The War in
Afghanistan
Excerpted from Lakdawala lecture, New Delhi

Online version with notes,
prepared Dec. 30

By Noam Chomsky


The threat of international terrorism is surely severe. The horrendous
events of Sept. 11 had perhaps the most devastating instant human toll
on record, outside of war. The word "instant" should not be
overlooked; regrettably, the crime is far from unusual in the annals
of violence that falls short of war. The death toll may easily have
doubled or more within a few weeks, as miserable Afghans fled -- to
nowhere -- under the threat of bombing, and desperately-needed food
supplies were disrupted; and there were credible warnings of much
worse to come.

The costs to Afghan civilians can only be guessed, but we do know the
projections on which policy decisions and commentary were based, a
matter of utmost significance. As a matter of simple logic, it is
these projections that provide the grounds for any moral evaluation of
planning and commentary, or any judgment of appeals to "just war"
arguments; and crucially, for any rational assessment of what may lie
ahead.

Even before Sept. 11, the UN estimated that millions were being
sustained, barely, by international food aid. On Sept. 16, the
national press reported that Washington had "demanded [from Pakistan]
the elimination of truck convoys that provide much of the food and
other supplies to Afghanistan's civilian population." There was no
detectable reaction in the U.S. or Europe to this demand to impose
massive starvation; the plain meaning of the words. In subsequent
weeks, the world's leading newspaper reported that "The threat of
military strikes forced the removal of international aid workers,
crippling assistance programs"; refugees reaching Pakistan "after a
rduous journeys from Afghanistan are describing scenes of desperation
and fear at home as the threat of American-led military attacks turns
their long-running misery into a potential catastrophe." "The country
was on a li feline," one evacuated aid worker reported, "and we just
cut the line." "It's as if a mass grave has been dug behind millions
of people," an evacuated emergency officer for Christian Aid informed
the press: "We can drag t hem back from it or push them in. We could
be looking at millions of deaths."1

The UN World Food Program and others were able to resume some food
shipments in early October, but were forced to suspend deliveries and
distribution when the bombing began on October 7, resuming them later
at a much lowe r pace. A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees warned that "We are facing a humanitarian crisis of epic
proportions in Afghanistan with 7.5 million short of food and at risk
of starvation," while aid agenci es leveled "scathing" condemnations
of U.S. air drops that are barely concealed "propaganda tools" and may
cause more harm than benefit, they warned.2

A very careful reader of the national press could discover the
estimate by the UN that "7.5 million Afghans will need food over the
winter -- 2.5 million more than on Sept. 11," a 50% increase as a
result of the threat of bombing, then the actuality.3 In other words,
Western civilization was basing its plans on the assumption that they
might lead to the death of several million innocent civilians -- not
Taliban, whatever one thinks of the legitimacy of slaughtering Taliban
recruits and supporters, but their victims. Meanwhile its leader, on
the same day, once again dismissed with contempt offers of negotiation
for extradition of the suspected culprit and the request for some
credible evidence to substantiate the demands for capitulation. The UN
Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food pleaded with the U.S. to end
the bombing that was putting "the lives of millions of civil ians at
risk," renewing the appeal of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Mary Robinson, who warned of a Rwanda-style catastrophe. Both appeals
were rejected, as were those of the major aid and relief agencies. And
virt ually unreported.4

In late September, the UN Food And Agricultural Organization warned
that over 7 million people were facing a crisis that could lead to
widespread starvation if military action were initiated, with a likely
"humanitarian c atastrophe" unless aid were immediately resumed and
the threat of military action terminated. After bombing began, the FAO
advised that it had disrupted planting that provides 80% of the
country's grain supplies, so that the effects next year are expected
to be even more severe. All ignored.5

These unreported appeals happened to coincide with World Food Day,
which was also ignored, along with the charge by the UN Special
Rapporteur that the rich and powerful easily have the means, though
not the will, to overc ome the "silent genocide" of mass starvation in
much of the world.6

Let us return briefly to the point of logic: ethical judgments and
rational evaluation of what may lie ahead are grounded in the
presuppositions of planning and commentary. An entirely separate
matter, with no bearing on such judgments, is the accuracy of the
projections on which planning and commentary were based. By year's
end, there were hopes that unprecedented deliveries of food in
December might "dramatically" revise the expectation s at the time
when planning was undertaken and implemented, and evaluated in
commentary: that these actions were likely to drive millions over the
edge of starvation.7 Very likely, the facts will never be known, by
virtue of a guiding principle of intellectual culture: We must devote
enormous energy to exposing the crimes of official enemies, properly
counting not only those literally killed but also those who die as a
consequence of poli cy choices; but we must take scrupulous care to
avoid this practice in the case of our own crimes, on the rare
occasions when they are investigated at all. Observance of the
principle is all too well documented. It will b e a welcome surprise
if the current case turns out differently.

Another elementary point might also be mentioned. The success of
violence evidently has no bearing on moral judgment with regard to its
goals. In the present case, it seemed clear from the outset that the
reigning superpo wer could easily demolish any Afghan resistance. My
own view, for what it is worth, was that à

U.S. campaigns should not be too casually compared to the failed
Russian invasion of the 1980s. The Russians were facing a major army
of perhaps 100,000 men or more, organized, trained, and heavily armed
by the CIA and it s associates. The U.S. is facing a ragtag force in a
country that has already been virtually destroyed by 20 years of
horror, for which we bear no slight share of responsibility. The
Taliban forces, such as they are, migh t quickly collapse except for a
small hardened core.8

To my surprise, the dominant judgment -- even after weeks of carpet
bombing and resort to virtually every available device short of
nuclear weapons ("daisy cutters," cluster bombs, etc.) -- was
confidence that the lessons of the Russian failure should be heeded,
that airstrikes would be ineffective, and that a ground invasion
would be necessary to achieve the U.S. war aims of eliminating bin
Laden and al-Qaeda. Removing the Taliban regime was an
afterthought. There had been no interest in this before Sept. 11, or
even in the month that followed. A week after the bombing began, the
President reiterated that U.S. forces "would attack Afghanistan `for
as lon g as it takes' to destroy the Qaeda terrorist network of Osama
bin Laden, but he offered to reconsider the military assault on
Afghanistan if the country's ruling Taliban would surrender Mr. bin
Laden"; "If you cough him up and his people today, then we'll
reconsider what we are doing to your country," the President
declared: "You still have a second chance."9

When Taliban forces did finally succumb, after astonishing endurance,
opinions shifted to triumphalist proclamations and exultation over the
justice of our cause, now demonstrated by the success of overwhelming
force agai nst defenseless opponents. Without researching the topic, I
suppose that Japanese and German commentary was similar after early
victories during World War II, and despite obvious dis-analogies, one
crucial conclusion carr ies over to the present case: the victory of
arms leaves the issues where they were, though the triumphalist cries
of vindication should serve as a warning for those who care about the
future.

Returning to the war, the airstrikes quickly turned cities into "ghost
towns," the press reported, with electrical power and water supplies
destroyed, a form of biological warfare. The UN reported that 70% of
the populati on had fled Kandahar and Herat within two weeks, mostly
to the countryside, where in ordinary times 10-20 people, many of them
children, are killed or crippled daily by land mines. Those conditions
became much worse as a result of the bombing. UN mine-clearing
operations were halted, and unexploded U.S. ordnance, particularly the
lethal bomblets scattered by cluster bombs, add to the torture, and
are much harder to clear.10

By late October, aid officials estimated that over a million had fled
their homes, including 80% of the population of Jalalabad, only a
"tiny fraction" able to cross the border, most scattering to the
countryside where th ere was little food or shelter or possibility of
delivering aid; appeals from aid agencies to suspend attacks to allow
delivery of supplies were again rejected by Blair, ignored by the
U.S.11

Months later, hundreds of thousands were reported to be starving in
such "forgotten camps" as Maslakh in the North, having fled from
"mountainous places to which the World Food Program was giving food
aid but stopped beca use of the bombing and now cannot be reached
because the passes are cut off" -- and who knows how many in places
that no journalists found -- though supplies were by then available
and the primary factor hampering deliver y was lack of interest and
will.12

By the year's end, long after fighting ended, the occasional report
noted that "the delivery of food remains blocked or woefully
inadequate," "a system for distributing food is still not in place,"
and even the main route to Uzbekistan "remains effectively closed to
food trucks" over two weeks after it was officially opened with much
fanfare; the same was true of the crucial artery from Pakistan to
Kandahar, and others were so harassed by armed militias that the
World Food Program, now with supplies available, still could not make
deliveries, and had no place for storage because "most warehouses
were destroyed or looted during the U.S. bombardment."13

A detailed year-end review found that the U.S. war "has returned to
power nearly all the same warlords who had misruled the country in the
days before the Taliban"; some Afghans see the resulting situation as
even "worse than it was before the Taliban came to power."14 The
Taliban takeover of most of the country, with little combat, brought
to an end a period described by Afghan and international human rights
activists as "the blackest in the history of Afghanistan," "the worst
time in Afghanistan's history," with vast destruction, mass rapes and
other atrocities, and tens of thousands killed.15 These were the years
of rule by warlords of the Northern All iance and other Western
favorites, such as the murderous Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the few
who has not reclaimed his fiefdom. There are indications that lessons
have been learned both in Afghanistan and the world beyond , and that
the worst will not recur, as everyone fervently hopes.

Signs were mixed, at year's end. As anticipated, most of the
population was greatly relieved to see the end of the Taliban, one of
the most retrograde regimes in the world; and relieved that there was
no quick return to t he atrocities of a decade earlier, as had been
feared. The new government in Kabul showed considerably more promise
than most had expected. The return of warlordism is a dangerous sign,
as was the announcement by the new Justice Minister that the basic
structure of sharia law as instituted by the Taliban would remain in
force, though "there will be some changes from the time of the
Taliban. For example, the Taliban used to hang the victim 's body in
public for four days. We will only hang the body for a short time, say
15 minutes." Judge Ahamat Ullha Zarif added that some new location
would be found for the regular public executions, not the Sports
Stadium . "Adulterers, both male and female, would still be stoned to
death, Zarif said, `but we will use only small stones'," so that those
who confess might be able to run away; others will be "stoned to
death," as before.16 Th e international reaction will doubtless have a
significant effect on the balance of conflicting forces.

As the year ended, desperate peasants, mostly women, were returning to
the miserable labor of growing opium poppies so that their families
can survive, reversing the Taliban ban. The UN had reported in October
that poppy production had already "increased threefold in areas
controlled by the Northern Alliance," whose warlords "have long been
reputed to control much of the processing and smuggling of opium" to
Russia and the West, an estima ted 75% of the world's heroin. The
result of some poor woman's back-breaking labor is that "countless
others thousands of miles away from her home in eastern Afghanistan
will suffer and die."17

Such consequences, and the devastating legacy of 20 years of brutal
war and atrocities, could be alleviated by an appropriate
international presence and well-designed programs of aid and
reconstruction; were honesty to pr evail, they would be called
"reparations," at least from Russia and the U.S., which share primary
responsibility for the disaster. The issue was addressed in a
conference of the UN Development Program, World Bank, and Asi an
Development Bank in Islamabad in late November. Some guidelines were
offered in a World Bank study that focused on Afghanistan's potential
role in the development of the energy resources of the region. The
study conclu ded that

Afghanistan has a positive pre-war history of cost recovery for key
infrastructure services like electric power, and "green field"
investment opportunities in sectors like telecommunications, energy,
and oil/gas pipelines . It is extremely important that such services
start out on the right track during reconstruction. Options for
private investment in infrastructure should be actively pursued.18

One may reasonably ask just whose needs are served by these
priorities, and what status they should have in reconstruction from
the horrors of the past two decades.

U.S. and British intellectual opinion, across the political spectrum,
assured us that only radical extremists can doubt that "this is
basically a just war."19 Those who disagree can therefore be
dismissed, among them, for example, the 1000 Afghan leaders who met
in Peshawar in late October in a U.S.-backed effort to lay the
groundwork for a post-Taliban regime led by the exiled King. They
bitterly condemned the U.S. war, which is "beating the donkey rather
than the rider," one speaker said to unanimous agreement.

The extent to which anti-Taliban Afghan opinion was ignored is rather
striking -- and not at all unusual; during the Gulf war, for example,
Iraqi dissidents were excluded from press and journals, apart from
"alternative m edia," though they were readily accessible. Without
eliciting comment, Washington maintained its long-standing official
refusal to have any dealings with the Iraqi opposition even well after
the war ended.20 In the presen t case, Afghan opinion is not as easily
assessed, but the task would not have been impossible, and the issue
is of such evident significance that it merits at least a few
comments.

We might begin with the gathering of Afghan leaders in Peshawar, some
exiles, some who trekked across the border from within Afghanistan,
all committed to overthrowing the Taliban regime. It was "a rare
display of unity a mong tribal elders, Islamic scholars, fractious
politicians, and former guerrilla commanders," the New York Times
reported. They unanimously "urged the U.S. to stop the air raids,"
appealed to the international media to c all for an end to the
"bombing of innocent people," and "demanded an end to the U.S. bombing
of Afghanistan." They urged that other means be adopted to overthrow
the hated Taliban regime, a goal they believed could be ach ieved
without slaughter and destruction.21

Reported, but dismissed without further comment.

A similar message was conveyed by Afghan opposition leader Abdul Haq,
who condemned the air attacks as a "terrible mistake."22 Highly
regarded in Washington, Abdul Haq was considered to be "perhaps the
most important lead er of anti-Taliban opposition among Afghans of
Pashtun nationality based in Pakistan."23 His advice was to "avoid
bloodshed as much as possible"; instead of bombing, "we should
undermine the central leadership, which is a very small and closed
group and which is also the only thing which holds them all
together. If they are destroyed, every Taliban fighter will pick up
his gun and his blanket and disappear back home, and that will be the
end of the Taliban," an assessment that seems rather plausible in the
light of subsequent events.

Several weeks later, Abdul Haq entered Afghanistan, apparently without
U.S. support, and was captured and killed. As he was undertaking this
mission "to create a revolt within the Taliban," he criticized the
U.S. for refu sing to aid him and others in such endeavors, and
condemned the bombing as "a big setback for these efforts." He
reported contacts with second-level Taliban commanders and
ex-Mujahidin tribal elders, and discussed how fur ther efforts could
proceed, calling on the U.S. to assist them with funding and other
support instead of undermining them with bombs.

The U.S., Abdul Haq said,

is trying to show its muscle, score a victory and scare everyone in
the world. They don't care about the suffering of the Afghans or how
many people we will lose. And we don't like that. Because Afghans are
now being made to suffer for these Arab fanatics, but we all know who
brought these Arabs to Afghanistan in the 1980s, armed them and gave
them a base. It was the Americans and the CIA. And the Americans who
did this all got medals and good careers, while all these years
Afghans suffered from these Arabs and their allies. Now, when America
is attacked, instead of punishing the Americans who did this, it
punishes the Afghans.

We can also look elsewhere for enlightenment about Afghan opinions. A
beneficial consequence of the latest Afghan war is that it elicited
some belated concern about the fate of women in Afghanistan, even
reaching the Firs t Lady. Perhaps it will be followed some day by
concern for the plight of women elsewhere in Central and South Asia,
which, unfortunately, is often not very different from life under the
Taliban, including the most vibran t democracies.24 Of course, no sane
person advocates foreign military intervention to rectify these and
other injustices. The problems are severe, but should be dealt with
from within, with assistance from outsiders if it is constructive and
honest.

Since the harsh treatment of women in Afghanistan has at last gained
some well-deserved attention, one might expect that attitudes of
Afghan women towards policy options should be a primary concern. A
natural starting poi nt for an inquiry is Afghanistan's "oldest
political and humanitarian organisation," RAWA (Revolutionary
Association of the Women of Afghanistan), which has been "foremost in
the struggle" for women's rights since its for mation in 1977.25
RAWA's leader was assassinated by Afghan collaborators with the
Russians in 1987, but they continued their work within Afghanistan at
risk of death, and in exile nearby.

RAWA has been quite outspoken. Thus, a week after the bombing began,
RAWA issued a public statement entitled: "Taliban should be overthrown
by the uprising of Afghan nation."26 It continued as follows:

Again, due to the treason of fundamentalist hangmen, our people have
been caught in the claws of the monster of a vast war and
destruction. America, by forming an international coalition against
Osama and his Taliban-coll aborators and in retaliation for the 11th
September terrorist attacks, has launched a vast aggression on our
country... what we have witnessed for the past seven days leaves no
doubt that this invasion will shed the blood of numerous women, men,
children, young and old of our country.

The statement called for "the eradication of the plague of Taliban and
Al Qieda" by "an overall uprising" of the Afghan people themselves,
which alone "can prevent the repetition and recurrence of the
catastrophe that has befallen our country...."

In another declaration on November 25, at a demonstration of women's
organizations in Islamabad on the International Day for the
Elimination of Violence against Women, RAWA condemned the
U.S./Russian-backed Northern Alliance for a "record of human rights
violations as bad as that of the Taliban's," and called on the UN to
"help Afghanistan, not the Northern Alliance." RAWA issued similar
warnings at the national conference of the All India Democratic
Women's Association on the same days.27

Also ignored.

One might note that this is hardly the first time that the concerns of
advocates of women's rights in Afghanistan have been dismissed.  Thus,
in 1988 the UNDP senior adviser on women's rights in Afghanistan
warned that the "great advances" in women's rights she had witnessed
there were being imperilled by the "ascendant fundamentalism" of the
U.S.-backed radical Islamists. Her report was submitted to the New
York Times and Washington Post, but not published; and her account of
how the U.S. "contributed handsomely to the suffering of Afghan women"
remains unknown.28

Perhaps it is right to ignore Afghans who have been struggling for
freedom and women's rights for many years, and to assign
responsibility for their country's future to foreigners whose record
in this regard is less than distinguished. Perhaps, but it does not
seem entirely obvious.

The issue of "just war" should not be confused with a wholly different
question: Should the perpetrators of the atrocities of Sept.  11 be
punished for their crimes -- "crimes against humanity," as they were
called by Robe rt Fisk, Mary Robinson, and others. On this there is
virtually unanimous agreement -- though, notoriously, the principles
do not extend to the agents of even far worse crimes who are protected
by power and wealth. The que stion is how to proceed.

The approach favored by Afghans who were ignored had considerable
support in much of the world. Many in the South would surely have
endorsed the recommendations of the UN representative of the Arab
Women's Solidarity Asso ciation: "providing the Taliban with evidence
(as it has requested) that links bin Laden to the September 11
attacks, employing diplomatic pressures to extradite him, and
prosecuting terrorists through international tribu nals," and
generally adhering to international law, following precedents that
exist even in much more severe cases of international
terrorism. Adherence to international law had scattered support in the
West as well, incl uding the preeminent Anglo-American military
historian Michael Howard, who delivered a "scathing attack" on the
bombardment, calling instead for an international "police operation"
and international court rather than "try ing to eradicate cancer cells
with a blow torch."29

Washington's refusal to call for extradition of the suspected
criminals, or to provide the evidence that was requested, was
entirely open, and generally approved. Its own refusal to extradite
criminals remains effectively secret, however.30 There has been
debate over whether U.S. military actions in Afghanistan were
authorized under ambiguous Security Council resolutions, but it
avoids the central issue: Washington plainly did not want Se curity
Council authorization,31 which it surely could have obtained, clearly
and unambiguously. Since it lost its virtual monopoly over UN
decisions, the U.S. has been far in the lead in vetoes, Britain
second, France a d istant third, but none of these powers would have
opposed a U.S.-sponsored resolution. Nor would Russia or China, eager
to gain U.S. authorization for their own atrocities and repression
(in Chechnya and western China, pa rticularly). But Washington
insisted on not obtaining Security Council authorization, which would
entail that there is some higher authority to which it should
defer. Systems of power resist that principle if they are str ong
enough to do so. There is even a name for that stance in the
literature of diplomacy and international affairs scholarship:
establishing "credibility," a justification commonly offered for the
threat or use of force.  While understandable, and conventional, that
stance also has lessons concerning the likely future, even more so
because of the elite support that it receives, openly or indirectly.

....

FOOTNOTES

1.  John Burns "Pakistan's Antiterror Support Avoids Vow Of Military
Aid," NYT, Sept. 16; "U.S. Embassy in Kabul Is Destroyed By
Protestors, NYT, Sept. 27. Douglas Frantz, "Fear and Misery for Afghan
Refugees," NYT, Se pt. 30; John Sifton, "Temporal Vertigo," NYT
Magazine, Sept. 30. Christian Aid officer Dominic Nutt, cited in
Stephen Morris and Felicity Lawrence, "Afghanistan Facing Humanitarian
Disaster," Guardian, Sept. 19, 2001. For further quotes, and sources
not cited here, see my 9-11 (New York: Seven Stories, 2001) return

2.  UNHCR, Michelle Nichols and Paul Gallagher, "Bread Harder to
Deliver than Bombs," The Scotsman, Oct. 8. Air drops, Mark Nicolson,
"UN concern as airstrikes bring relief effort to halt" and Michela
Wrong, "Relief wo rkers hit at linking of food drops with air raids,"
Financial Times, Oct. 9; "Scepticism grows over US food airdrops," FT,
Oct. 10; "Agency rejects US and UK donations as 'propaganda'," South
China Morning Post, Oct. 11 ( referring to Medecins sans Frontieres);
"US warned of catastrophe in wake of air assault," FT, Oct. 12; "US
military food drops a 'catastrophe' - UN official", AFP, Oct. 15,
citing Jean Ziegler, UN Special Rapporteur on t he Right to Food; "Red
Cross critical of US raid mistakes, aid airdrops," AFP, Oct. 18,
2001. return

3.  Elisabeth Bumiller and Elizabeth Becker, "Bush Voices Pride in
Aid, but Groups List Hurdles," NYT, Oct. 17, 2001. return

4.  A data-base search by David Peterson found that the appeal of the
UN Special Rapporteur was not reported, and that Robinson's received
six sentences in the U.S. press, one peripherally in the NYT, five in
the San F rancisco Chronicle, three of which were devoted to the
rejection of her appeal; none mentioned the substance of her
warning. That is fairly typical. return

5.  "UN food agency warns of mass starvation in Afghanistan," AFP,
Sept. 28; Edith Lederer, "U.S. bombing disrupting planting which
provides 80% of annual grain harvest," AP, Oct. 18, 2001. Andrew
Revkin, "Afghan Droug ht Inflicts Its Own Misery," NYT, Dec. 16, 2001,
citing U.S. Department of Agriculture, with no mention of
bombing. return

6.  "Global hunger a 'silent genocide' - UN rights expert" (Jean
Ziegler), AFP, Oct. 15, 2001. return

7.  Marc Kaufman, "Battling Hunger," Washington Post-Boston Globe,
Dec. 31, 2001. return

8.  Interview of Sept. 30, reprinted in 9-11. return

9.  Patrick Tyler and Elisabeth Bumiller, "`Just Bring Him In'," NYT,
Oct. 12; Jonathan Steele, "Fighting the Wrong War," Guardian, Dec. 11,
2001, tracing the "war aim" of removing the Taliban regime to Tony
Blair's fi rst clear formulation of it on Oct. 30. On predictions,
given the consensus, citation is superfluous. For a nuanced
assessment, with somewhat similar conclusions, see Milton Bearden,
"Afghanistan, Graveyard of Empires," F oreign Affairs, Nov./Dec. 2001;
Bearden was CIA station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989,
responsible for CIA covert action programs in Afghanistan. return

10. John Donnelly, "Waves of Afghans fleeing 2 cities," BG, Oct.. 20;
Michael Kranish and Colin Nickerson, "Pentagon gives a wary
assessment," BG, Oct. 25; Laura King, "Airstrikes forge a ghost town,"
BG, Oct. 24; Indira Lakshmanan, "Days of travail, nights of fear," BG,
Oct. 11; Colin Nickerson, "Mines make Afghanistan a landscape of
danger," BG, Oct. 23, 2001. return

11. "Supplies of food `not getting through to refugees'," FT, Oct. 22;
Edward Luce, "Aid agencies troubled as Afghans disperse," FT, Oct. 23;
Elizabeth Becker, "U.N. Plans Relief Airlifts," NYT, Oct. 23; also an
upbeat re port by Jane Perlez, blaming the Taliban, same day. Aid
agencies reported that "Taliban officials were helping British food
and medical aid reach tens of thousands of Afghan refugees in
desperate condition"; Mark Nicholso n, Michela Wrong, Guy Dinmore, "UN
warns of threat to relief in hostile areas," FT, Oct. 11. On
condemnation by aid agencies of "inaccurate propaganda" by the
U.S.-British "spin-machine" seeking to deflect responsibility for the
"expected humanitarian crisis" to the Taliban, see Jo Dillon,
Independent, Dec. 9, 2001. return

12. Christina Lamb, Daily Telegraph, Dec. 9, who reports scenes more
"harrowing" than anything in her memory, after having "seen death
and misery in refugee camps in many parts of Asia and Africa."
return

13. Carlotta Gall and Elizabeth Becker, "As Refugees Suffer, Supplies
Sit Unused Near Afghan Border," NYT, Dec. 6; David Rohde,
"`Grandchildren and Ladies' Become Casualties," NYT, Dec. 12, noting
that "regular aid shipme nts have been suspended since bombing began
and the area is desperately short of food, medicine and irrigation
equipment," a rare acknowledgment in the national press. Carlotta
Gall, "As Afghans Return Home, Need for Food Intensifies," NYT,
Dec. 26; David Filipov, "Warlords, bandits rule most terrain," BG,
Dec. 17; Jeremy Page, Reuters, "Refugees' Return," BG, Dec. 27,
2001. On the "mass nervous breakdown" caused by "relentless bombing" w
ith devastating weapons, as reported by fleeing refugees, see Peter
Cheney, "U.S. attacks on Taliban stronghold `a nightmare'," Toronto
Globe and Mail, Dec. 4, 2001. And for graphic and expert accounts
throughout, see par ticularly the outstanding reporting of Robert Fisk
in the London Independent. return

14. Norimitsu Onishi, "Afghan Warlords and Bandits Are Back in
Business," NYT, Dec. 28, 2001. return

15. Tahmeena Faryal, spokesperson for Afghanistan's leading human
rights organization, RAWA (see below), interview with Sonali
Kalhatkar of the Afghan Women's Mission, reprinted in Z magazine,
Jan. 2002. Joost Hiltermann, Middle East specialist for Human Rights
Watch, cited by Charles Sennott, "A dark side to the Northern
Alliance," BG, Oct. 6, 2001. return

16. "Afghanistan to apply sharia law with discretion: minister," AFP,
Kabul, Dec. 27. Sydney Morning Herald, Dec. 28, 2001. return

17. David Filipov, "As cash crop, poppies flourish anew," BG, Dec. 27,
2001. return

18. Nadeem Malik, "Afghan reconstruction to centre on oil and gas
pipelines," News (Islamabad), Nov. 27, 2001. return

19. Robert Kuttner, editor, American Prospect, Nov. 5, 2001; a
conclusion scarcely questioned across a broad spectrum, though the
same issue of the journal, in a rare and important departure from the
norm, reports signifi cant disagreement; see note 26. return

20. For review, see my Deterring Democracy (New York: Hill & Wang,
1992, 2nd edition), "Afterword." return

21. Barry Bearak, "Leaders of the Old Afghanistan Prepare for the
New," NYT, Oct. 25. John Thornhill and Farhan Bokhari, "Traditional
leaders call for peace jihad," FT, Oct. 25; "Afghan peace assembly
call," FT, Oct. 26.  John Burns, "Afghan Gathering in Pakistan Backs
Future Role for King," NYT, Oct. 26; Indira Laskhmanan, "1,000 Afghan
leaders discuss a new regime," BG, Oct. 25, 26, 2001. return

22. Barry Bearak, NYT, Oct. 27, 2001. return

23. Anatol Lieven, "Voices from the Region: Interview with Commander
Abdul Haq," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, posted
Oct. 15. See Lieven, Guardian, Nov. 2, 2001. Quotes below from
this interview. return

24. See, e.g., Jean Dreze and Haris Gazdar, "Uttar Pradesh: The Burden
of Inertia," in Dreze and Amartya Sen, eds., Indian Development:
Selected Regional Perspectives (Delhi: Oxford, 1996). return

25. Carola Hoyos and Victor Mallet, "Women look to UN in rights
fight," FT, Dec. 21; Rasil Basu, "The Rape of Afghanistan," Asian
Age, Dec. 3, 2001. A leading figure in UN programs for women's
advancement since 1975, Basu was UNDP senior advisor to the Afghan
government for women's development in 1986-88. return

26. Oct. 11, 2001, http://www.rawa.org/. For a rare mention of RAWA's
"antimilitary stance," see Noy Thrupkaew, "Behind the Burqa,"
American Prospect, Nov. 5, 2001. Also Faryal, op. cit. return

27. Mohammad Shezad, "Women rally demands end to violence,
victimisation," News (Islamabad), Nov. 27; N Ramachandra Rao, "For
Women, Northern Alliance No Better," Times of India, Nov. 26; "RAWA
representative against inst alling Northern Alliance," Press Trust of
India, Nov. 25, 2001. return

28. Basu, op. cit. The report was also rejected by the feminist
journal Ms. return

29. Thrupkaew, op. cit. Howard, cited by Tania Branigan, Guardian,
Oct. 31, 2001. See also William Pfaff, Oct. 31; New York Review,
Nov. 29, 2001. There were similar calls from the Vatican, the Latin
American Council of Churches (see LADOC, Peru, Nov. 2001), and many
others. return

30. Current cases involve Haiti and Costa Rica, for crimes in which
the U.S. is directly implicated. Costa Rica's attempt to deal with
these crimes was punished by withholding aid. Haiti is now subject to
a harsh U.S. embargo for alleged election irregularities, with severe
effects on the miserable population in the poorest country in the
hemisphere (and incidentally, the prime target of U.S.  intervention
in the 20th century, military and economic, not to speak of a shameful
earlier history). See my 9-11 (Haiti), and on Costa Rica, Letters from
Lexington (Monroe ME: Common Courage, 1993, chap. 16); Deterring
Democracy (chap. 4); Year 501 (Boston: South End, 1993, chap. 7). On
the "devastating" effects of the embargo, see Paul Farmer, Dec. 2001
interview, Haiti Bulletin (Ross Robinson & Associates). A prominent
international medical authority and specialist on Haiti, Farmer has
been running a clinic in rural Haiti for 20 years. These matters are
virtually unknown in the U.S. return

31. The fact was noted. See, e.g., Elaine Sciolino and Steven Lee
Myers, "Bush Says 'Time Is Running Out'; U.S. Plans To Act Largely
Alone," NYT, Oct. 7, 2001: "A sign of Washington's insistence that its
hands not be tied was its rejection of United Nations Secretary
General Kofi Annan's entreaties that any American military action be
subject to Security Council approval, administration officials said."
For judicious commentary on the legal issues, see ASIL Insights
(American Society of International Law), 10/2/2001. return