- It's almost as though American policy in Afghanistan
had followed the script for a Hollywood summer blockbuster. A potboiler-epic
aimed at pleasing affluent, pimply teenage boys, dreaming dreams of power
and adventure, its script mixing generous helpings of Cecil B. deMille,
Steven Spielberg, explosive special effects, bad dialogue, and a lack of
intelligible plot.
That may not be an exaggeration. Only reflect that America's second-last,
dangerously hare-brained president, Mr. Nixon, used to watch the movie
Patton over and over again, hoping to derive inspiration in dealing with
the catastrophe he himself created.
Unfortunately, this isn't a movie. Real lives and real villages are being
torn apart by a slightly-earlier generation of pimply American boys at
the controls of some of the world's most hellish weapons. Boys like that
eager fellow, reportedly nick-named "Psycho" by some of his comrades,
who ignored procedures to get "a kill," his target being a group
of Canadian soldiers carrying out known exercises.
(Canadians, by the way, will be grateful that the county's modest contribution
to insanity in the mountains will end soon. America brow-beat its allies
into playing supporting roles, hoping to give vengeance the color of a
genuine international cause. It was easier this time than it was for Vietnam
owing to people's initial, instinctive sympathy for those killed September
11. But one remembers the story of how Lyndon Johnson grabbed Prime Minister
Lester Pearson, winner of the Nobel peace prize, by the lapels and tried
intimidating him into contributing troops for Vietnam. Thank God, Pearson
stood his ground against the Texas thug.)
In December of last year, U.S. planes mistakenly attacked a convoy of tribal
elders, killing 65 people. There were reports that this ugly incident
had an even uglier origin: Americans had been deliberately tricked by
one of the cut-throat factions now ruling the country into eliminating
some political opposition. Since then there have been many lethal attacks
on the wrong people.
Now we have the report of a wedding party in southern Afghanistan blown
to bits. The government in Afghanistan reports 40 killed, including the
bride and groom, and 100 injured, by some trigger-happy fly-boy undoubtedly
trying to clutch Psycho's fallen laurels. (Actually this was the second
wedding party attacked, the first was in eastern Afghanistan in May with
10 killed.)
I suppose we can be grateful the Pentagon much earlier gave up its disgusting
stunt of dropping food-ration packets along with 500-pond bombs. Imagine
bags of freeze-dried rice dropped on the bodies of the bride and groom?
Does anyone understand why American planes are still bombing Afghanistan?
Oh, yes, I forgot, to destroy any elusive al Qaeda who might still be
clambering the rocky slopes in sandals threatening New York. And it makes
such good sense to do this with bombs from the air where you cannot distinguish
a cleric from a warrior, a rifle from a hoe. Perhaps al Qaeda members
are supposed to wear transponders for easy identification?
Recent stories from Britain reveal the utter contempt in which American
tactics are held by senior officials there - information suppressed until
now by the heavy hand of Prime Minister Tony Blair who seems keen to play
dwarf armor-polisher to America's idiot-prince. The tactics in question
include American special forces in Pakistan and border areas of Afghanistan
conducting searches for hidden al Qaeda by breaking into village homes
with weapons blazing away, completely oblivious to the fact that this
is not a part of the world where arrogant, insulting behavior is easily
forgiven.
Can you imagine what a hellish storm of vengeance and terror Northern Ireland
would have reaped had British troops behaved that way? In more than a
quarter century of civil unrest in Northern Ireland, bad as it was, fewer
people died on all sides than the number in Afghanistan killed by Americans
during just a few months. You might think Americans had some valuable
lessons to learn >from Britain's long, demanding experience in Northern
Ireland, but the kind of Americans in Bush's crowd already know everything,
possessing wisdom magically sprung from the head of Zeus.
Not that you'd know it from America's limp press, but it does appear that
the country's special forces, whose every member has more expensive outfits
and fancy equipment than the deluxe jet-set, celebrity edition of Barbie
comes with, have pretty much come up short in every significant operation
so far.
Except, of course, for the massacre at Mazar-I-Sharif. Scots filmmaker
Jamie Doran has shown parliamentarians in Europe the first portion of
his documentary on the disappearance of about three thousand prisoners
after their surrender. The film has terrible things to say of American
participation. Hundreds of Taliban prisoners were driven in vans out into
the desert by order of a local American commander, and those not suffocated
by the heat were shot dead by General Dostum's troops while Americans
casually watched.
A secret report released to the New York Times indicates that even American
authorities know what a failure the war has been. It has only succeeded
in dispersing anti-American terrorists throughout the Muslim world.
The actual membership of al Qaeda was always very small, far smaller than
any Chicago street gang, and never bore any relation to the addled claims
of Mr. Bush. They might have been dealt with handily by a set intelligent
policies and diplomatic moves rather than a mindless crusade costing tens
of billions of dollars.
The recent, much-publicized loya jirga, a grand council of delegates >from
all over Afghanistan, did little more than set up a temporary figurehead
government, a kind of national fig leaf for the nakedness of the war lords
who now rule most of the country. Astute readers will rightly ask how
delegates could possibly have been chosen in any representative fashion
from regions governed by warlords, places that are no-go areas for foreign
troops.
At least now the way is clear for America, in its usual end-of-bombing
fashion, to hightail it out after a decent interval. Ari Fleischer will
blubber claims of having brought democracy to Afghanistan. Who knows,
maybe Billy Graham will join in with prayers of thanksgiving before a
joint session of Congress for all the swarthy heathens killed? Only the
keen political sensibilities of George Orwell could have fully appreciated
America's second wave of destruction in Afghanistan being celebrated as
an achievement.
All these developments - Afghanistan left in turmoil, warlords in control,
stupid tactics creating many more angry young men seeking vengeance, the
dispersal of anti-American leaders - together with the ugly new line on
the Palestinians that the weak Mr. Bush has been cornered into accepting,
promise little peace or security for anyone. It's almost as though Ariel
Sharon had been named special advisor to the president, and a stunning
appointment it is: a man who has spent his life killing innocent people
as an envoy for peace.
I reflect back to the Pentagon general who announced not so very long ago,
as the forces of the Northern Alliance bravely swept across a landscape
first cleared by American carpet-bombing, that this promised to be one
of the most effective military actions in history. Here was a case of
"pride goeth before the fall" if ever there was.
Of course, you must take account of the fact that he spoke from the perspective
of half a century of costly, unprincipled, and often inept American colonial
military action - the murderous shame of Vietnam, the pointless destruction
in Cambodia, the almost-laughable theater of the absurd in Somalia, the
marines providing live targets in Lebanon, the Army's School of the Americas
training the creatures of dictators in the fine points of torture and
killing, the destruction of an Iranian civilian airliner with three-hundred
souls aboard (an act which also deserves rarely-given credit for the reprisal
destruction of the Pan-Am Lockerbie flight), the sinking of a Japanese
civilian ship, the vicious fly-boy pranks that hurled an Italian gondola
full of people down a mountain, the numerous rapes and assaults by troops
in Okinawa.
The general's breast swelled with the proud reflection that Americans had
been so stunningly-successful where the Russians had miserably failed.
Of course, he ignored the fact that Russia attempted something quite different
to what America has attempted. He also ignored the fact that the Russians
worked against a vast secret war waged by the CIA, whose activities in
Afghanistan are what made September 11 possible. But most of all, he arrogantly
ignored the fact that the play in Afghanistan has not gone beyond the
first scene of the first act.
A final note of irony: How sound is government now in Afghanistan? In early
July, just after this piece was written, the Minister for Public Works,
Abdul Qadir, who also served as one of three vice-presidents, was assassinated
in Kabul. Last April in Jalalabad, there was an attempt to assassinate
Mohammad Fahim, Interim Defense Minister. In February, Abdul Rahman, Civil
Aviation Minister, was assassinated at the airport in Kabul, other ministers
being implicated in his death. Readers should note that Kabul, where two
of these assassinations occurred, is the most secure part of the country.
Despite their over-advertised nastiness, this is exactly the anarchy the
Taliban ended before American bombing ended the Taliban. So far as we know,
the Taliban had nothing to do with September 11, and they were willing
to extradite Osama bin Laden and others upon America's producing evidence
of their guilt, a universally-accepted practice in legal extradition.
But this was not acceptable to Mr. Bush, and, apart from its many other
costly failures, his crusade in Afghanistan has not produced bin Laden.
John Chuckman encourages your comments: jchuckman@YellowTimes.org
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