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October 16, 2001
Patrick
Cockburn
The
Battle of Mazar-i-Sharif
John
Troyer
Return
to Normal?
Moji Agha
A
Jihad Against Ignorance
October
15, 2001
Tariq
Ali
Alternatives
to War
John
Pilger
War
American Style
Umberto
Eco
The
Roots of Conflict
Marwan
Bishara
Clash
of Civilizations? Hardly
Patrick
Cockburn
Modern
War in
A Medieval Village
October
13, 2001
Carl
Estabrook
Letters
to Editors
Molly
Secours
War:
The Procter and Gamble Perspective
Alexander
Cockburn
War
Can't Save the Economy
October
12, 2001
Imran
Khan
Try
Them in Court
Vijay
Prashad
War
in a Passive Voice
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
Cockburn/St.
Clair
The
Empire Strikes Back
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Ashcroft's Onslaught
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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
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Vietnam
Same as Kerrey's?
A CounterPunch
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A Word About
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Cockburn
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A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
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October 16,
2001
Week
One:
Operation Infinite Disaster
By Chris Kromm
President Bush's war planners have struggled
to find a fitting code name for our latest military venture.
But after a week of war, there's only one appropriate label for
the nightmare that has transpired: Operation Infinite Disaster.
Leave aside, for the moment,
the moral shortcomings and Orwellian implications of bombing
starved people to "fight for freedom" or honor the
dead of the September 11 tragedy. What's even more striking about
the War Against ... Somebody is that, even on the Bush administration's
own terms, the bombing of Afghanistan has thus far been a failure
-- a series of tactical blunders guaranteed to make a bad situation
much, much worse.
A quick inventory of the week's
events tell the story:
BOMBING
PEOPLE WITH FOOD:
The first sign of trouble was news that Bush -- in a move to
give the brutal bombings a humanitarian spin -- had opted to
drop food supplies along with cluster bombs. This public relations
stunt quickly backfired, however, when every major relief agency
in the world derided the drops for 1) being insufficient (enough
to feed about .5% of the starving population for a single day,
provided the rations got to the intended "targets");
2) containing food Afghan people never eat (hello, peanut butter?!);
and 3) having the disadvantage of landing in fields strewn with
land mines, adding injury to insult.
HIGH-TECH
STRIKES IN A LOW-TECH WORLD:
Then came evidence that U.S. bombs are hitting worthless targets
-- when they hit at all. This may surprise U.S. readers, who,
much like during the Gulf War, have been treated to giddy media
reports cooing over the Pentagon's high-tech "smart"
weaponry: gee-whiz gadgets like satellite targeting which supposedly
make military strikes "surgical" -- and blood-free.
(Although, in 1991 the Pentagon admitted that under six percent
of Gulf War weapons used "smart" technology -- and
even among these brilliant bombs, fully 20% missed their mark.)
The Pentagon says they've gotten
better; time -- if not the media -- will tell. But what have
these intelligent machines of destruction been hitting? A few
terrorist training camps, which, as British journalist Robert
Fisk noted, our planes had "no difficulty spotting ... because,
of course, most of them were built by the CIA when Mr. bin Laden
and his men were the good guys."
But overall, the Taliban is
a low-tech army -- and bombing their outdated airstrips and archaic
phone systems has had little impact on how they control their
terrain. And technology is only as good as the fallible humans
who use it, which leads to the next mistake:
KILLING
INNOCENT PEOPLE:
"Serious blunders by American warplanes may have killed
at least 100 civilians in Afghanistan," according to eye-witness
accounts obtained by The Observer of London and reported on Sunday,
October 14. (U.S. newspapers have been slow to report evidence
of innocent people dying.) These deaths -- in Karam village,
18 miles west of Jalalabad -- came after news of the four workers
killed in a U.N. building devoted to clearing land mines.
A total of 400 civilian deaths
have been confirmed. Personal testimony from fleeing refugees
suggest hundreds more.
What has been the effect of
these deaths, besides belying the notion that war can be waged
without ending innocent lives? According to The Guardian of London,
the Karam killings are straining ties between the U.S. and its
shaky allies in the anti-terrorism coalition.
And among the Arab and Muslim
populace, the response is predictable: "Reports of deaths"
the Guardian reports, have "provoked rage and grief throughout
Afghanistan and throughout the Muslim world."
Which brings us to what the
US-led strikes have succeeded in doing:
IGNITING
AN EXPLOSIVE BACKLASH:
I'm not referring to the 30,000 protesters who marched in England
against the US-led bombing, the 70,000 who marched in India,
the 70,000 in Germany, the 100,000 in Italy, or similar protests
which have filled the streets in other "friendly" turf
like Greece, France, and even our own cities.
I'm also not referring to the
boomerang response to U.S. bombing in the form of terrorist counter-attacks,
which have plunged Americans into dread fear of powdery envelopes
and exposed nuclear reactors.
No, more troubling are the
20,000 students who took over the streets of Egypt yelling "U.S.
go to hell!" The Jakarta Muslims threatening to kill U.S.
tourists and embassy workers. The millions of Arab-Americans
and Muslims who are raging -- violently -- against the U.S. in
Jordan, South Africa, Iran, Bangladesh, Pakistan (brought to
the brink of civil war) and Nigeria, where "hundreds"
may be dead due to rioting.
President Bush's reaction has
instilled little confidence. When asked in a press conference
last Friday for his response to the vitriolic hatred mushrooming
around the globe, Bush could only mumble: "I'm amazed. I
just can't believe it because I know how good we are" --
which, in the world's eyes, must bring profoundly new meaning
to the word "naivete."
This disheartening string of
missteps, feeding an upswell of moral outrage, led everyone's
favorite war-watching website -- <www.debka.com> -- to
post this headline over the weekend: "First Week of U.S.
Offensive in Afghanistan is Inconclusive Militarily, Earthshaking
Geo-Politically."
And for what? To the Pentagon's
dismay, Bin Laden hasn't been "flushed out." The Taliban
isn't waving a white flag. Our supposed allies, the opium-running
North Alliance, seem confused about whether or not they should
take over the country.
Amidst such chaos, the Bush
camp has resorted to the time-tested tactic of creating a diversion,
suggesting the blame for September 11 may lay elsewhere -- Iraq
(surprise) being the favorite fall guy. This comes just weeks
after every media mouthpiece instructed us that "ONLY the
resources and skills of Osama bin Laden" and the "al-Quaeda
network" could have been responsible.
The U.S. may or may not be
able to reverse its miserable military fortunes in Afghanistan.
But the more dangerous consequences of the U.S. bombing campaign
-- a world aroused into anger against America's armed arrogance,
in part the very reason for the September 11 tragedy -- will
stay with us for a very long time.
Chris Kromm is Director of the Institute
for Southern Studies in Durham, North Carolina.
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