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(YellowTimes.org)
- It's almost as though American policy in Afghanistan
had followed the script for a Hollywood summer blockbuster.
A potboiler-epic aimed at pleasing affluent, pimply
teenage boys, dreaming dreams of power and adventure,
its script mixing generous helpings of Cecil B. deMille,
Steven Spielberg, explosive special effects, bad dialogue,
and a lack of intelligible plot.
That
may not be an exaggeration. Only reflect that America's
second-last, dangerously hare-brained president, Mr.
Nixon, used to watch the movie Patton over and over
again, hoping to derive inspiration in dealing with
the catastrophe he himself created.
Unfortunately,
this isn't a movie. Real lives and real villages are
being torn apart by a slightly-earlier generation
of pimply American boys at the controls of some of
the world's most hellish weapons. Boys like that eager
fellow, reportedly nick-named "Psycho" by
some of his comrades, who ignored procedures to get
"a kill," his target being a group of Canadian
soldiers carrying out known exercises.
(Canadians,
by the way, will be grateful that the county's modest
contribution to insanity in the mountains will end
soon. America brow-beat its allies into playing supporting
roles, hoping to give vengeance the color of a genuine
international cause. It was easier this time than
it was for Vietnam owing to people's initial, instinctive
sympathy for those killed September 11. But one remembers
the story of how Lyndon Johnson grabbed Prime Minister
Lester Pearson, winner of the Nobel peace prize, by
the lapels and tried intimidating him into contributing
troops for Vietnam. Thank God, Pearson stood his ground
against the Texas thug.)
In
December of last year, U.S. planes mistakenly attacked
a convoy of tribal elders, killing 65 people. There
were reports that this ugly incident had an even uglier
origin: Americans had been deliberately tricked by
one of the cut-throat factions now ruling the country
into eliminating some political opposition. Since
then there have been many lethal attacks on the wrong
people.
Now
we have the report of a wedding party in southern
Afghanistan blown to bits. The government in Afghanistan
reports 40 killed, including the bride and groom,
and 100 injured, by some trigger-happy fly-boy undoubtedly
trying to clutch Psycho's fallen laurels. (Actually
this was the second wedding party attacked, the first
was in eastern Afghanistan in May with 10 killed.)
I
suppose we can be grateful the Pentagon much earlier
gave up its disgusting stunt of dropping food-ration
packets along with 500-pond bombs. Imagine bags of
freeze-dried rice dropped on the bodies of the bride
and groom?
Does
anyone understand why American planes are still bombing
Afghanistan? Oh, yes, I forgot, to destroy any elusive
al Qaeda who might still be clambering the rocky slopes
in sandals threatening New York. And it makes such
good sense to do this with bombs from the air where
you cannot distinguish a cleric from a warrior, a
rifle from a hoe. Perhaps al Qaeda members are supposed
to wear transponders for easy identification?
Recent
stories from Britain reveal the utter contempt in
which American tactics are held by senior officials
there - information suppressed until now by the heavy
hand of Prime Minister Tony Blair who seems keen to
play dwarf armor-polisher to America's idiot-prince.
The tactics in question include American special forces
in Pakistan and border areas of Afghanistan conducting
searches for hidden al Qaeda by breaking into village
homes with weapons blazing away, completely oblivious
to the fact that this is not a part of the world where
arrogant, insulting behavior is easily forgiven.
Can
you imagine what a hellish storm of vengeance and
terror Northern Ireland would have reaped had British
troops behaved that way? In more than a quarter century
of civil unrest in Northern Ireland, bad as it was,
fewer people died on all sides than the number in
Afghanistan killed by Americans during just a few
months. You might think Americans had some valuable
lessons to learn from Britain's long, demanding experience
in Northern Ireland, but the kind of Americans in
Bush's crowd already know everything, possessing wisdom
magically sprung from the head of Zeus.
Not
that you'd know it from America's limp press, but
it does appear that the country's special forces,
whose every member has more expensive outfits and
fancy equipment than the deluxe jet-set, celebrity
edition of Barbie comes with, have pretty much come
up short in every significant operation so far.
Except,
of course, for the massacre at Mazar-I-Sharif. Scots
filmmaker Jamie Doran has shown parliamentarians in
Europe the first portion of his documentary on the
disappearance of about three thousand prisoners after
their surrender. The film has terrible things to say
of American participation. Hundreds of Taliban prisoners
were driven in vans out into the desert by order of
a local American commander, and those not suffocated
by the heat were shot dead by General Dostum's troops
while Americans casually watched.
A
secret report released to the New York Times indicates
that even American authorities know what a failure
the war has been. It has only succeeded in dispersing
anti-American terrorists throughout the Muslim world.
The
actual membership of al Qaeda was always very small,
far smaller than any Chicago street gang, and never
bore any relation to the addled claims of Mr. Bush.
They might have been dealt with handily by a set intelligent
policies and diplomatic moves rather than a mindless
crusade costing tens of billions of dollars.
The
recent, much-publicized loya jirga, a grand council
of delegates from all over Afghanistan, did little
more than set up a temporary figurehead government,
a kind of national fig leaf for the nakedness of the
war lords who now rule most of the country. Astute
readers will rightly ask how delegates could possibly
have been chosen in any representative fashion from
regions governed by warlords, places that are no-go
areas for foreign troops.
At
least now the way is clear for America, in its usual
end-of-bombing fashion, to hightail it out after a
decent interval. Ari Fleischer will blubber claims
of having brought democracy to Afghanistan. Who knows,
maybe Billy Graham will join in with prayers of thanksgiving
before a joint session of Congress for all the swarthy
heathens killed? Only the keen political sensibilities
of George Orwell could have fully appreciated America's
second wave of destruction in Afghanistan being celebrated
as an achievement.
All
these developments - Afghanistan left in turmoil,
warlords in control, stupid tactics creating many
more angry young men seeking vengeance, the dispersal
of anti-American leaders - together with the ugly
new line on the Palestinians that the weak Mr. Bush
has been cornered into accepting, promise little peace
or security for anyone. It's almost as though Ariel
Sharon had been named special advisor to the president,
and a stunning appointment it is: a man who has spent
his life killing innocent people as an envoy for peace.
I
reflect back to the Pentagon general who announced
not so very long ago, as the forces of the Northern
Alliance bravely swept across a landscape first cleared
by American carpet-bombing, that this promised to
be one of the most effective military actions in history.
Here was a case of "pride goeth before the fall"
if ever there was.
Of
course, you must take account of the fact that he
spoke from the perspective of half a century of costly,
unprincipled, and often inept American colonial military
action - the murderous shame of Vietnam, the pointless
destruction in Cambodia, the almost-laughable theater
of the absurd in Somalia, the marines providing live
targets in Lebanon, the Army's School of the Americas
training the creatures of dictators in the fine points
of torture and killing, the destruction of an Iranian
civilian airliner with three-hundred souls aboard
(an act which also deserves rarely-given credit for
the reprisal destruction of the Pan-Am Lockerbie flight),
the sinking of a Japanese civilian ship, the vicious
fly-boy pranks that hurled an Italian gondola full
of people down a mountain, the numerous rapes and
assaults by troops in Okinawa.
The
general's breast swelled with the proud reflection
that Americans had been so stunningly-successful where
the Russians had miserably failed. Of course, he ignored
the fact that Russia attempted something quite different
to what America has attempted. He also ignored the
fact that the Russians worked against a vast secret
war waged by the CIA, whose activities in Afghanistan
are what made September 11 possible. But most of all,
he arrogantly ignored the fact that the play in Afghanistan
has not gone beyond the first scene of the first act.
A
final note of irony: How sound is government now in
Afghanistan? In early July, just after this piece
was written, the Minister for Public Works, Abdul
Qadir, who also served as one of three vice-presidents,
was assassinated in Kabul. Last April in Jalalabad,
there was an attempt to assassinate Mohammad Fahim,
Interim Defense Minister. In February, Abdul Rahman,
Civil Aviation Minister, was assassinated at the airport
in Kabul, other ministers being implicated in his
death. Readers should note that Kabul, where two of
these assassinations occurred, is the most secure
part of the country.
Despite
their over-advertised nastiness, this is exactly the
anarchy the Taliban ended before American bombing
ended the Taliban. So far as we know, the Taliban
had nothing to do with September 11, and they were
willing to extradite Osama bin Laden and others upon
America's producing evidence of their guilt, a universally-accepted
practice in legal extradition. But this was not acceptable
to Mr. Bush, and, apart from its many other costly
failures, his crusade in Afghanistan has not produced
bin Laden.
John
Chuckman encourages your comments: jchuckman@YellowTimes.org
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