Published on Tuesday, October 16, 2001
Week One: Operation Infinite Disaster
by Chris Kromm
President Bush's war planners have struggled to
find a fitting code name for our latest military
venture. But after a week of war, there's only
one appropriate label for the nightmare that has
transpired: Operation Infinite Disaster.
Leave aside, for the moment, the moral
shortcomings and Orwellian implications of
bombing starved people to "fight for freedom" or
honor the dead of the September 11
tragedy. What's even more striking about the War
Against ... Somebody is that, even on the Bush
administration's own terms, the bombing of
Afghanistan has thus far been a failure -- a
series of tactical blunders guaranteed to make a
bad situation much, much worse.
A quick inventory of the week's events tell the story:
BOMBING PEOPLE WITH FOOD: The first sign of
trouble was news that Bush -- in a move to give
the brutal bombings a humanitarian spin -- had
opted to drop food supplies along with cluster
bombs. This public relations stunt quickly
backfired, however, when every major relief
agency in the world derided the drops for 1)
being insufficient (enough to feed about .5% of
the starving population for a single day,
provided the rations got to the intended
"targets"); 2) containing food Afghan people
never eat (hello, peanut butter?!); and 3)
having the disadvantage of landing in fields
strewn with land mines, adding injury to
insult.
HIGH-TECH STRIKES IN A LOW-TECH WORLD: Then came
evidence that U.S. bombs are hitting worthless
targets -- when they hit at all. This may
surprise U.S. readers, who, much like during the
Gulf War, have been treated to giddy media
reports cooing over the Pentagon's high-tech
"smart" weaponry: gee-whiz gadgets like
satellite targeting which supposedly make
military strikes "surgical" -- and
blood-free. (Although, in 1991 the Pentagon
admitted that under six percent of Gulf War
weapons used "smart" technology -- and even
among these brilliant bombs, fully 20% missed
their mark.)
The Pentagon says they've gotten better; time --
if not the media -- will tell. But what have
these intelligent machines of destruction been
hitting? A few terrorist training camps, which,
as journalist Robert Fisk noted, our planes had
"no difficulty spotting ... because, of course,
most of them were built by the CIA when Mr. bin
Laden and his men were the good guys."
But overall, the Taliban is a low-tech army --
and bombing their outdated airstrips and archaic
phone systems has had little impact on how they
control their terrain. And technology is only as
good as the fallible humans who use it, which
leads to the next mistake:
KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE: "Serious blunders by
American warplanes may have killed at least 100
civilians in Afghanistan," according to
eye-witness accounts obtained by The Observer of
London and reported on Sunday, October
14. (U.S. newspapers have been slow to report
evidence of innocent people dying.) These deaths
-- in Karam village, 18 miles west of Jalalabad
-- came after news of the four workers killed in
a U.N. building devoted to clearing land mines.
A total of 400 civilian deaths have been
confirmed. Personal testimony from fleeing
refugees suggest hundreds more.
What has been the effect of these deaths,
besides belying the notion that war can be waged
without ending innocent lives? According to The
Guardian of London, the Karam killings are
straining ties between the U.S. and its shaky
allies in the anti-terrorism coalition.
And among the Arab and Muslim populace, the
response is predictable: "Reports of between 50
and 150 deaths" the Guardian reports, have
"provoked rage and grief throughout Afghanistan
and throughout the Muslim world."
Which brings us to what the U.S.-led strikes
*have * succeeded in doing:
IGNITING AN EXPLOSIVE BACKLASH: I'm not
referring to the 30,000 protesters who marched
in England against the U.S.-led bombing, the
70,000 who marched in India, the 70,000 who
marched in Germany, or similar protests which
have filled the streets in "friendly" turf like
Italy, Greece, and our own cities.
I'm also not referring to the boomerang response
to U.S. bombing in the form of terrorist
counter-attacks, which have plunged America into
dread fear of powdery envelopes and exposed
nuclear reactors.
No, more troubling are the 20,000 students who
took over the streets of Egypt yelling "U.S. go
to hell!" The Jakarta Muslims threatening to
kill U.S. tourists and embassy workers. The
millions of Arab-Americans and Muslims who are
raging -- violently -- against the U.S. in
Jordan, South Africa, Iran, Bangladesh, Pakistan
(brought to the brink of civil war) and Nigeria,
where "hundreds" may be dead due to rioting.
President Bush's reaction has instilled little
confidence. When asked in a press conference
last Friday for his response to the vitriolic
hatred that has mushroomed around the globe,
Bush could only mumble: "I'm amazed. I just
can't believe it because I know how good we are"
-- which, in the world's eyes, must bring
profoundly new meaning to the word "naiveté."
This disheartening string of missteps, feeding
an upswell of moral outrage, led everyone's
favorite war-watching website -- www.debka.com
-- to post this headline over the weekend:
"First Week of U.S. Offensive in Afghanistan is
Inconclusive Militarily, Earthshaking
Geo-Politically."
And for what? To the Pentagon's dismay, Bin
Laden hasn't been "flushed out." The Taliban
isn't waving a white flag. Our supposed allies,
the opium-running North Alliance, seem confused
about whether or not they should take over the
country.
Amidst such chaos, the Bush camp has resorted to
the time-tested tactic of creating a diversion,
suggesting the blame for September 11 may lay
elsewhere -- Iraq (surprise) being the favorite
fall guy. This comes just weeks after every
media mouthpiece instructed us that "ONLY the
resources and skills of Osama bin Laden" and the
"al-Quaeda network" could have been
responsible.
The U.S. may or may not be able to reverse its
miserable military fortunes in Afghanistan. But
the more dangerous consequences of the
U.S. bombing campaign -- a world aroused into
anger against American arrogance, in part the
very reason for the September 11 tragedy -- will
stay with us for a very long time.
Chris Kromm is Director of the Institute for
Southern Studies in Durham, North Carolina.
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