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June 5, 2002
Michael Neumann
What is Antisemitism?
June 4, 2002
Dave Marsh
Bono the Useful Idiot
William Evan / Francis
Boyle
Kashmir:
Invoking Intl. Law to Avoid Nuclear War
Cockburn / St. Clair
The Future Wellstone Deserves
June 3, 2002
Ramdas / Makhijani
India,
Pakistan and Nukes:
A Road Map to Peace
Fran Shor
Meanwhile, Back in Afghanistan
Neve Gordon
The Caterpillar
Effect
June 2, 2002
Fidel Castro
From FDR to Mister "W.":
Cuba, the US and Democracy
Arundhati Roy
Under the
Nuclear Shadow
Bernard Weiner
Bush 9/11 Scandal for Dummies
June 1, 2002
Norman Madarasz
The
Strange Math of Roberto Carlos: Brazil v. Turkey
Gavin Keeney
Bush and Mies van der Rohe:
Architecture and Ideology
Jeff Halper
Sharon's
Post-Incursion Plan:
Incarceration or Transfer?
Walt Brasch
Crumpling the Constitution
May 31, 2002
Rev. Sandra Olewine
Land Grabs and Occupation:
Silent Destruction of Palestine
James Dunlop
Russian
Colonel:
"Insane But Fit for Duty"
Chomsky / Bennett
Debating "Terrorism"
May 30, 2002
Steve Perry
Jim Carrey:
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Tom Turnipseed
Sex Among the Sacred
George Monbiot
Corporate
Phantoms
Web of Deciet over GM Foods
Robert Jensen
Are You a Journalist
or a Patriot?
Gary Leupp
Georgia
and the War on Terror
May 29, 2002
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Age of Inequality
Philip Farruggio
The
Cleaning Lady
Bill Christison
Disastrous US Foreign Policy:
Part 2, Globalization
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June 5, 2002
Where Are the
"Moral" Leaders Now?
Kashmir on the Brink
by George Monbiot
There is something dreamlike about our contemplation
of the drift to war in Kashmir. While India and Pakistan move
their missiles into position, in Britain our concerns are focused
on the evacuation of our own citizens, the destination of the
likely refugees, and the possibility that the Indian cricket
team might be prevented from visiting England at the end of this
month. That 12 million people could be vaporised if the war begins
in earnest is viewed as regrettable, but nothing to do with us.
In the United States, the sense of detachment
is even more palpable. On Sunday, President Bush told the nation
that "we cannot put our faith in the word of tyrants, who
solemnly sign non-proliferation treaties, and then systematically
break them. If we wait for threats to fully materialise, we will
have waited too long." But he was talking not about India
or Pakistan, but about rogue states which might one day attack
the US. He mentioned "South Asia" once, but only as
an example of a region whose leaders had been recruited to his
cause.
In waging war, Bush and Blair were tumid
with moral leadership and purpose. In waging peace, they display
only vapidity and irresolution. Deputies are dispatched on half-hearted
missions to ask the two governments to negotiate, but no one
is proposing the measures necessary to prevent what could become
the most lethal conflict since the second world war. The "moral
imperatives" so often invoked during the bombing of Afghanistan
turn out to be nothing more than old-fashioned power politics.
Now, with few clearly formulated domestic interests at stake,
the new world order's moral leaders are looking the other way.
Even if Britain, the US and the other
western powers had no prior involvement in this conflict, our
moral duty to help develop an effective international response
would be unquestionable. But we are up to our necks in it. The
subcontinent's dispute is our dispute, and to turn away from
it could constitute the greatest collective dereliction since
the failure of both the German people and the allied powers to
intervene in the Holocaust.
In 1947, the Maharajah of Kashmir, a
Hindu installed by the British, decided neither to seek independence
nor to join Pakistan, despite the fact that the majority of his
people were Muslims, but to surrender the territory to India.
The British governor-general, Lord Mountbatten, insisted only
that a referendum or plebiscite of the Kashmiri people be conducted.
This never happened, and Britain, which could have asked the
UN to demand that the promise was kept, left India and Pakistan
to tear the place apart.
More recently, both states have drawn
strength from the effective licence granted to them by the US.
In 1998, President Clinton announced a "quantum leap"
in US relations with India, which the government there interpreted
as a permit to resume nuclear testing. Last year, the nuclear
sanctions levied on Pakistan were lifted in return for its cooperation
in the war on terror. President Bush described General Musharraf
(who enjoys the same degree of democratic legitimacy as Saddam
Hussein) as a "man of great courage and vision", and
promised a new $200m aid package. Musharraf relaxed his grip
on the militants slipping into India.
But at least the US has blocked new arms
sales to India and Pakistan. The United Kingdom, by contrast,
has done everything in its power to promote them. Blair, who
refuses to dirty his own hands, has sent the defence secretary
and the deputy prime minister to Delhi to sell Hawk aircraft.
The UK has continued to supply the spare parts for the Jaguar
jets (built under licence from the British company BAE), which
India may use to drop the bomb. Our moral leader deputes his
officials to explain that if we don't do it, someone else will.
More pertinent still, the nuclear weapons
programmes in both India and Pakistan were initiated with the
help of the west. As the Nuclear Control Institute has documented,
both programmes emerged from the civilian industry, which was
kickstarted with the help of the US "Atoms for Peace"
scheme. India's first nuclear device used plutonium produced
by a Canadian research reactor and extracted in a reprocessing
plant built with the help of the US. Germany supplied tritium,
beryllium, heavy water plants and reprocessing components; France
delivered uranium and fast-breeder technology; Norway sold heavy
water; the US provided enriched uranium and several commercial
reactors; and the UK distributed fuel, furnaces and the country's
first research reactor.
Pakistan's heavy water plants came from
Canada and Belgium; its uranium enrichment technology, beryllium,
tritium, furnaces and milling machines from Germany; its research
reactor from the US; and its reprocessing technology from France
and the UK. All of these components have potential uses in nuclear
weapons programmes; most appear to have been deployed for this
purpose by India and Pakistan.
Britain and the US point out that much
of the new nuclear material the enemies are using comes from
China. This is true, but China also appears to believe it has
a licence to operate. In 1998, Clinton approved a US-China nuclear
cooperation agreement, despite intelligence briefings showing
that China was supplying both Iran and Pakistan with nuclear
components, in direct contravention of this treaty. Within a
month of the signing of the agreement, China began shipping heavy
water to Pakistan, in far greater quantities than its civilian
programme could have used. The agreement stood.
There are plenty of instruments the international
community could use to prevent a nuclear war. It could explain
to India and Pakistan that if either nation escalates even the
conventional conflict, its leaders could expect to face a war
crimes tribunal. It could not only discontinue all arms sales
but also apply punitive sanctions to any company assisting the
weapons industry in either nation. Most importantly, it could
send peacekeepers to hold the lines apart and supervise disarmament.
Blair and Bush should both be in Kazakhstan right now, helping
Putin to knock heads together.
But there is no peace industry commensurate
with the world's war industry. There are no vested interests
to appease, no campaign contributions to be gained from preventing
rather than encouraging the use of weapons. As a result the hundreds
of thousands of peacekeepers whose deployment is required in
Kashmir do not exist. While wars are plotted in loving detail,
there is no global peace plan for the territory, despite 55 years
of conflict.
In the new world order of which Bush
and Blair have spoken, international support for a war pursued
for domestic purposes is a moral imperative. Preventing two nations
from vaporising each other's civilians is a moral luxury, rather
less pressing than the jubilee tea parties or the next visit
by the Indian cricket team. Faced with the frightening and complicated
task of waging peace rather than war, moral leadership turns
to moral flight.
George Monbiot
writes for the The Guardian. Visit his website at http://www.monbiot.com
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