Posted by Rahul Mahajan on March 16, 2003 at 19:34:07:
Dear John,
To this day, few people are willing to criticize the war in Afghanistan. In fact, some people have recently suggested that the "left," which is to say the peace movement, still handicaps itself by its opposition to that war. The official story remains that the war on Afghanistan remains the one shining success in the "war on terrorism."
In fact, the opposite is true.
The war increased the threat of terrorism. Last fall, those who were "prematurely antiwar" predicted that it would. More recently, the argument has found support from a different quarter: the FBI and the CIA. According to the June 16 New York Times, "Classified investigations of the Qaeda threat now under way at the FBI and CIA have concluded that the war in Afghanistan failed to diminish the threat to the United States ... Instead, the war might have complicated counterterrorism efforts by dispersing potential attackers across a wider geographic area." Stupid move, I say. Unless you like war--and make money from it. Further, middle-level al-Qaeda operatives used the opportunity to strengthen contacts with other Islamist groups in the region, thus increasing the pool from which future terrorists will be drawn. The war allowed them to draw other Islamist groups into the world of terrorist networks committed to attacks on the United States. According to one official quoted, "Al Qaeda at its core was really a
small group, even though thousands of people went through their camps. What we're seeing now is a radical international jihad that will be a potent force [against America] for many years to come." And, of course, the war didn't result in the apprehension of Osama bin Laden or others high in the al-Qaeda network, who could possibly have been extradited to the United States. In fact, the war put an end to the best chance of catching those high-level leaders by dispersing them.
Many innocents were killed. Initial concerns about civilian casualties were generally dismissed amid claims that the bombing of Afghanistan was the most restrained and precise in history. In fact, as in other recent U.S. bombing campaigns, the initial narrow targeting was broadened as air defense was destroyed. As the small store of pre-determined targets was exhausted, the country was divided into "kill boxes" where pilots were to attack "targets of opportunity." A policy of cavalierly attacking military or supposed military targets right in the heart of heavily-populated areas was part of the reason that, at a conservative estimate by the Project for Defense Alternatives, the Afghanistan war killed at least four times as many civilians per bomb as were killed in the war on Yugoslavia. Although the difficulties of estimating civilian casualties from the bombing are formidable (largely because the U.S. government, with its customary indifference to the effects of its wars, refuses to do a study), recent
studies by England's highly respected Guardian newspaper, reported on May 20, 2002, indicate a possibility of up to 8000 civilians-men, women, and children-were actually killed by the bombs.
And what happened to the so-called "humanitarian aid?" Over 7 million Afghans were directly dependent for survival on aid, which was disrupted for September,October and part of November first by the threat of bombing and then by the bombing. According to the same Guardian survey, "As many as 20,000 Afghans may have lost their lives as an indirect consequence of the US intervention. They too belong in any tally of the dead." The United States installed a puppet regime, throwing democracy out the window. The "loya jirga," or grand council, selected the current interim government of Afghanistan. Representatives from the 1.5-million-strong Watan Party, successor to the PDPA (which ruled Afghanistan until 1992), were not allowed into the jirga. According to Omar Zakhilwal and Adeena Niazi, delegates to the loya jirga, "We delegates were denied anything more than a symbolic role in the selection process. A small group of Northern Alliance chieftains decided everything behind closed doors." At that point, most
delegates, aware that the U.S.-backed warlords held all the military power and fearing for their lives, silently went along.
In addition, the U.S. government has done little to alleviate the extreme humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, let alone to rebuild the country. U.S. contributions through UNICEF for Afghanistan have been less than a third of those of Japan -- even though it was the United States that played a huge role in creating the crisis. So shamefully negligent has the United States been in fixing its mess that today, as winter approaches, 6 million Afghans -- a larger number than before Sept. 2001 -- are once again on the brink, dependent on humanitarian aid to get through the next months. On every test of justice and of pragmatism, the war on Afghanistan fails. There is now an increased threat of terrorism. In addition, U.S. sanctions have made Iraqis dependent on centralized,government-distributed food to survive. Relief agencies have already expressed their concerns about the potential for a humanitarian crisis once war starts.
Believe me, John, we, and the Iraqi people, can do without any more "successes" in the war on terrorism.
-Rahul Mahajan
Follow Ups to the above message: