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October
12, 2001
Patrick
Cockburn
Bombing
the Taliban
October
11, 2001
David
Vest
Bob
Dylan and 9/11
Amb.
Edward Peck
Bush
War Plan "Dumb"
Hani
Shukrallah
West
Is As West Does
Patrick
Cockburn
Looming
Humanitarian Crisis
October
10, 2001
Tom
Turnipseed
Earth
is Our "Homeland"
Steve
Perry
What
Is To Be Done?
Simon
Jenkins
The
Dumbest Weapon
Tariq
Ali
The
Pakistan Maelstrom
Cockburn/St.
Clair
The
Empire Strikes Back
October
9, 2001
David
Vest
The
Rout That Wasn't
Michael
Mandel
This
War Is Illegal
Patrick
Cockburn
Bombs
Weaken Taliban
Lenni
Brenner
Powell
the Owl
Zha
Marginalization
and Terror
Steve
Perry
It
Begins
October
8, 2001
Zbigniew
Brzezinski
How
Jimmy Carter and
I Started the Muj
Philip Agee
The
USA and Terrorism
Mahajan
and Jensen
A
War of Lies
Patrick
Cockburn
Northern
Alliance
Builds an Airport
October
7, 2001
John Pilger
Hitchens'
Slurs
Tariq
Ali
Who
Said History
Stopped Being Ironical?
October
6, 2001
Vijay
Prashad
US
War Aims
Kevin
Gray
The
Trap:
Blacks and 9/11
October
5, 2001
Ronnie
Gilbert
Déjà
Vu: The FBI's War
on Civil Liberties
Patrick
Cockburn
Taliban
Cluster Bombs
Dave
Marsh
John
Brown, Woody Guthrie
and the Secret Music of 9/11
Babak
Nahid
A
Suspect's Perspective
October
4, 2001
David
Vest
Send
in the Cons
Robin
Blackburn
Road
to Armageddon
Noam
Chomsky
Chatting
with Chomsky
Tony
Blair
The
Dossier on bin Laden
Resources:
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About 9/11
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Ridge Long Groomed
for
Cheney's Job
Those CIA Killing
Bids
Never Stopped
The Not-So-Great
Mayor Giuliani
Crop Duster
Ban
Will Save Lives
Madeleine Albright's
Deadly Legacy
How the Bin
Laden Women
Fled Bel Air
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October 12, 2001
Terrorists Should be Tried in Court
Bombing
civilians will only lead to further atrocities.
By Imran Khan
Everyone heaved a sigh of relief when
there was restraint shown by the US and George Bush acknowledged
that this is a "different type of war". And then the
US embarked on a conventional war by bombing Afghanistan.
By doing so it may have played
into the hands of the terrorists. For terrorism to flourish
there has to be a feeling of injustice which breeds the anger
and hatred needed to produce someone desperate enough to kill
himself for his cause.
The sight of any further suffering
by Afghan civilians in the form of "collateral damage"
will shift Muslim sympathies towards them. A side-effect of
the bombing will be massive dislocation, leaving them vulnerable
to the severe Afghan winter, which will inevitably take a severe
toll on these impoverished people who had absolutely nothing
to do with the September 11 outrage.
Particularly alarming for Muslims
is the news that the US has told the UN that it reserves the
right to attack any state that it thinks harbours terrorists.
Neither Mr Blair's wonderful speech in the House of Commons
nor Mr Bush's visits to Islamic community centres will allay
our fears that the target of such an anti-terror campaign is
Muslims, especially if another Muslim country is bombed after
Afghanistan.
As a Pakistani my fear is that
if some Pakistani fanatics get involved in terrorist acts in
the US, will we as a country of 140m get blamed? For the past
10 years our country has been unable to control internal terrorism.
What if our government cannot destroy the terrorist networks
within? Could we face the same situation as Afghanistan?
The country that is worst affected
by the US bombing of Afghanistan is Pakistan. President Musharraf
was bluntly and arrogantly told that either we cooperate with
the US or be considered its enemy and be prepared to be bombed
into the stone age. For no fault of its own, Pakistan was put
into this no-win situation.
Today Pakistan is a US ally
helping to destroy their neighbours and allies, the Taliban
regime, and as a result helping the Northern Alliance which
is pro-India and openly hostile to Pakistan. Anyone who knows
Afghanistan also knows that the vacuum created by destroying
the Taliban could lead to a civil war that could take years
to settle and have a destablilising effect on the two bordering
provinces of Pakistan.
Most worrying for us are the
protests that have erupted all over Pakistan that could take
the country towards anarchy and chaos. At the moment President
Musharraf is in control, but he knows that the silent majority
is rapidly turning against the bombing of Afghanistan; especially
when TV shows the expensive US missiles creating more rubble
in this war-ravaged country.
Were it to become vocal and
come out in support of the extremists, the whole region could
be destabilised--something the perpetrators of the September
11 acts are desperately hoping will happen. The worst case scenario
for Pakistan would be the US messing up in Afghanistan and
killing thousands of innocent civilians: countrywide protests
could then lead to a new government led by hard-liners.
If the conflict in Afghan-
istan gets prolonged and bloody then other Muslim countries
could become destabilised, with pro-western governments replaced
by anti-American, extremist ones. The ultimate nightmare will
be the US taking military action against Muslim countries and
in the process breeding many more Bin Ladens and al-Qaidas.
Bear in mind that a few desperate
people today can do more damage than ever before in human history.
I don't need to go into the havoc chemical warfare can create
in civilian populations. Thus it is advisable for the US and
its allies to sit back and consider whether it is wise to be
guided by opinion polls and popularity ratings rather than by
common sense.
The only way to deal with global
terrorism is through justice. We need international institutions
such as a fully empowered and credible world criminal court
to define terrorism and dispense justice with impartiality.
There should be a distinction made between freedom struggles
based on human rights and self- determination, and terrorism.
This is not going to be an easy thing to do, because there are
a lot of shades of grey--but unfortunately we have run out of
easy options.
It is wrong to suggest the
September 11 terrorists were driven to suicide by the lure of
virgins waiting for them in heavens. This simplistic and naive
assumption cannot explain the suicide attacks conducted by the
Hindu Tamil tigers in Sri Lanka, or for that matter the Japanese
Kamakazi pilots during the second world war.
The world is heading towards
disaster if the sole superpower behaves as judge, jury and executioner
when dealing with global terrorism. It is also the direction
the terrorists of the September 11 desperately hope will be
taken: to pit the 1.3 billionn Muslims in this world against
the US.
Imran Khan is leader of the Tehreek Insaaf party
of Pakistan.
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