Laden and his organization.” The point of the documentation is to allow Blair, the Secretary General of NATO, and others to assure the world that the evidence is “clear and compelling.”

It is highly unlikely that the case presented will be credible to people of the Middle East, as reported at once by Robert Fisk, or to others who look beyond headlines. Governments and their organizations, in contrast, have their own reasons to fall into line. One might ask why Washington’s propaganda specialists chose to have Blair present the case: perhaps to sustain the image of holding back some highly convincing evidence for “security reasons,” or in the hope that he would strike properly Churchillian poses.

In the background there are other minefields that planners must step through with care. To quote Arundhati Roy again, “The Taliban’s response to U.S. demands for the extradition of bin Laden has been uncharacteristically reasonable: produce the evidence, then we’ll hand him over. President Bush’s response is that the demand is non-negotiable.” She also adds one of the many reasons why this framework is unacceptable to Washington: “While talks are on for the extradition of CEOs, can India put in a side request for the extradition of Warren Anderson of the U.S.? He was the chairman of Union Carbide, responsible for the Bhopal gas leak that killed 16,000 people in 1984. We have collated the necessary evidence. It’s all in the files. Could we have him, please?”

We needn’t invent examples. The Haitian government has been asking the U.S. to extradite Emmanuel Constant, one of the most brutal of the paramilitary leaders while the (first) Bush and Clinton administrations (contrary to many illusions) were lending tacit support to the ruling junta and its rich constituency. Constant was tried in absentia in
Haiti and sentenced to life in prison for his role in massacres. Has he been extradited? Does the matter evoke any detectable mainstream concern? To be sure, there are good reasons for the negative answers: extradition might lead to exposure of links that could be embarrassing in Washington. And after all, he was a leading figure in the slaughter of only about 5,000 people—relative to population, a few hundred thousand in the United States.

Such observations elicit frenzied tantrums at the extremist fringes of Western opinion, some of them called “the left.” But for Westerners who have retained their sanity and moral integrity, and for many of the traditional victims, they are meaningful and instructive. Government leaders presumably understand that.

The single example that Roy mentions is only the beginning, of course; and it is one of the lesser examples, not only because of the scale of the atrocity, but because it was not explicitly a crime of state. Suppose Iran were to request the extradition of high officials of the Carter and Reagan administrations, refusing to present the ample evidence of the crimes they were implementing—and it surely exists. Or suppose Nicaragua were to demand the extradition of the newly-appointed ambassador to the UN, a man whose record includes his service as “proconsul” (as he was often called) in the virtual fiefdom of Honduras, where he surely was aware of the atrocities of the state terrorists he was supporting; and more significantly, includes his duties as local overseer of the terrorist war against Nicaragua, launched from Honduran bases. Would the U.S. agree to extradite them? Would the request even elicit ridicule?

That is only the barest beginning. The doors are better left closed, just as it is best to maintain the impressive silence that has reigned since the appointment of a leading figure in managing the operations condemned as terrorism by the highest existing international bodies to lead a “war on terrorism.” Even Jonathan Swift would be speechless.

That may be the reason why administration publicity experts preferred the ambiguous term “war” to the more explicit term “crime”—“crime against humanity” as Robert Fisk, Mary Robinson, and others have accurately depicted it.

If the Taliban regime falls and bin Laden or someone they claim is responsible is captured or killed, what next? What happens to Afghanistan? What happens more broadly in other regions?

The sensible administration plan would be to pursue the ongoing program of silent genocide, combined with humanitarian gestures to arouse the applause of the usual chorus who are called upon to sing the praises of the noble leaders who are dedicated to “principles and values” for the first time in history and are leading the world to a “new era” of idealism and commitment to “ending inhumanity” everywhere. Turkey is now very pleased to join Washington’s “War against Terror,” even to send ground troops. The reason, Prime Minister Ecevit said, is that Turkey owes the U.S. a special “debt of gratitude” because unlike European countries, Washington “had backed Ankara in its struggle against terrorism.” He is referring to the 15-year war, peaking in the late 1990s with increasing U.S. aid, which left tens of thousands dead, 2-3 million refugees, and
3,500 towns and villages destroyed (seven times Kosovo under NATO bombs). Turkey was also lavishly praised and rewarded by Washington for joining the humanitarian effort in Kosovo, using the same U.S.-supplied F-16s that it had employed with such effectiveness in its own huge ethnic cleansing and state terror operations. The administration might also try to convert the Northern Alliance into a viable force, and may try to bring in other warlords hostile to it, like Washington’s former favorite Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, now in Iran. Presumably British and U.S. commandos will undertake missions within Afghanistan, along with selective bombing, but scaled down so as not to recruit new forces for the cause of the radical Islamists.

U.S. campaigns should not be too casually compared to the failed Russian invasion of the 1980s. The Russians were facing a major army of perhaps 100,000 men or more, organized, trained, and heavily armed by the CIA and its associates. The U.S. is facing a ragtag force in a country that has already been virtually destroyed by 20 years of horror, for which we bear no slight share of responsibility. The Taliban forces, such as they are, might quickly collapse except for a small hardened core.

And one would expect that the surviving population would welcome an invading force if it is not too visibly associated with the murderous gangs that tore the country to shreds before the Taliban takeover. At this point, many people would be likely to welcome Genghis Khan.

What next? Expatriate Afghans and, apparently, some internal elements who are not part of the Taliban inner circle have been calling for a UN effort to establish some kind
of transition government, a process that might succeed in reconstructing something viable from the wreckage, if provided with very substantial reconstruction aid, channeled through independent sources like the UN or credible NGOs. That much should be the minimal responsibility of those who have turned this impoverished country into a land of terror, desperation, corpses, and mutilated victims. That could happen, but not without very substantial popular efforts in the rich and powerful societies. For the present, any such course has been ruled out by the Bush administration, which has announced that it will not be engaged in “nation building”—or, it seems so far (September 30), an effort that would be far more honorable and humane: substantial support, without interference, for “nation building” by others who might actually achieve some success in the enterprise. But current refusal to consider this decent course is not graven in stone.

What happens in other regions depends on internal factors, on the policies of foreign actors (the U.S. primary among them, for obvious reasons), and the way matters proceed in Afghanistan. One can say little with much confidence, but for many of the possible courses it is possible to make some reasonable assessments about the likely outcome—and there are a great many possibilities, too many to try to review in brief comments.