'Brutality Smeared in Peanut Butter'
Why America Must Stop the War Now
The world doesn't have to choose between the Taliban and the US government. All the beauty of the world—literature, music, art—lies between these two fundamentalist poles.
Arundhati Roy
Appeared in Outlook... Oct 18
Appeared in The Guardian... Oct. 23rd
As darkness deepened over Afghanistan on Sunday, October 7, 2001, the US
government, backed by the International Coalition Against Terror (the new,
amenable surrogate for the United Nations), launched air strikes against
Afghanistan. TV channels lingered on computer-animated images of Cruise
missiles, stealth bombers, Tomahawks, 'bunker-busting' missiles and Mark 82
high-drag bombs. All over the world, little boys watched goggle-eyed and stopped
clamouring for new video games.
The UN, reduced now to an ineffective abbreviation, wasn't even asked to mandate
the air strikes. (As Madeleine Albright once said, "The US acts multilaterally
when it can, and unilaterally when it must.") The 'evidence' against the
terrorists was shared amongst friends in the 'Coalition'. After conferring, they
announced that it didn't matter whether or not the 'evidence' would stand up in
a court of law. Thus, in an instant, were centuries of jurisprudence carelessly
trashed.
Nothing can excuse or justify an act of terrorism, whether it is committed by
religious fundamentalists, private militia, people's resistance movements—or
whether it's dressed up as a war of retribution by a recognised government. The
bombing of Afghanistan is not revenge for New York and Washington. It is yet
another act of terror against the people of the world. Each innocent person that
is killed must be added to, not set off against, the grisly toll of civilians
who died in New York and Washington.
People rarely win wars, governments rarely lose them. People get killed.
Governments moult and regroup, hydra-headed. They first use flags to shrink-wrap
peoples' minds and suffocate real thought, and then as ceremonial shrouds to
cloak the mangled corpses of the willing dead. On both sides, in Afghanistan as
well as America, civilians are now hostage to the actions of their own
governments. Unknowingly, ordinary people in both countries share a common
bond—they have to live with the phenomenon of blind, unpredictable terror. Each
batch of bombs that is dropped on Afghanistan is matched by a corresponding
escalation of mass hysteria in America about anthrax, more hijackings and other
terrorist acts.
There is no easy way out of the spiraling morass of terror and brutality that
confronts the world today. It is time now for the human race to hold still, to
delve into its wells of collective wisdom, both ancient and modern. What
happened on September 11 changed the world forever. Freedom, progress, wealth,
technology, war—these words have taken on new meaning. Governments have to
acknowledge this transformation, and approach their new tasks with a modicum of
honesty and humility. Unfortunately, up to now, there has been no sign of any
introspection from the leaders of the International Coalition. Or the Taliban.
When he announced the air strikes, President George Bush said, "We're a peaceful
nation." America's favourite ambassador, Tony Blair, (who also holds the
portfolio of Prime Minister of the UK), echoed him: "We're a peaceful people."
So now we know. Pigs are horses. Girls are boys. War is Peace.
Speaking at the FBI headquarters a few days later, President Bush said: "This is
our calling. This is the calling of the United States of America. The most free
nation in the world. A nation built on fundamental values that reject hate,
reject violence, rejects murderers and rejects evil. We will not tire."
Here is a list of the countries that America has been at war with—and
bombed—since World War II: China (1945-46, 1950-53); Korea (1950-53); Guatemala
(1954, 1967-69); Indonesia (1958); Cuba (1959-60); the Belgian Congo (1964);
Peru (1965); Laos (1964-73); Vietnam (1961-73); Cambodia (1969-70); Grenada
(1983); Libya (1986); El Salvador (1980s); Nicaragua (1980s); Panama (1989),
Iraq (1991-99), Bosnia (1995), Sudan (1998); Yugoslavia (1999). And now
Afghanistan.
Certainly it does not
tire—this, the Most Free nation in the world. What freedoms does it uphold?
Within its borders, the freedoms of speech, religion, thought; of artistic
expression, food habits, sexual preferences (well, to some extent) and many
other exemplary, wonderful things. Outside its borders, the freedom to dominate,
humiliate and subjugate—usually in the service of America's real religion, the
'free market'. So when the US government christens a war 'Operation Infinite
Justice', or 'Operation Enduring Freedom', we in the Third World feel more than
a tremor of fear. Because we know that Infinite Justice for some means Infinite
Injustice for others. And Enduring Freedom for some means Enduring Subjugation
for others.
The International Coalition Against Terror is largely a cabal of the richest
countries in the world. Between them, they manufacture and sell almost all of
the world's weapons, they possess the largest stockpile of weapons of mass
destruction—chemical, biological and nuclear. They have fought the most wars,
account for most of the genocide, subjection, ethnic cleansing and human rights
violations in modern history, and have sponsored, armed, and financed untold
numbers of dictators and despots. Between them, they have worshipped, almost
deified, the cult of violence and war. For all its appalling sins, the Taliban
just isn't in the same league.
The Taliban was compounded in the crumbling crucible of rubble, heroin, and
landmines in the backwash of the Cold War. Its oldest leaders are in their early
40s. Many of them are disfigured and handicapped, missing an eye, an arm or a
leg. They grew up in a society scarred and devastated by war. Between the Soviet
Union and America, over 20 years, about $45 billion worth of arms and ammunition
was poured into Afghanistan. The latest weaponry was the only shard of modernity
to intrude upon a thoroughly medieval society. Young boys—many of them
orphans—who grew up in those times, had guns for toys, never knew the security
and comfort of family life, never experienced the company of women. Now, as
adults and rulers, the Taliban beat, stone, rape, and brutalise women; they
don't seem to know what else to do with them. Years of war have stripped them of
gentleness, inured them to kindness and human compassion. They dance to the
percussive rhythms of bombs raining down around them. Now they've turned their
monstrosity on their own people.
With all due respect to President Bush, the people of the world do not have to
choose between the Taliban and the US government. All the beauty of human
civilization—our art, our music, our literature—lies beyond these two
fundamentalist, ideological poles. There is as little chance that the people of
the world can all become middle-class consumers as there is that they'll all
embrace any one particular religion. The issue is not about Good vs Evil or
Islam vs Christianity as much as it is about space. About how to accommodate
diversity, how to contain the impulse towards hegemony—every kind of hegemony,
economic, military, linguistic, religious, and cultural. Any ecologist will tell
you how dangerous and fragile a monoculture is. A hegemonic world is like having
a government without a healthy opposition. It becomes a kind of dictatorship.
It's like putting a plastic bag over the world, and preventing it from
breathing. Eventually, it will be torn open.
One and a half million Afghan people lost their lives in the 20 years of
conflict that preceded this new war. Afghanistan was reduced to rubble, and now,
the rubble is being pounded into finer dust. By the second day of the air
strikes, US pilots were returning to their bases without dropping their assigned
payload of bombs. As one pilot put it, Afghanistan is "not a target-rich
environment". At a press briefing at the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld, US defense
secretary, was asked if America had run out of targets.
"First we're going to re-hit targets," he said, "and second, we're not running
out of targets, Afghanistan is..." This was greeted with gales of laughter in
the Briefing Room.
By the third day of the strikes, the US defense department boasted that it had
"achieved air supremacy over Afghanistan". (Did they mean that they had
destroyed both, or maybe all 16, of Afghanistan's planes?)
On the ground in Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance—the Taliban's old enemy, and
therefore the International Coalition's newest friend—is making headway in its
push to capture Kabul. (For the archives, let it be said that the Northern
Alliance's track record is not very different from the Taliban's. But for now,
because it's inconvenient, that little detail is being glossed over.) The
visible, moderate, "acceptable" leader of the Alliance, Ahmed Shah Masood, was
killed in a suicide-bomb attack early in September. The rest of the Northern
Alliance is a brittle confederation of brutal warlords, ex-communists, and
unbending clerics. It is a disparate group divided along ethnic lines, some of
whom have tasted power in Afghanistan in the past.
Until the US air strikes, the Northern Alliance controlled about 5 per cent of
the geographical area of Afghanistan. Now, with the Coalition's help and 'air
cover', it is poised to topple the Taliban. Meanwhile, Taliban soldiers, sensing
imminent defeat, have begun to defect to the Alliance. So the fighting forces
are busy switching sides and changing uniforms. But in an enterprise as cynical
as this one, it seems to matter hardly at all. Love is hate, north is south,
peace is war.
Among the global powers, there is talk of 'putting in a representative
government'. Or, on the other hand, of 'restoring' the Kingdom to Afghanistan's
89-year-old former king, Zahir Shah, who has lived in exile in Rome since 1973.
That's the way the game goes—support Saddam Hussein, then 'take him out';
finance the mujahideen, then bomb them to smithereens; put in Zahir Shah and see
if he's going to be a good boy. (Is it possible to 'put in' a representative
government? Can you place an order for Democracy—with extra cheese and jalapeno
peppers?)
Reports have begun to trickle in about civilian casualties, about cities
emptying out as Afghan civilians flock to the borders which have been closed.
Main arterial roads have been blown up or sealed off. Those who have experience
of working in Afghanistan say that by early November, food convoys will not be
able to reach the millions of Afghans (7.5 million according to the UN) who run
the very real risk of starving to death during the course of this winter. They
say that in the days that are left before winter sets in, there can either be a
war, or an attempt to reach food to the hungry. Not both.
As a gesture of humanitarian support, the US government air-dropped 37,000
packets of emergency rations into Afghanistan. It says it plans to drop a total
of 5,000,000 packets. That will still only add up to a single meal for
half-a-million people out of the several million in dire need of food. Aid
workers have condemned it as a cynical, dangerous, public-relations exercise.
They say that air-dropping food packets is worse than futile. First, because the
food will never get to those who really need it. More dangerously, those who run
out to retrieve the packets risk being blown up by landmines. A tragic alms
race.
Nevertheless, the food packets had a photo-op all to themselves. Their contents
were listed in major newspapers. They were vegetarian, we're told, as per Muslim
Dietary Law(!) Each yellow packet, decorated with the American flag, contained:
rice, peanut butter, bean salad, strawberry jam, crackers, raisins, flat bread,
an apple fruit bar, seasoning, matches, a set of plastic cutlery, a serviette
and illustrated user instructions.
After three years of unremitting drought, an air-dropped airline meal in
Jalalabad! The level of cultural ineptitude, the failure to understand what
months of relentless hunger and grinding poverty really mean, the US
government's attempt to use even this abject misery to boost its self-image,
beggars description.
Reverse the scenario for a moment. Imagine if the Taliban government was to bomb
New York City, saying all the while that its real target was the US government
and its policies. And suppose, during breaks between the bombing, the Taliban
dropped a few thousand packets containing nan and kababs impaled on an Afghan
flag. Would the good people of New York ever find it in themselves to forgive
the Afghan government? Even if they were hungry, even if they needed the food,
even if they ate it, how would they ever forget the insult, the condescension?
Rudy Giuliani, Mayor of New York City, returned a gift of $10 million from a
Saudi prince because it came with a few words of friendly advice about American
policy in the Middle East. Is pride a luxury only the rich are entitled to?
Far from stamping it out, igniting this kind of rage is what creates terrorism.
Hate and retribution don't go back into the box once you've let them out. For
every 'terrorist' or his 'supporter' that is killed, hundreds of innocent people
are being killed too. And for every hundred innocent people killed, there is a
good chance that several future terrorists will be created.
Where will it all lead?
Setting aside the rhetoric for a moment, consider the fact that the world has
not yet found an acceptable definition of what 'terrorism' is. One country's
terrorist is too often another's freedom fighter. At the heart of the matter
lies the world's deep-seated ambivalence towards violence. Once violence is
accepted as a legitimate political instrument, then the morality and political
acceptability of terrorists (insurgents or freedom fighters) becomes
contentious, bumpy terrain. The US government itself has funded, armed, and
sheltered plenty of rebels and insurgents around the world. The CIA and
Pakistan's ISI trained and armed the mujahideen who, in the 1980s, were seen as
terrorists by the government in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. While President
Reagan posed with them for a group portrait and called them the moral
equivalents of America's founding fathers. Today, Pakistan—America's ally in
this new war—sponsors insurgents who cross the border into Kashmir in India.
Pakistan lauds them as 'freedom fighters', India calls them 'terrorists'. India,
for its part, denounces countries who sponsor and abet terrorism, but the Indian
army has, in the past, trained separatist Tamil rebels asking for a homeland in
Sri Lanka—the LTTE, responsible for countless acts of bloody terrorism. (Just as
the CIA abandoned the mujahideen after they had served its purpose, India
abruptly turned its back on the LTTE for a host of political reasons. It was an
enraged LTTE suicide-bomber who assassinated former Indian prime minister Rajiv
Gandhi in 1991.)
It is important for governments and politicians to understand that manipulating
these huge, raging human feelings for their own narrow purposes may yield
instant results, but eventually and inexorably, they have disastrous
consequences. Igniting and exploiting religious sentiments for reasons of
political expediency is the most dangerous legacy that governments or
politicians can bequeath to any people—including their own. People who live in
societies ravaged by religious or communal bigotry know that every religious
text—from the Bible to the Bhagwad Gita—can be mined and misinterpreted to
justify anything, from nuclear war to genocide to corporate globalisation.
This is not to suggest that the terrorists who perpetrated the outrage on
September 11 should not be hunted down and brought to book. They must be. But is
war the best way to track them down? Will burning the haystack find you the
needle? Or will it escalate the anger and make the world a living hell for all
of us?
At the end of the day, how many people can you spy on, how many bank accounts
can you freeze, how many conversations can you eavesdrop on, how many e-mails
can you intercept, how many letters can you open, how many phones can you tap?
Even before September 11, the CIA had accumulated more information than is
humanly possible to process. (Sometimes, too much data can actually hinder
intelligence—small wonder the US spy satellites completely missed the
preparation that preceded India's nuclear tests in 1998.)
The sheer scale of the surveillance will become a logistical, ethical and civil
rights nightmare. It will drive everybody clean crazy. And freedom—that
precious, precious thing—will be the first casualty. It's already hurt and
hemorrhaging dangerously.
Governments across the world are cynically using the prevailing paranoia to
promote their own interests. All kinds of unpredictable political forces are
being unleashed. In India, for instance, members of the All India People's
Resistance Forum, who were distributing anti-war and anti-US pamphlets in Delhi,
have been jailed. Even the printer of the leaflets was arrested. The right-wing
government (while it shelters Hindu extremists groups like the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad and the Bajrang Dal) has banned the Students' Islamic Movement of India
and is trying to revive an anti-terrorist act which had been withdrawn after the
Human Rights Commission reported that it had been more abused than used.
Millions of Indian citizens are Muslim. Can anything be gained by alienating
them?
Every day that the war goes on, raging emotions are being let loose into the
world. The international press has little or no independent access to the war
zone. In any case, mainstream media, particularly in the US, has more or less
rolled over, allowing itself to be tickled on the stomach with press hand-outs
from militarymen and government officials. Afghan radio stations have been
destroyed by the bombing. The Taliban has always been deeply suspicious of the
Press. In the propaganda war, there is no accurate estimate of how many people
have been killed, or how much destruction has taken place. In the absence of
reliable information, wild rumours spread.
Put your ear to the ground in this part of the world, and you can hear the
thrumming, the deadly drumbeat of burgeoning anger. Please. Please, stop the war
now. Enough people have died. The smart missiles are just not smart enough.
They're blowing up whole warehouses of suppressed fury.
President George Bush recently boasted: "When I take action, I'm not going to
fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It's
going to be decisive." President Bush should know that there are no targets in
Afghanistan that will give his missiles their money's worth. Perhaps, if only to
balance his books, he should develop some cheaper missiles to use on cheaper
targets and cheaper lives in the poor countries of the world. But then, that may
not make good business sense to the Coalition's weapons manufacturers. It
wouldn't make any sense at all, for example, to the Carlyle Group—described by
the Industry Standard as 'the world's largest private equity firm', with $12
billion under management. Carlyle invests in the defense sector and makes its
money from military conflicts and weapons spending.
Carlyle is run by men with impeccable credentials. Former US defense secretary
Frank Carlucci is Carlyle's chairman and managing director (he was a college
roommate of Donald Rumsfeld's). Carlyle's other partners include former US
secretary of state James A. Baker III, George Soros, Fred Malek (George Bush
Sr's campaign manager). An American paper—the Baltimore Chronicle and
Sentinel—says that former President George Bush Sr is reported to be seeking
investments for the Carlyle Group from Asian markets. He is reportedly paid not
inconsiderable sums of money to make 'presentations' to potential
government-clients.
Ho Hum. As the tired saying goes, it's all in the family.
Then there's that other branch of traditional family business—oil. Remember,
President George Bush (Jr) and Vice-President Dick Cheney both made their
fortunes working in the US oil industry.
Turkmenistan, which borders the northwest of Afghanistan, holds the world's
third largest gas reserves and an estimated six billion barrels of oil reserves.
Enough, experts say, to meet American energy needs for the next 30 years (or a
developing country's energy requirements for a couple of centuries.) America has
always viewed oil as a security consideration, and protected it by any means it
deems necessary. Few of us doubt that its military presence in the Gulf has
little to do with its concern for human rights and almost entirely to do with
its strategic interest in oil.
Oil and gas from the Caspian region currently moves northward to European
markets. Geographically and politically, Iran and Russia are major impediments
to American interests. In 1998, Dick Cheney—then CEO of Halliburton, a major
player in the oil industry—said: "I can't think of a time when we've had a
region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian.
It's almost as if the opportunities have arisen overnight." True enough.
For some years now, an American oil giant called Unocal has been negotiating
with the Taliban for permission to construct an oil pipeline through Afghanistan
to Pakistan and out to the Arabian Sea. From here, Unocal hopes to access the
lucrative 'emerging markets' in South and Southeast Asia. In December 1997, a
delegation of Taliban mullahs traveled to America and even met US State
Department officials and Unocal executives in Houston. At that time the
Taliban's taste for public executions and its treatment of Afghan women were not
made out to be the crimes against humanity that they are now. Over the next six
months, pressure from hundreds of outraged American feminist groups was brought
to bear on the Clinton administration. Fortunately, they managed to scuttle the
deal. And now comes the US oil industry's big chance.
In America, the arms industry, the oil industry, the major media networks, and,
indeed, US foreign policy, are all controlled by the same business combines.
Therefore, it would be foolish to expect this talk of guns and oil and defense
deals to get any real play in the media. In any case, to a distraught, confused
people whose pride has just been wounded, whose loved ones have been tragically
killed, whose anger is fresh and sharp, the inanities about the 'Clash of
Civilisations' and the 'Good vs Evil' discourse home in unerringly. They are
cynically doled out by government spokesmen like a daily dose of vitamins or
anti-depressants. Regular medication ensures that mainland America continues to
remain the enigma it has always been—a curiously insular people, administered by
a pathologically meddlesome, promiscuous government.
And what of the rest of us, the numb recipients of this onslaught of what we
know to be preposterous propaganda? The daily consumers of the lies and
brutality smeared in peanut butter and strawberry jam being air-dropped into our
minds just like those yellow food packets. Shall we look away and eat because
we're hungry, or shall we stare unblinking at the grim theatre unfolding in
Afghanistan until we retch collectively and say, in one voice, that we have had
enough?
As the first year of the new millennium rushes to a close, one wonders—have we
forfeited our right to dream? Will we ever be able to re-imagine beauty? Will it
be possible ever again to watch the slow, amazed blink of a new-born gecko in
the sun, or whisper back to the marmot who has just whispered in your
ear—without thinking of the World Trade Center and Afghanistan?
Link to this Story :
War Is Peace
The world doesn't have to choose between the
Taliban and the US government. All the beauty of the world—literature, music,
art—lies between these two fundamentalist poles.