waiting for the civilian body count

[Doug Millison]

...I heard a relief official at the Afghan border today interviewed on BBC,
to put the 30,000 meal/day that the U.S. says it's dropping in remote areas
of Afghanistan, this offical noted that best estimates are that 4 million
people in that counry are starving. He didn't think the military strikes
would make it any easier to feed those people.

Some web resources and a commentary distributed this evening by Znet.org:


Please note, on the ZNet Site (www.mag.org) we have a Terror/War
page with a wide range of commentary and analysis, including links
for actions, etc. Most recent additions are:

A Question and Answer essay by Tariq Ali on the Taliban and Islam

An essay on media use of the label terrorist by Norman Solomon

A Robert Fisk examination of the evidence offered against bin
Laden

A lengthy MSNBC Chat with Chomsky

A long New Zealand radio interview with Chomsky

A Vijay Prashad essay providing historical context particularly
regarding the Northern Alliance

And an Ed Herman contextual essay, Anti-Terrorist Terrorism.

The list goes on.and is updated often.

No one has much clarity, as yet, about today's events. In coming
days we will have both coverage and analysis. We know a little,
only, at this time.

We know, for example, that according to the CIA Fact Book the
population of Afghanistan, a few months back, was just under 27
million people. Life expectancy at birth was 47 years. More than two
thirds of Afghanistan's citizens were not only unlikely to reach 50
years of age, but were also illiterate. Telephone service and use was
sporadic. There were about 100,000 TVs, or less than one for every
200 citizens. In the whole country, there were 24 kilometers of
railroad-yes, that's what the CIA site I consulted said-and under
3,000 kilometers of paved road, or roughly the same as a single
highway across the U.S. If that's off, the point is still evident. There
were ten airports with paved runways.

Even worse than the stark poverty of the country, Afghanistan had
undergone nearly ten years of war with the Soviet Union and the
aftermath of that had been ruinous. Thus, weeks back UN and other
international AID agencies announced that without a substantial
effort at relief this winter could see up to 7 million deaths from
starvation.

Into this already woeful context the U.S. first infused panic that in
turn aggravated hunger by demanding that Pakistan close its
borders and curtailing food for nearly four weeks. The threat of
bombing provoked mass migrations of fearful civilians seeking
solace. Not satisfied with that contribution to this desperate country,
the U.S. has now added to the mix B1 and B52 bombers, stealth
missiles, and who knows what other deadly ordnance. And having
put the population into hysteria and flight, having disrupted meager
paths of travel and what little electrification and other services the
country had, having closed borders, having curtailed food deliveries,
having induced an exodus of AID workers, all at a time of possible
calamitous starvation, we have begun dropping along with the
bombs enough food to feed about 30,000 people a day, assuming it
continues. Asked whether food was dropped in Taliban regions its
been reported that the answer offered was no, so, supposing that
was accurate, we are dropping the food in regions covering about
10% of the country.

The current strategy of all this is not complex. First throw the nation
into turmoil. Aggravate conditions of life and death desperation in
the population. Undermine, in that way, support for the Taliban.
Collapse the Taliban, and presumably, in time, find and kill bin
Laden. Leave to acclaim. Turn the journalistic cameras in another
direction. Hope the innocent deaths go unnoticed, obscured by the
hoopla proclaiming our largesse.

Of course, international law has been violated. Worse, the
mechanism for attaining illegal vigilante prosecution has been a
policy which knowingly and predictably will kill many, perhaps even
huge numbers of innocent civilians. We take access to food away
from millions and then give food back to tens of thousands while
bombing the society into panic and dissolution. This is terrorism,
attacks on civilians to gain political ends, with a patina of public
relations. It is utmost injustice, masked by utmost obfuscation.

Why? The answer is not to reduce the prospects of terror attacks.
Everyone says their likelihood will increase, in fact, both out of short
term desire to retaliate, and, over the longer haul, due to producing
new reservoirs of hate and resentment. The answer is not to get
justice. Vigilantism is not justice but the opposite, undermining
international norms of law. The answer is not to reduce actual terror
endured by innocent people. Our actions are themselves hurting
civilians, perhaps in multitudinous numbers.

No, all the rhetoric aside, the answer is that the U.S. wishes to send
a message and to establish a process. The message, as usual, is
don't mess with us. We have no compunction about wreaking havoc
on the weak and desperate. The process, also not particularly
original since Ronald Regan and George Bush senior had similar
aspirations, is to legitimate a "war on terrorism" as a lynchpin
rationale for both domestic and international policy-making.

This "war on terrorism" is meant to serve like the Cold War did. We
fight it with few if any military losses. We use it to induce fear in our
own population and via that fear to justify all kinds of elite policies
from reducing civil liberties, to enlarging the profit margins of
military industrial firms, to legitimating all manner of international
polices aimed at enhancing U.S. power and profit, whether in the
MidEast or elsewhere.

The coming days are not going to be easy. The attacks of Sept 11
produced immediate fear and reflex nationalism devoid of attention
to evidence and logic. But progressive voices were heard, and were
making great progress, opening ever wider constituencies to
consider broader issues of international policy and prospects. There
will be a reversal in that momentum in the next few days, but if
progressive voices persist, lost ground will quickly be regained.
Questions as to the morality and rationality of answering huge and
awful Sept 11 terror with even greater terror, of answering barbaric
calamity with barbaric catastrophe, of answering ignorant fanaticism
with highly educated jingoism will surface, and such questions will
begin to turn back the tide of this militarism.

Michael Albert
Z Magazine / ZNet
sysop at zmag.org