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October 17, 2001
Ballinger
and Marsh
Music
and War Resistance
Steve
Perry
The
Anthrax Chronicles
Chris
Kromm
Operation
Infinite Disaster
Susan
Block
Sex
Not Bombs
David Vest
Osama Speaks
October 16, 2001
Steve
Perry
War
Without Frontiers
Douglas
Valentine
The
CIA and Anthrax
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
October
10, 2001
Cockburn/St.
Clair
The
Empire Strikes Back
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Aftermath
Diary
Ashcroft's Onslaught
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Civil Liberties
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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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James
Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas
Valentine
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by Cockburn
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October
17, 2001
3 Arguments Against This War
By Russell Mokhiber and
Robert Weissman
Unspeakable acts of violence were committed on
September 11. The perpetrators of the horrific attack of September
11 must be brought to justice, using the instruments of domestic
and international law. The unconscionable slaughter demands prosecution.
But bombing a desperately poor country
under the yoke of a repressive regime is a wrongheaded response.
The U.S. bombing of Afghanistan should cease immediately.
It is a policy that will diminish U.S.
security, ignores overriding humanitarian concerns, and precludes
more sensible approaches to achieving justice and promoting security
in the United States and around the world.
1. The
policy of bombing increases the risk of further terrorism against
the United States.
This is an uncontested claim.
The Bush administration along with virtually
every commentator acknowledges that the U.S. bombing and military
response is likely to worsen the possibility of additional terrorism
on U.S. soil.
The recent Congressional leak that so
outraged the White House involved a Washington Post report that
an intelligence official, responding to a senator's question,
"said there is a '100 percent' chance of an attack should
the United States strike Afghanistan, according to sources familiar
with the briefing."
The horror of September 11 allows for
no satisfactory response. But surely the United States must not
act to increase the risk of terrorism.
No matter how great one's outrage at
September 11, no matter how intense one's desire to "do
something" -- it doesn't make sense to pursue a course of
action that intensifies the very problem the Bush administration
says it is trying to solve.
And the increased risk of terrorism will
not be short-lived. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says
the war against terrorism will take years to win. Former CIA
chief James Woolsey and others have talked about a two- or three-decade
war. That's coming from proponents of the U.S. military action,
people who view terrorism as something that can be defeated,
rather than as a tactic assumed by weak and disgruntled parties.
2. The bombing is intensifying a humanitarian
nightmare in Afghanistan.
"The terrorist attacks of 11 September,
in terms of security and access within Afghanistan, have created
the potential for a humanitarian crisis of massive proportions,"
according to the UN's World Food Program (WFP). The WFP estimates
7.5 million people are in danger of starvation in Afghanistan.
The U.S. threat of military response
to September 11, and now its bombing, has made a horrible situation
worse. The WFP has predicted nearly two million additional people
will need food assistance due to the disruptions caused by the
expectation, and now the reality, of a U.S. military response.
"It is now evident that we cannot,
in reasonable safety, get food to hungry Afghan people,"
says Oxfam America President Raymond C. Offenheiser, "We've
reached the point where it is simply unrealistic for us to do
our job in Afghanistan. We've run out of food, the borders are
closed, we can't reach our staff and time is running out."
After September 11, relief agencies pulled
their staff out of Afghanistan, though the WFP has managed to
continue to deliver some food supplies via Afghani staff.
But aid agencies warn that time is running
out to deliver food supplies. By mid-November, heavy snows block
key roads, making it impossible to move trucks into many areas
of the country.
"If WFP is to meet its target of
delivering 52,000 tons of food aid each month to millions of
hungry people inside Afghanistan, it urgently needs to fill-up
its warehouses before the region's harsh winter sets in,"
said Mohamed Zejjari, WFP assistant executive director and director
of operations.
Oxfam has called for a pause in the bombing
on humanitarian grounds. "We just don't know how many people
may die if the bombing is not suspended and the aid effort assured,"
Offenheiser says.
Here the humanitarian imperative is aligned
with the most narrowly defined U.S. national interest. No action
can better serve to reduce the risk of future terrorism than
providing sufficient food aid to the suffering Afghanis.
3. There are better ways to seek justice.
If law is to have meaning, it must constrain
and guide our actions in the times of greatest stress and challenge,
not just when it is convenient.
Reviewing the principles of international
law, Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights,
urges the United States to:
- Convene a meeting of the UN Security
Councill.
- Request the establishment of an international
tribunal with authority to seek out, extradite or arrest and
try those responsible for the September 11 attack and those who
commit or are conspiring to commit future attacks.
- Establish an international military
or police force under the control of UN and which can effectuate
the arrests of those responsible for the September 11 attacks
and those who commit or are conspiring to commit future attacks.
It is crucial that such force should be under control of the
UN and not a mere fig leaf for the United States as was the case
in the war against Iraq.
A fair trial of bin Laden -- one perceived
as fair not just in the United States but around the world --
is essential to avoid turning him into a martyr and worsening
the spiral of violence.
Opponents of the war should not be content
to be a dissenting minority. While there are many compelling
arguments against the war, it is critical to emphasize those
with the best prospect of moving the U.S. public and policymakers.
The widespread U.S. public support for
military action against Afghanistan is based in part on a desire
for a modicum of justice and for action to reduce the risk of
future terrorist action.
These are both vital goals, but both
-- especially reducing the risk of future terrorism -- can be
better achieved through peace than war.
Russell Mokhiber
is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter.
Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
Multinational Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate
Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy
(Monroe, Maine: Common
Courage Press, 1999.)
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