by Marty Jezer

The bombing of Afghanistan is entering its fourth week. What began as an attempt to destroy the country’s air defense and military infrastructure in anticipation of direct attacks on bin Laden’s mountain lair has turned into an attempt to destroy the Taliban regime. What was supposed to be a new kind of war, to attack and destroy a terrorist network that knows no national bounds, has turned into the same old strategic bombing we know from previous wars. Carpet bombing, cluster bombs, one-thousand pound bombs that hit houses, health clinics, food warehouses and other civilian targets. The Afghan people, who have not been implicated in any terrorist crime, are the ones who are hurting.

Even before the September 11 attack, over five million people were on the edge of starvation in Afghanistan, surviving only because of international aid. The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) and other international humanitarian organizations were in Afghanistan working desperately to truck in food before winter closed the roads.

The United States claims the bombing is necessary to stop terrorism. But the Afghan people have never been accused of terrorism. None of the plane hijackers responsible for the 9-11 carnage have been identified as Afghani. Of the estimated one-thousand people being held for questioning in American jails, none are reported to be from Afghanistan. Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network has been identified in Germany, Italy, and other European countries, but no one from Afghanistan has been identified as a member.

It’s true that the Taliban protects bin Laden in Afghanistan and most people, certainly most of the women in Afghanistan, would be pleased to have the Taliban driven from power. But at what cost? The Taliban may or may not survive this onslaught (they know how to protect themselves from bombs, as they proved in the war against the Russians). But it’s the innocent people of Afghanistan who are being put at risk by what we claim is a war on terrorism.

Two guidelines govern the bombing of Afghanistan: 1) we don’t want to lose men; and 2) we don’t want to have our expensive and technologically sophisticated aircraft shot down. Hence we drop bombs from on high, so anti-aircraft guns and missiles can’t hit us. The trouble is it’s ineffective; too many bombs miss their targets. I’m sure that we don’t want to bomb civilians; morality aside, it’s bad politics. But as long as we refuse to risk our planes and our pilots, we can’t help but hit homes, health clinics, schools and warehouses.

Some military realists, Senator John McCain and I’m sure many generals, understand that this kind of high-tech war is not working. They understand that war cannot be fought as a public relations project. Planes have to fly close to their targets and troops have to do close-up fighting. Some might say that our unwillingness to take casualties is a sign of national weakness. I would suggest it’s a sign of civilized behavior. But if the public doesn’t have the stomach for war, we shouldn’t fight ineffective wars from our own safe havens. Instead, we should start looking for alternative ways of projecting our influence. High-flying strategic bombing is militarily ineffective and morally disastrous.

More to the point it has very little to do with stopping terror. Bin Laden, safe in a mountainous cave, can’t hurt us. It’s the men he recruits who are willing to die to destroy others, that are our problem. And they only become lethal when they’re in our country. There is a rush to secure our borders and protect the public. But, logistically, there is less of a rush to get at bin Laden; and doing so could cause the death – if the bombing doesn’t stop so the food can get in – of millions of people and create the hatred for America that makes people want to destroy us.

TV pictures of bombs killing Afghan civilians enrages people who, for religious, ethnic or simply human reasons, identify with the victims. Every civilian we kill, increases the number of potential terrorists. People who are dying because our bombing prevents them from getting food increases the likelihood of revenge killing. Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, in an interview with the London Sunday Telegraph, recently justified the use of cluster bombs or any other weapon in Afghanistan by saying, "We lost somewhere between 5,000 and 7,000 people in a single day. We are now being threatened with weapons that could kill tens of thousands of people, and we are trying to avoid killing innocent people, but we have to win this war and we will use the weapons we need to win this war."

But it’s not a war against terrorism that Wolfowitz thinks he’s fighting. It’s a war against the people of Afghanistan who are not responsible for any crimes against America. A number of relief organizations have called for a halt in the bombing so food can be trucked into Afghanistan before the winter. That’s a start. A bombing halt will not hinder the international police efforts to uncover bin Laden’s terrorist networks; nor, practically speaking, will it increase the threat of terrorism here in America. More bombing, however, will increase the potential of future terrorist action. And to be implicated in the death of millions -- because our bombing stymied efforts to prevent people from starving -- is something no human being, except perhaps a terrorist, would ever want to be guilty of.

Marty Jezer writes from Brattleboro, Vermont and welcomes comments at mjez@sover.net

Copyright (C) 2001 by Marty Jezer

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