October 19, 2001

[Excerpted from an email message to a friend.]

I've been thinking about some of the sentiments expressed about the war, the ones declaring "we want vengeance, pure and simple." I say we should adopt that idea. "Yes, vengeance! Get 'them' back for what they did! Okay, let's see. So far we've killed at least a few hundred people, destroyed two warehouses of Red Cross aid supplies, refugeed hundred of thousands, and condemned tens if not hundreds of thousands to die of starvation this winter. So I think we've more than done the vengeance thing already. So we can stop now, right?"

And have you noticed how the image has shifted seamlessly from bin Laden being sheltered by the Taliban to bin Laden being the same as the Taliban and the claimed aim has segued from "getting" bin Laden to overthrowing the Taliban? In the course of that we've made common cause with the so-called "Northern Alliance" (which isn't the actual name, but it's what everyone here knows it as), who, when they were in charge in Kabul in 1992-1996, were if anything more brutal than the Taliban and who Amnesty International regards as horrendous human rights abusers - and who, let it be noted, were just as friendly to Osama bin Laden as the Taliban has been. What in the flaming hell make us think this is going to "stop terrorism?" What makes us think this is going to do anything - even assuming it succeeds, perhaps especially if it succeeds - other than fan the flames of hatred, stoke the fires of fanaticism? It's just a repeat of the same old pattern: A Muslim country doesn't roll over for the US, the US bombs it, attacks it, if possible, throws out its government. I defy anyone to reasonably tell me it will play any differently than that in the Muslim world.

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, I remarked to more than one person that Osama bin Laden - assuming he's guilty, which I'm prepared to do - had done something that would have seemed impossible just days earlier: He had turned the US into the victim in the eyes of the world, including much of the Muslim world. In that moment, we had become the wronged innocents. Think of the opportunity, the political opening, that provided. We have blown that and big time. Now we're back to being the bullying superpower, stomping around the world, not caring who we step on so long as we get our way.

Meanwhile, "blowback," the spooks' version of "what goes around, comes around," is the buzzword of the day and some people have commented on how the Taliban was a recipient of US aid and support when it was a useful tool in "the global East-West conflict" during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Some even have noted how US insistence on stationing troops in Saudi Arabia angered conservative Muslims - including Osama bin Laden. But perhaps unsurprisingly, I've seen nothing giving consideration to how what we're doing now could blowback in the future. What new converts to the cause of the most radical, reactionary forms of Islam are we creating, what new volunteers for suicide bombings? The Northern Alliance, seemingly our chosen alternative to the Taliban, has, after initially approving it, rejected the idea of a grand council to establish a new government in Kabul, saying such a council should wait until "a few years" after they have taken power. Considering their record, does anyone imagine that once in power they would cede it? Does anyone imagine, that is, that our plan would accomplish anything other than substituting one set of brutal thugs with another set of brutal thugs? What makes us think they'll be the pliable allies we desire?

Another form of blowback, this one sort of on an angle: I assume you heard about India shelling Pakistani positions along the disputed Kashmir border. But did you hear that there's a fair body of opinion that one of the reasons was Indian displeasure at the way the US is cozying up to Pakistan?

And a third: "The Independent" recently carried an article noting that overthrowing the Taliban could lead to a resumption of large-scale cultivation of opium poppies in Afghanistan.

So much we could have done differently, so much we could do differently. And none of it is happening. It's really, really depressing.