Even
those of us opposed to the US/UK war on Afghanistan (soon to be expanded to
other parts of the world) fall into the trap of focusing on the suffering
caused to ``innocent civilians.’’ However, when war is pursued for unjust and
immoral ends (oppression, invasion, occupation, subjugation, imperialism, even
retaliation), EVERYTHING attacked by the aggressor is an illegitimate target,
including ``military’’ ones (setting aside for the moment the question of what
is a military target – see below). The
war unleashed on Afghanistan by the most powerful and brutal military force
ever constructed is being pursued for the purpose of extending US control of
the world’s energy resources, an imperialist agenda. As such, the victims who
happen to be soldiers are no less ``innocent’’ than the children who are buried
in the rubble of a thousand bomb craters. It is only when assessing the
morality of the actions of those under attack that the distinction between
civilian and military is important and is not therefore relevant to discussion
of the present war. It might be claimed that for the aggressor to attack
unarmed civilians is even more wrong than attacking armed combatants, and in
some cases that might be relevant. But the might of the US War Machine is so
overwhelming in comparison to any other army (let alone that in impoverished
Afghanistan) that such distinctions can hardly be made here or anywhere else in
the world today. When you drop daisy
cutters from thousands of feet or fire Cruise missiles from hundreds of miles
away it doesn’t matter whether the people underneath are holding rifles or not
– they die just as quickly.
By
falling into the terminology, referring to people as ``innocent civilians’’ or
``civilians’’, we give the distinction credibility. There are no legitimate
targets in an illegitimate war.
``To
initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it
is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that
it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
Nuremberg
Judgment, 30th September 1946
12/2/2002
What is a ``Military Target’’?
Having dismissed
the distinction between military and civilian targets in Afghanistan as
spurious in principle, it is nevertheless instructive to study what it is that
the US/UK governments consider to be military targets. These are the targets
that the US/UK admits to attacking, or which are destroyed systematically.
General targets include roads, bridges, power generating facilities,
communications facilities, airports, broadcasting facilities (radio,
television), government buildings of any kind, United Nations offices and Red
Cross warehouses. Particular targets include Mullar Omar (as ``spiritual leader
of the Taliban’’), his family and his neighbours (since his residence was a
target). All of this means that the distinction between military and civilian
does not exist in practice either. If these are military targets then so would
be the Houses of Parliament, MPs’ homes, Labour Party headquarters, civil
servants, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lambeth Palace, the BBC…….etc.
Of course there are
some targets that are destroyed so routinely now that we don’t even bat an
eyelid or question whether they are legitimate but which cause more suffering
and death than the rest put together. These are the power plants. When there’s
no electricity, water pumps fail. When there’s no clean water, babies and
children die, slowly and painfully, by the thousands, as the people of Iraq
know too well.
12/2/2002
Avoiding civilian
casualties?
Bearing in mind, again, that the distinction between military and civilian targets is not relevant in discussing victims of US/UK aggression in Afghanistan, we can still ask whether there is any evidence to support the claim that the US/UK do their utmost to avoid civilian casualties. Of course the US/UK spokespersons (from US military personnel to Tony Blair) say they do, but that is hardly evidence. Are there any facts that support the claim? Not a single one. On the contrary, there is a wealth of evidence that shows the opposite. One single terrible example will suffice. Well before the bombing started, all foreign aid agencies in Afghanistan said that seven million Afghanis were completely dependent on external food aid, due to crop failure and war. Most of the aid coming into the country was coming from Pakistan. On 16th Sept. 2001 the New York Times reported that "Washington has also demanded [from Pakistan] a cutoff of fuel supplies […] and the elimination of truck convoys that provide much of the food and other supplies to Afghanistan's civilian population." The Pakistan government complied. On 27th Sept., the same NYT correspondent reported that officials in Pakistan "said today that they would not relent in their decision to seal off the country's 1,400- mile border with Afghanistan, a move requested by the Bush administration because, the officials said, they wanted to be sure that none of Mr. bin Laden's men were hiding among the huge tide of refugees". So Washington demanded that Pakistan consign massive numbers of Afghans, millions of men women and children, already on the brink of starvation, to a cruel death by famine. Foreign aid missions withdrew or were expelled under the threat of bombing. Huge numbers of people fled in terror, after Washington's threat to bomb, and even more when bombing started. If they even managed to reach the sealed borders, the refugees were trapped to die in silence. The few reports from aid workers of the suffering in camps across the borders have been harrowing in their descriptions of bereaved parents mourning their dead children and the utter deprivation. But we know that these are the lucky people who were able to escape before the borders were closed.
So, there is no evidence that the US government tries to avoid civilian casualties and on the other hand we know for sure that they have ordered the death by starvation of huge numbers of people. We can ask ourselves, then, why do people believe Tony Blair when he claims that `` We do all we can to limit civilian casualties.’’ (30th October 2002)?
(8/3/2002, International Women’s Day)
Bringing it back home
I went on the
National Stop the War Demonstration in London last Saturday (2/3/2002) along
with about 10,000 other people. Towards the end I got pretty chilled and felt
weary from walking and standing about for so long. So Emma and I stopped into a
coffee shop to have a warm drink and a sticky bun. It was lovely. But we were
reminded that for those Afghan refugees who fled US/UK bombardment and
murderous rampages by ``Northern Alliance’’ forces (or whatever Blair calls
them now) there was and is no opportunity to get warm and have a hot drink on
the snowy Afghan roads to the closed borders. We thought about what it must be
like for a heavily pregnant woman to have to flee for her life, to set out into
open countryside, mined and strewn with cluster bomblets, with no hope of food
or sustenance or shelter for hundreds of miles. I know of at least one story,
reported on the UNHCR website, that describes a woman arriving at a refugee
camp in Iran having given birth to her baby in the mountains on the way. Her
baby had died. And she was ``lucky’’: she made it to the camp. Every parent
knows how worrying it is when their child is ill. What must it be like if your
child has a raging temperature and you are forced to decide whether to stay at
home and be bombed or try to carry the feverish little one in the winter weather
to seek a safer place? In a refugee population of millions, the suffering is
unimaginable. Mothers have had to drag their starving children out into the
freezing night to begin the long walk. Fathers have had to abandon their dying
children at the side of the road because they must keep going for the sake of
those who may live. The word ``refugee’’ has become so debased that when we
hear it we do not think of the suffering that lies behind it – the terror, the
hunger, the homes abandoned, the children carried till they can be carried no
longer, the old and disabled left behind to die.
On the UNHCR
website it says that roughly 3 million more refugees have been created in
Afghanistan by US/UK bombing and the blocking of aid. Robin Cook, in the
process of trying to justify the bombing and invasion of Afghanistan, claimed
that 4 million refugees were created by the Taliban so they were major
criminals and therefore a legitimate target. Now, even supposing Cook’s claims
were true, what would that make the UK government?
(8/3/2002,
International Women’s Day)
What is the ``civilized world’’?
In a speech on 30th
October 2001 Tony Blair referred to Saudi Arabia as ``a good and dependable
friend to the civilized world.’’ The meaning of this is quite clear. Saudi
Arabia, though a good friend, is not itself part of the civilized world. I
wonder if Mr. Blair is as clear about this when selling arms to Saudi Arabia,
the UK’s best customer. Is he not worried that selling weapons to an
``uncivilized’’ country mightn’t be a good idea? Or is he so enthusiastic about
making the sale that such concerns don’t enter into the equation? In which case
he might be a little nervous that those with whom he is doing business might
take offence that he so explicitly excluded them from the civilized world.
Many of us wish Mr Blair spoke only for
himself but unfortunately we elected him, he represents us and, above all, he
spends our taxes on bombs and missiles acting in accordance with these views of
his. So, it is important for us to know what he means by this civilized world
that Saudi Arabia is not a part of. I have produced a letter that can be sent
to Mr. Blair or the Foreign Secretary asking them to tick the appropriate boxes
(civilized/not civilized) for a selection of countries.
Of course this is
all something of a joke and true measures of civilized behaviour or civilized
values, by populations or by governments (and we should make the distinction),
are difficult matters to decide upon. But some things we can all agree on. A civilized
government would not inflict terrorism on defenceless people anywhere in the
world. It would not bomb into utter destruction whole systems of civilian
infrastructure nor lay siege to entire countries causing complete economic
collapse, widespread poverty, disease and social disintegration. It would not
pursue private profit by any means necessary, no matter what the cost in human
lives. How does the UK measure up?
12/2/2002
Fake Media Objectivity
On Sunday 18th
of November 2001 thousands of people marched through central London to protest
against the war in Afghanistan. How many thousands? The newspapers and TV news
reported that the police claimed that 15,000 people were there. Some reports
only contained the police number but some news bulletins also contained the
organisers’ estimate that 100,000 people came. The number of people who came on
that protest march is of interest and importance. Why didn’t the journalists
covering the march make their own estimate? It wouldn’t have been difficult. This
was central London, not an equatorial rainforest on the other side of the
world. Someone could have stood at the side of the road and counted. Why didn’t
they? Wouldn’t that have been interesting?
This is a somewhat
trivial example of a widespread technique in mainstream ``quality’’ media
reporting that proclaims its own objectivity. We get the spurious ``balance’’
that comes from quoting one side and then quoting the other. (This is better
than nothing. More often the media will repeat the claims of the establishment
without attribution but assiduously attribute the most uncontroversial truisms
to the ``opposition’’ to make them seem somehow in doubt e.g. ``An Iraqi
government spokesperson said the US bomb attacks violated international law.’’
And this is to say nothing of the systematic pro-corporate, pro-business,
pro-Western bias that is the most damaging bias of all. The all-pervasive,
unstated assumption that US-UK Government policy is formulated with benevolent
intent is the most serious perversion of truth that the media is guilty of.
``Balance’’ is not a virtue when it’s the balance between Nazi SS Officer and
Jewish concentration camp prisoners, between bomber and bombed, between
oppressor and oppressed.) But isn’t the business of journalists to discover and
report the truth?
12/2/2002
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