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WarNotes! |
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by Sasha k
Email: info (nospam) the-alarm.com (unverified!) |
02 Aug 2002
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 This just came in through Dry Erase! a new syndicate of the iMC
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War Notes
a bi-monthly column following the developments of our new permanent war,
the war on terrorism
by Sasha k
The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor
Bombs and cover-ups: A preliminary UN investigation has uncovered more
ugly details about the US bombing earlier this month of a wedding party
in Afghanistan. A couple of days after the incident, the Pentagon
announced that it would take some time to investigate and that they
didn’t even know if anyone had indeed died. But according to the Times
of London, the UN investigation found that US soldiers arrived on the
scene within hours and that they filmed damaged buildings and the
bodies
of around fifty dead Afghanis. The soldiers went much further than
that, however. Apparently they tied up the women of the village and
cleaned up shrapnel, bullets and bloodstains. The UN investigation
also
found “no corroboration” on the ground that the US plane had been fired
upon. The Pentagon denied there was a cover-up and still claims it is
too early to draw any conclusions. The UN was to make its full report
public on Wednesday, but after the US denial, the UN gave the report to
the US and Afghan governments and did not make it public. The cover-up
is being covered up.
Bombing peace: The US, of course, isn’t the only one with a
“collateral
damage” problem. Israel bombed a tightly packed Gaza neighborhood last
week, killing a Hamas leader and fifteen civilians and wounding around
150. The attack is sure to set off many revenge bombings of Israeli
civilian and military targets. Even the US weakly condemned the
attack,
saying that “this heavy-handed action does not contribute to peace.”
But was that really the goal of dropping a one-ton bomb on a crowded
residential neighborhood? Ariel Sharon, Bush’s “man of peace,” seems
to
have had other aims for the attack, which he personally approved.On the
days leading up to the July 23 bombing, there were several significant
moves towards peace. First, Abdul Razek Yahyia, the Palestinians’
interior minister, announced a new security plan to reduce violence.
Shimon Peres, Israel’s foreign minister, was pleased with the plan. At
the same time, the EU, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia were in the midst
of brokering a peace plan that, as a first step, would have groups
linked to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement--such as the al-Aqsa
Brigades--end the use of suicide bombing within Israel. Finally, on
July 22, Hamas’ spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, said that Hamas
would stop killing Israeli civilians if Israel pulled out of the
Palestinian cities it recently reoccupied, freed prisoners and stopped
the assassination of Palestinian leaders. These moves towards peace
were troubling to Sharon, whose continued hold on power is based on an
Israeli fear of terrorism. Additionally, if peace began to break out,
Sharon would have no excuse for reoccupying Palestinian controlled
areas, or for the removal of Arafat. But the bombing quickly took care
of Sharon’s mounting problems, and it looks as if peace is again safely
a long way off.
Suicide bombing and landmines: If terrorism is defined as the
targeting
of civilians, is the use of landmines an act of terrorism? Landmines
are much more likely to kill civilians than military personel. This
fact has been the driving force behind the Ottawa Convention, the
five-year-old global treaty banning the use of landmines. Hamid
Karzai,
the president of Afghanistan, announced Sunday that Afghanistan would
become the 126th country to sign the treaty. Afghanistan has been
badly
affected by landmines: according to the International Committee of the
Red Cross, 200,000 Afghanis have been killed or wounded by mines in the
last twenty-three years of war. But there are still a few prominent
nations supporting the continued use of landmines; the US, China and
Russia have not signed the treaty. It is also estimated that around
2,000 of the bombs the US dropped on Afghanistan in the recent war lie
unexploded around the country, ready to randomly kill and wound.
A chorus of doubt: As US talk of a war on Iraq reaches a high point, a
chorus of statements against the war by leaders vital to any war
coalition is weakening Bush’s opportunity for a prompt attack. Arab
League chief Amr Musa warned that any attack on Iraq would threaten
regional security. French President Jacques Chirac and German
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder made a joint statement that they would not
support an attack on Iraq without a UN mandate. The Kuwaiti government
called on Iraq to let in inspectors and avoid the war. King Abdullah
of
Jordan, meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said that
Britain should not go along with the US drive towards war. King
Abdullah, who will meet with President Bush this week, said, “in the
light of the failure to move the Israeli-Palestinian process forward,
military action against Iraq would really open a Pandora’s box.” The
Egyptian and Saudi governments have also made statements against the
war. Iraq’s neighbour, Turkey, a key NATO ally, stated its concerns
over the war. But it also quietly asked the US to write off $4 billion
of debt if the US does go to war. And even in Britain, America’s
strongest supporter, a series of letters and op-eds in newspapers by
retired, high-ranking military personnel have denounced the war plans.
War and human rights: Last Friday, Mary Robinson, the UN human rights
chief who is to lose her job due to US pressure, said the US “war on
terror” was encouraging countries to roll back human rights. She said
that countries have been using the crackdowns in the US and Europe as
an
excuse to step up repression in their own countries. Robinson didn’t
name any nation, but this week Egypt arrested sixteen members of the
Muslim Brotherhood (which has renounced violence) along with a
prominent
human rights activist and sociology professor, Saadeddin Ibrahim.
Ibrahim is being prosecuted bythe Egyptian government for monitoring
Egyptian elections. In China, the government is increasing its
repression of ethnic Uyghurs, a Turkish minority that lives in the
western province of Xinjiang. The Chinese government--attempting to
present itself as a US partner in the “war on terrorism”--now
legitimates the repression by claiming, without any evidence, that
Uyghur separatists are supported by Osama bin Laden.
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otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole
or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by
government agencies.
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