By Muqtedar Khan
Muqtedar Khan is director of International Studies at Adrian College in Adrian, Mich., and vice president of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists.
November 14, 2001
THE BUSH administration's decision to continue its attacks on Afghanistan during the holy month of Ramadan will have a significant impact on two fundamental components in the war on terrorism - propaganda and alliance building.
The United States could resort to an invisible war, by engaging in special ops and covert ground operations, and build bridges - or it could bomb Afghanistan during Ramadan, continuing the visible military campaign, and burn bridges with the Muslim world.
The administration wishes to convey in the clearest of terms that this is a war against terrorism and not against Islam. President George W. Bush stressed this. But if Bush continues to bomb Afghanistan even when its citizens are turning toward God and trying to immerse themselves in prayers and fasting, he will only confirm the global stereotype of the United States as a callous and arrogant superpower.
Even though the Taliban has been weakened considerably, for many the military campaign has achieved very little, except hurting Afghan civilians and eroding the sympathy that Muslims had for the United States after Sept. 11.
War during Ramadan, the holy month that will start later this week, will further undermine U.S. attempts to win the battle for Muslim public opinion. In the Islamic world, satellite images of the United States dropping bombs on Afghans who have had no food or water because of the fast will raise tempers and animosity toward the United States. The war may increase support for Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, winning them many volunteers. It will be difficult for moderate Muslims and their governments to convince the public that the American war is not a war against Islam.
Muslims watch on Al-Jazeera and other networks as Israel in Palestine and the United States in Afghanistan kill innocent Muslims in tandem. Bin Laden's statement that this is a new crusade against Islam will have a truer ring to it.
Mosques everywhere see a manifold increase in attendance during the month of Ramadan. During Ramadan, Muslims try not only to increase their spirituality but also make many resolutions to recommit themselves to live by Islamic values, such as giving more to charity, praying more regularly, or being more loving and polite to family members. The religious fervor is very strong, and Muslims by and large are able to sustain this high level of spiritual and ritual activity for the entire month of Ramadan.
Imams in most mosques in Pakistan and the Arab world, unlike those in America, are not overly eager to cooperate with America. The imams will strike back from the pulpits, whipping up an anti-American wave, and they will have the undivided attention of more than the usual number of Muslims. The pressure will build, and Muslim regimes will be forced to deal with it, either by resorting to repression of protests at home or by actively distancing themselves and even opposing the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan.
If the Bush administration loses the war for the minds and hearts of the Islamic world and further alienates the Muslim population, it will be the end of the so-called global alliance against terror.
Vulnerable Muslim nations such as Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia could be destabilized by growing anger in the Muslim World. Pakistan has risked internal stability by supporting and assisting U.S. attacks on the Taliban and al-Qaida. There is a limit to how much pressure Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf can handle.
From the beginning of the conflict, Musharraf has repeatedly called for a "short and targeted" attack, basically opposing sustained and indiscriminate bombings. It is time Washington began paying attention to his vulnerabilities, which essentially signify the vulnerabilities of most Muslim regimes. Muslim nations such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, key U.S. allies, could be destabilized by the growing anger in the Muslim world. Many leaders, including Musharraf, have warned the United States to end the campaign before Ramadan. Their message is clear. I hope Washington is decoding these statements correctly.
What leaders of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are really doing is setting a deadline for ending the military campaign against Afghanistan. Americans must realize that if the casualties of innocent Afghans reach 6,000, then at least in the eyes of Muslims, Bush will be just as evil as bin Laden and the claim by militants that the United States is a terrorist state will resonate. Muslim nations now working with the United States will bail out of the coalition before that happens.
Does that mean the United States should give up its war on terrorism? Certainly not. What it means is that it should become more sensitive to the public opinion in the Muslim world and value the lives of innocent Muslims as much as it values the lives of innocent Americans.
The best way to negotiate the month of Ramadan is to cease air attacks and let the Afghan population have some reprieve. The United States should shift its emphasis to the use of more special ops and covert ground operations and more targeted and less visible attacks on bin Laden's human and material assets.
Prayers and abstinence can do more good than bombs and missiles. Bush would do well to dedicate this month of Ramadan to a global appreciation of Islam and invite all peace-loving people of the world to join Muslims in spiritual development, prayer and contemplation. This is eminently necessary after the blow that humanity took on Sept. 11.
Mondo Washington
by James Ridgeway (The Village Voice)
Bully Spends Billions Blasting Nation of Refugees
The Ugly American
Elation over the Northern Alliance's march toward Kabul obscures America's real gain in the war on terrorism: responsibility for 7 million starving Afghan refugees. Our horrific cluster bombs and missiles have driven these people to the borders of their country, where they stand begging to get out. If for no other reason than to keep up appearances, the Bush administration will have to feed and clothe them, provide them with shelter, and protect them for years to come.
As a writer with Working for Change put it, the 7 million are three times the number of people Pol Pot killed and 35 times the number who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Or look at it this way: A twin towers tragedy every day for almost four years. We get to start the century by defending ourselves from charges of genocide.
Shielding the refugees from the marauding Taliban and tribal fighting led by the U.S.-backed thugs of the Northern Alliance will almost surely necessitate a long-term commitment of American ground forces in Central Asia. You can't run the place from the air, and the Northern Alliance can't run it at all. So over the next decade or so, Afghanistan will be dotted with U.S. and British firebase charlies—forts set up to protect ourselves from a tenacious local enemy. Didn't work for us in Vietnam. Didn't work for the Brits in Northern Ireland. Sure as hell won't work here. And as we antagonize more and more Muslims, we'll be fending off jihad attacks from all over the place.
Citing the toll in human misery, some liberals criticize the war on purely humanitarian grounds, which has no effect on Bush's conservative government. The more surprising opposition is on the right, among the military experts who advocate a leaner, faster guerrilla-style attack. They believe the campaign should be run by the Special Forces, without the meddling of conventional warriors. They think commanding general Tommy Franks is a know-nothing artillery officer and laugh at the mention of B-52s flying high-altitude bombing runs from bases in the States.
Most of all, the guerrilla lobby's scorn is concentrated on the military industrial complex, which they see getting rich while the best of the Special Forces are exposed to the Pentagon's cockeyed maneuvers. These former Green Beret officers won't openly criticize Bush, but they are sick over what's going on, especially what's happening to the Delta Force. This is the elite group of highly trained troops who slip into a country and spend as long as a year planning their attack. They operate on their own, develop their own intelligence, then strike and get out. The Delta Force is a bit like the OSS working quietly behind German lines in World War II, except that here they're being dropped into battle zones.
The U.S. is spending a fortune blasting hillsides and abandoned training camps with the most advanced conventional weapons available. With the war already costing $1 billion a month—compared to the annual defense budget of between $250 billion and $300 billion—the Defense Department aims to add an initial $12.8 billion to repair the Pentagon and pay for all these bombs. We'd flown 1800 sorties as of last weekend, at an estimated price of $1 million apiece. Chris Hellman, senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information, a liberal think tank in Washington that tracks the military, estimates the daily cost of the bombing missions runs anywhere from $40 million to $50 million. Add to that the burden of three carriers steaming offshore to the tune of $2.7 million a day.
None of this includes the weight of homeland defense, with double and triple stepped-up security, active-duty troops from the National Guard, bailouts for industry, and the response to anthrax attacks. This is supposed to be a war on terrorism, and we have to ask whether we're winning. With billions already spent and more to come, what have we got? One nation where the tide of refugees never stops rising, and another jolted awake with every bump in the night.
Afghanistan's Huddled Masses
The Lost Colony
What kind of colony have we obtained in Afghanistan? With a per-capita annual income of $800, Afghanistan is one of the very poorest countries in the world. Forty-two percent of its 26.8 million people are under the age of 14, and 147 of its infants die for each 1000 live births. Afghans have a life expectancy of 46 years. About a third of the population over 15 can read, although 85 percent lack any sort of formal education. Among women, who've been kicked out of schools by the Taliban, the literacy rate drops to 15 percent.
Fifty percent of the people speak a Persian dialect called Dari. There are 30 more minor languages. The country has 29,000 telephones, 167,000 radios, 100,000 TVs, and more land mines than any other nation.
During the Soviet war, 6 million people fled to the borders of Pakistan and Iran, with half that number still there.
Traditionally, over half the people are subsistence farmers, but the war destroyed what there was of irrigation systems, and the current drought has made conditions worse than ever. The one bright economic spot in Afghanistan has been its position as the world's leading producer of opium poppies. And despite popular myth, the Taliban stamped out poppy growing, leaving the Afghan farmers even more destitute and driving the production into land held by the Northern Alliance, who of course we're supporting.
U.S. Drops Bigger Bombs on Darker People
Brown Out
U.S. propaganda portrays Al Qaeda and the Taliban as one and the same—a gang of dark-skinned subhuman monsters who must be squashed like cockroaches, by any means necessary. This is exactly how American propaganda depicted the Japanese in World War II--little yellow guys who lost their equilibrium at night. The white Germans, on the other hand, were viewed as just like us: clearheaded, tough, clean fighters.
To get rid of these nasty tan bugs, we're hitting them with everything we've got. We can't use nuclear weapons--at least not yet, so the next best thing is the Daisy Cutter. The world's biggest conventional bomb, the Daisy Cutter weighs 15,000 pounds and costs $27,318 a shot. Originally used to clear jungle for chopper pads in Vietnam, the bomb was later employed as an antipersonnel weapon there and in the Gulf War. The U.S. military has 225 of these rigs.
The Daisy Cutter is basically a big drum filled to the brim with an assortment of relatively inexpensive explosives. Dropped from 6000 feet by parachute so the pilot can escape, the bomb detonates about three feet off the ground with a terrifying concussion. Do-gooders portray the Daisy Cutter as a weapon of mass destruction, but the military views it as a psy-ops weapon, calculated to scare the hell out of enemy troops.
Soviet Nukes Give D.C. Big Squeeze
From Russia With Love
All last week Washington resounded with administration scare tactics. First there was a national terrorist alert, issued despite objections from the FBI staff. Then came a growing undercurrent of concern over runaway Russian nuclear weapons.
Here's what we really know about these weapons: The Russians had 84 suitcase bombs, compact explosives weighing about 70 pounds, says nuclear theft expert Matthew Bunn of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Some of them may be missing. John Eldredge of Jane's Intelligence Review told the Voice that British and U.S. intelligence see the missing suitcase bombs as the result of "inadvertent commerce or paper accounting errors." But no one, including Russia, knows for sure. A terrorist could hide a suitcase bomb just about anywhere—in luggage left at a train station, in the back of a truck parked near the Capitol, or on the deck of a pleasure boat cruising up the Potomac. The resulting blast would have a circumference of half a mile, and a Chernobyl-like radioactive effect across the city.
"You're talking about a bomb, a device with a capability of one kiloton of destruction, which . . . would cause severe destruction of a major inner-city area, perhaps causing a multitude of buildings to collapse with the people inside of them," Congressman Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania told PBS two years ago. "So you'd have a massive loss of life, you'd have massive radioactive contamination, and you'd have massive havoc, unlike any that we've prepared for in the past."
Despite such horrifying scenarios, U.S. officials are more worried about small nuclear artillery shells that aren't accounted for. You could shoot one of these out of a gun or drop them like bombs from small planes. The U.S. stopped producing these shells long ago, and they were believed to have all been dismantled. However, one type proved difficult to destroy, and nearly 300 of these are still around. No one knows how many shells are in the Russian inventory. They were supposed to be mothballed by 2000 under a gentleman's agreement, but when Joshua Handler, a Princeton expert on the subject, spoke with a Russian general a few months ago, the general "dodged" his questions. "Several dozen, hundreds, or thousands may exist in storage," Handler said. Additional reporting: Meritxell Mir and Sarah Park
Kabul's fall is no mark of US success
By Vincent Browne
The "success" in replacing the Taliban with the Northern Alliance in Kabul, even if followed by the capture of Osama bin Laden and his al Queda associates, almost certainly will make no difference to the security threat to the US and the West from terrorism. It may do the reverse.
The scale of the threat to America and its allies is documented again and again in a multitude of reports from official US commissions and organisations over the last few years. These reports describe the nature of the terrorist organisations that pose these threats - the absence of hierarchical structures, the loose connections between them, the spread of these organisations throughout the world and within America, the lessening of reliance on state sponsors, and the danger that one or more of these groups may acquire nuclear or biological weapons. They also emphasise the vulnerability of the US to attack from these organisations.
In Countering the Changing Threat of International Terrorism, a report by the National Commission on Terrorism, published in June of last year, the following observation is made: "If al Queda and Osama bin Laden were to disappear tomorrow, the United States would still have potential terrorist threats from a growing number of groups opposed to perceived American hegemony."
The same report stated: "Because groups based on ideological or religious motives may lack a specific political or nationalistic agenda, they have less need for a hierarchical structure". It says these groups "operate in the United States as well as abroad. Their funding and logistical networks cross borders, are less dependent on state sponsors and are harder to disrupt with economic sanctions. Their objectives are more deadly (than terrorist groups of a decade or two ago)".
The US Commission on National Security, co-chaired by former US senator and presidential candidate, Gary Hart, stated in a report published on February 15th of this year: "Attacks on American citizens on American soil, possibly causing heavy casualties, are likely over the next quarter century. These attacks may involve weapons of mass destruction and weapons of mass disruption."
A report in January of this year on the US Department of Energy's non-proliferation programmes with Russia, chaired by former US senator Howard Baker, and former presidential counsellor, Lloyd Cutler, is the most alarming. It says the old Soviet Union had a nuclear arsenal of 40,000 weapons, over a thousand metric tons of nuclear materials, vast quantities of chemical and biological materials and thousands of missiles. The quantity of remaining highly enriched uranium (HEU) is enough to make more than 4,000 additional nuclear weapons.
The US and Russian governments engaged in what is known as the "contract of the century" to destroy a great deal of this material and to bring the remainder under secure control. But a great proportion remains in insecure conditions. Worse, those "guarding" this material are given a strong incentive to give some of it to terrorists because of inadequate pay - often no pay at all for months on end - and chaotic military control arrangements. The report records a number of scarifying episodes:
In late 1998, conspirators at a Ministry of Autonomic Energy facility in Chelyabinsk were caught attempting to steal fissile material of a quantity just short of that needed for one nuclear device.
In early 1998, the mayor of Krasnoyarsk-45, a closed nuclear city that stores enough HEU for hundreds of nuclear weapons, wrote to the governor of Krasnoyarsk warning that a social explosion in the city was unavoidable unless urgent action was taken to pay nuclear scientists and other workers, who had been unpaid for several months.
In December 1998, an employee of Russia's premier nuclear weapons laboratory in Sarov was arrested for espionage and charged with attempting to sell documents on nuclear weapons designs to agents of Iraq and Afghanistan for $3 million.
Former US Senator Sam Nunn, who is co-chair of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, told the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on September 5th this year: "I am convinced the threat of a biological weapons attack on the Untied States in as urgent as it is real." He pointed out that the former Soviet Union engaged in a massive programme of biological weapons manufacture, at one time employing 870,000 scientists. They manufactured 22 tons of smallpox, a tiny fraction of which, if unleashed on the United States, would have devastating effects.
A report by the advisory panel to assess domestic response to capabilities for terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction, says: "The United States has no coherent, functional national strategy for combating terrorism."
Aside from a single sentence in the Gary Hart report, there is no attempt in any of these documents to decipher why terrorists might want to attack America and what America might do to address the reasons for the hostility. This seems all the more surprising given the scale of the threat and the vulnerability of America to terrorist attack.
And the reasons appear straightforward: the presence of American troops in the Muslim holy land of Saudi Arabia; the historic injustice perpetrated on the Palestinian people, an injustice reinforced daily with the might of American arms; the sanctions on Iraq and the frequent bombings of that country; and above all, the perception that America is at war with the Islamic world. That perception will have been reinforced hugely by the bombardment of Afghanistan. Even after the fall of Kabul, America seems more vulnerable.