INTERNATIONAL ACTION CENTER FACTSHEET 
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE U.S. WAR AGAINST AFGHANISTAN

www.actionsf.org 


QUESTION: Is the U.S. bombing campaign directed against
"terrorists" or the people of Afghanistan?

ANSWER: This is a war against the people of Afghanistan. The
U.S.  and British are dropping thousands of bombs and firing
missiles on homes, schools, mosques, hospitals and villages
throughout the country.

1,000-pound to 15,000-pound bombs are deliberately targeting
every major town and rural area. AC-130 Specter gunships
filled with ammunition are firing huge Gatling guns on the
population in a steady stream of bullets. On Oct. 22, in the
village of Chowkar-Karez, dozens of civilians were
killed. CNN quoted an "unnamed" Pentagon official as saying,
"The people there are dead because we wanted them dead."
(Toronto Globe and Mail, Nov. 3, 2001)

Wazir Akbarhan hospital in Kabul was bombed on the first day
and 13 women were killed in the gynecology department. 200
people were killed in the hospital in Herat. Red Cross
facilities were bombed twice in Kabul on Oct. 16.

Cluster bombs--one of the most terrifying and deadly of the
U.S.  weapons--are now being used as bombing
intensifies. Hundreds of small bomblets packed with razor
shrapnel are dispersed at super-high velocity over a wide
area, ripping into people with devastating damage. Cluster
bombs are prohibited by the Geneva Convention, because of
their indiscriminate nature (Protocol 1, Relating to the
Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts,
Article 51).  A report from the Sydney Morning Herald
(Oct. 26, 2001) quotes Dan Kelly, head of UN mine clearing
in Afghanistan: "These bomblets can explode if the villagers
so much as touch them. It is a very violent death. You don't
get arms and legs blown off like you do with anti- personnel
mines, you get killed." Civilians are being deliberately
targeted throughout the country. Another deplorable
U.S. tactic is repeat bombing to kill rescue personnel. In
Jalalabad, the Sultanpur mosque was bombed during prayer. As
neighbors dug out 17 victims who were trapped, the plane
returned to bomb minutes later, killing 120 people ("Where
the Bodies Are," Oct. 23, 2001, Geov Parrish,
workingforchange.com)

Cluster bombs, depleted uranium ammunition, 15,000-pound
"Daisy cutter" fuel-air explosives: this is the terror being
unleashed by the biggest military power in the world against
one of the poorest and most underdeveloped countries in
existence.


QUESTION: What is the current state of the Afghan people?

ANSWER: The average life expectancy in Afghanistan is 43
years. Per capita income is $180 per year. Only 13 percent
of the entire population has access to drinking
water. Barely 12% of the population has sanitation
coverage. Literacy is only 20 percent. The infant- mortality
rate is a shocking 247 deaths per 1,000 live births. On
average, 16,000 mothers die in childbirth every year, one
out of every 17 births, the second worst maternal mortality
rate in the world.

It's not just the bombs are killing people. The dislocation
and chaos of the war itself means huge numbers of Afghan
people will die from hunger, cold and disease. According to
UNICEF officials, more than 100,000 Afghan children will
likely die from war-related causes by the end of winter.


QUESTION: Isn't the war in Afghanistan a defensive reaction
to the Sept. 11 attacks?

ANSWER: After Sept. 11, the U.S. immediately targeted all of
Afghanistan and added to its "enemies" list any country or
organization that didn't fully support the U.S. government
on terrorism. Afghanistan agreed to negotiate but asked for
proof of the culpability of Osama bin Laden in the September
11 attack.  The Bush administration responded that they
wouldn't negotiate and they refused to provide the evidence.
Was it really because the U.S.  wanted to combat terrorism?
Or is it because the U.S. made a calculated decision to use
the terrible Sept. 11 attack as justification for a Pentagon
move to expand its domination in the Middle East and
South/Central Asia?

One only needs to look at the U.S. policy toward Iraq for a
clue. The real motive for the 1991 U.S. war on Iraq and
continued sanctions against the Iraqi people is to gain full
control of the Persian/Arabian Gulf oil. Two-thirds of the
world's known oil reserves lie in that region. The U.S. Gulf
War allowed the Pentagon to establish numerous military
bases in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and elsewhere.

What is less known is the vast interests of U.S. oil,
banking and military corporations in South and Central Asia
as the next strategic region for oil and natural gas
exploitation.

The Caspian Region--made up of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan,
Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan--has a potential value in oil
and natural gas of more than $5 trillion. These former
Soviet states share a border with Afghanistan, and are
precisely the countries that the U.S. military has now
established bases and troops. The U.S. militarization of the
region began before September 11; now it is going
full-scale.  A Unocal Oil Corp. spokesperson, Vice President
John J. Maresca testified to the House of Representatives
Committee on International Relations, February 12, 1998. He
said, "the Caspian region contains tremendous untapped
hydrocarbon reserves .proven natural gas reserves . equal
more than 236 trillion cubic feet. . [oil reserves]
estimates are as high as 200 billion barrels."

The CIA "set up a secret task force to monitor the region's
politics and gauge its wealth. Covert CIA officers, some
well-trained petroleum engineers had traveled through
southern Russia and the Caspian region to sniff out
potential oil reserves. When the policy makers heard the CIA
report, [then Secretary of State] Madeleine Albright
concluded that 'working to mold the area's future is one of
the most exciting things we can do.'" (Time Magazine, May
1998).

The Pentagon has been seeking to link the region's
governments into a military alliance connected to NATO's
so-called "Partnership for Peace." These former states of
the Soviet Union became open to unbridled exploitation for
their oil and gas resources by firms whose directors are
ex-U.S. military and political leaders. Former Reagan, Bush
and Clinton advisers like Gen. Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew
Brzezinski, former White House Chief of Staff John
N. Sununu; former Defense Secretary Richard Cheney,
Secretary of State James Baker, former Clinton treasury
secretary, Lloyd Bentsen, all have become oil and gas
company executives involved in the Caspian Region.
(Washington Post, July 6, 1997)


QUESTION: Isn't the U.S. trying to stabilize the region by
eliminating a "network of terrorists"?

ANSWER: This is the most dangerous myth of all. More war,
bombing and assassinations will only create more violence,
death and economic crisis. The death of thousands in New
York must not be used to justify what the United States is
doing in Afghanistan and to hide what it has done and
continues to do to the Iraqi and Palestinian people.

There is enormous anger in the Middle East that every month,
between 8,000 and 12,000 people--5,000 of them children
under five--die in Iraq as a direct result of the
U.S. sanctions. This has gone on for 11 years! This crime of
genocide has been hidden from the U.S. people but it is well
known among the people of the Middle East.  And now
U.S. officials are urging a new war on Iraq.

Over 800 Palestinians have been killed and 16,000 seriously
wounded since the second Intifada began in September
2000. Their homes are bulldozed as they try to defend
themselves against the brutal and long-standing Israeli
occupation of their land. Every bullet, every helicopter,
every F-15 and F-16 came from the United States. Every year,
the U.S. continues to fund Israel by $4 billion. This is
unabashed terrorism, and more and more people in the world
are calling for an end to U.S.-Israeli oppression of the
Palestinian people.


QUESTION: Why does the anti-war movement say that there is
also a war at home?

ANSWER: Thousands of Arab people, South Asian people and
Muslims have been violently attacked inside the United
States. Homes, mosques and stores have been defaced. People
of Arab and South Asian descent have been put off
airplanes. Main media outlets, like the Wall Street Journal,
have called for legitimizing racial profiling. This is
racism pure and simple. After Timothy McVeigh blew up the
Oklahoma City Federal building in 1995, killing 168 people,
there was no campaign to take white males off of airplanes
because people felt "uncomfortable in their presence." White
men were not rounded up and held without charges. Since
September 11, however, more than 1,100 people, mostly of
South Asian and Middle East origin, have been detained for
up to five weeks, many without charges.

Under the rubric of anti-terrorism, ultra-racist Attorney
General John Ashcroft has pushed through the so-called
anti-terrorism bill, labeled USA Patriots Bill. Only Senator
Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, voted against
this bill in the Senate, arguing that it allows
unconstitutional searches and punishes individuals for
vaguely defined associations with "possible terrorists."
This bill legalizes racial profiling, eliminates due process
for arrested people, and allows the government to vastly
expand the definition of terrorist to potentially include
millions of people who might want to protest U.S. government
policy, and allows the government to detain immigrants
without charges. In addition, it eliminates basic privacy
rights, allowing the government to have nearly limitless
authority to carry out electronic surveillance and wire taps
of anyone it deems "suspicious."

U.S. plans for secret military tribunals of civilians is an
extremely dangerous precedent and must be opposed by all.


QUESTION: Is it true that the U.S. is considering legalizing
torture against suspects in detention?

ANSWER: Shocking, but true. The FBI and the Justice
Department under John Ashcroft are considering using torture
as an approved policy of the United States against those in
detention who assert their legal rights to remain
silent. According to the Washington Post, the U.S.
government is discussing using "pressure tactics, such as
those employed occasionally by Israeli interrogators to
extract information." (See www.justiceonline.org for more
information.)  Israeli-style pressure tactics is just a
euphemism for torture.  According to a 1998 report by
B'Tselem, an Israeli-based human rights organization,
interrogation tactics include a combination of sleep
deprivation, isolation, psychological torment and direct
physical force, including beatings, violent shaking, painful
shackling and use of objects designed or used to inflict
extreme pain. A prisoner may be shackled to a specially
modified chair (to cause pain) with his or her head covered
with a filthy sack that has an overwhelming stench of vomit
or human refuse. Interrogations routinely span months, with
constant intermittent periods of interrogation and force
lasting for days without interruption.


QUESTION: Is the Pentagon censoring the news?

ANSWER: Almost all news presented on television and in the
mass media is only the information the Pentagon wants you to
know. The Pentagon is well aware that during the Vietnam War
when the people learned the truth about the war and that the
government was lying to them (1970 Pentagon Papers, etc.),
people turned against the war. The U.S.  government's
National Mapping and Imaging Agency has signed a contract
giving it exclusive control over all satellite imaging of
the war in Afghanistan. They bought the commercial rights to
all satellites on October 7, the day the bombing of
Afghanistan began.


QUESTION: If Bush's bombing war is not the answer, what is
the answer?

ANSWER: The tens of thousands of troops that occupy Saudi
Arabia and the Persian Arabian Gulf should be removed. The
people of the region perceive the U.S. as an occupying,
colonial-type force. The U.S. must immediately and
completely end the policy of sanctions on Iraq. It must stop
providing Israel $4 billion a year to occupy Palestine.
Instead of destroying pharmaceutical factories, like the Al
Shifa factory in Sudan that it destroyed with 17 cruise
missiles in 1998, the U.S. should lift its economic
sanctions against Sudan and the other countries of the
region. If there is to be peace, the people of Palestine and
the people who suffer U.S. military occupation in the region
must enjoy genuine self-determination and justice.

International Action Center
Call (415) 821-6545
email iac@actionsf.org
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