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- Distortion, Deception, and Terrorism
- The Bombing of Afghanistan
- by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
-
Introduction
The United
States has finally begun a massive military assault on Afghanistan, with
military support from the United Kingdom. Cruise missiles, bombers and
submarines have been used to attack what has been described as “a broad
range of targets”, purportedly ranging from Taliban training camps to
garrisons. The strikes, which began at 1625GMT, first targeted the Afghan
capital Kabul and later hit the cities of Kandahar, Jalalabad, and the
northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. The attack has been justified on the basis
of forming, in the words of U.S. President George Bush Jnr., “a new front”
against terrorism, which will not target the Afghan people, but is aimed at
the prime suspect Osama Bin Laden and the regime protecting him. Indeed, the
President claimed, America is “the friend of the Afghan people.”[1]
An analysis of the facts illustrates that this is hardly the case.
I. Afghanistan Strikes Planned Since Last Year
The
current military strikes against Afghanistan were planned long before the
terrorist assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. As early as
December last year, Frederick Starr, Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus
Institute at Johns Hopkins’s Nitze School of Advanced International
Studies, reported that:
“[T]he United States has quietly
begun to align itself with those in the Russian government calling for
military action against Afghanistan and has toyed with the idea of a new
raid to wipe out Osama bin Laden. Until it backed off under local pressure,
it went so far as to explore whether a Central Asian country would permit
the use of its territory for such a purpose.”
Meetings between government
American, Russian and Indian government officials took place at the end of
2000 “to discuss what kind of government should replace the Taliban.” Starr
observed that: “[T]he United States is now talking about the overthrow of a
regime that controls nearly the entire country, in the hope it can be
replaced with a hypothetical government that does not exist even on paper.” The U.S. also supported a one-sided UN resolution:
“… that would strengthen sanctions against foreign
military aid for the Taliban but take no action against its warlord
opponents, who control a mere 3 to 5 percent of the country's territory.
These warlords, when they ruled in key areas, showed a brutal disregard for
human rights and for other minorities that was comparable to the Taliban at
its worst. Yet the fragment of a government they support limps on and, with
U.S. backing, occupies Afghanistan’s seat in the United Nations… These
shifts add up to a fundamental redirection of American policy toward the
world's largest and most vexed zone of conflict. All this is occurring
without public discussion, without consultation with Congress and without
even informing those who are likely to make foreign policy in the next
administration.” [2]
Canadian journalist Eric Margolis
reported in the same month the existence of extensive military plans to
invade Afghanistan, topple the Taliban regime, and install a government
subservient to Western interests:
“The United States and Russia may soon launch a joint
military assault against Islamic militant, Osama Bin Laden, and against the
leadership of Taliban, Afghanistan’s de facto ruling movement. Such an
attack would probably include US Delta Force and Navy Seals, who would join
up with Russia’s elite Spetsnaz and Alpha commandos in Tajikistan, the
Central Asian state where Russian has military bases and 25,000 troops. The
combined forces would be lifted by helicopters, and backed by air support,
deep into neighboring Afghanistan to attack Bin Laden’s fortified base in
the Hindu Kush mountains.” [3]
The plans clearly have little to
do with aiding the Afghan people, and more to do with eliminating the
current danger to US interests in the region. As the Guardian rightly
observes, “Another missile attack will merely add to Afghanistan’s misery.” [4]
The international U.S. rights
monitors Human Rights Watch (HRW) elaborated on such concerns, pointing out
that all factions, including the main opposition the Northern Alliance, are
responsible for grave human rights abuses against Afghan civilians. HRW
criticised UN Security Council measures to increase sanctions on the
Taliban, urging instead “the adoption of an arms embargo against all
combatants, not only the Taliban.” Indeed, a joint US-Russia draft
resolution ignored the ongoing civil war, responsible for the humanitarian
crisis, focusing instead “on the Taliban’s harboring of Osama bin Laden...
[The resolution] would impose new sanctions only on the Taliban until it
gives up bin Laden for extradition and closes camps allegedly used to plan
criminal activities overseas. But the draft resolution does not directly
address the ongoing civil war in Afghanistan, which has been accompanied by
a severe humanitarian crisis.” Executive Director of HRW, Kenneth Roth, has
pointed out that the international community’s failure to “address abuses by
the warring parties now because they are an important cause of the
continuing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan”, signifies that they are
“inexcusably abandoning the Afghan people to suffer atrocities at home while
focusing exclusively on the Afghan government’s role in attacks on
foreigners.” [5]
II. Humanitarian Intervention? U.S. Support of Afghan Opposition Terrorists
Indeed, atrocities by the Northern Alliance - now being backed by
the United States - against the Afghan people, are of exactly the
same nature as those committed by the brutal Taliban regime that
rules the majority of Afghanistan. British Middle East specialist
Robert Fisk reports in The Independent that:
“[W]ithout a blush or a swallow of embarrassment, we’re
about to sign up the so-called ‘Northern Alliance’ in Afghanistan. America’s
newspapers are saying - without a hint of irony - that they, too, will be
our ‘foot-soldiers’ in our war to hunt down/bring to justice/smoke
out/eradicate/liquidate Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. US officials -who
know full well the whole bloody, rapacious track record of the killers in
the ‘Alliance’ - are suggesting in good faith that these are the men who
will help us bring democracy to Afghanistan and drive the Taliban and the
terrorists out of the country. In fact, we’re ready to hire one gang of
terrorists – our terrorists - to rid ourselves of another gang of
terrorists... The Northern Alliance, the confederacy of warlords, patriots,
rapists and torturers who control a northern sliver of Afghanistan, have
very definitely not (repeat: not) massacred more than 7,000 innocent
civilians in the United States. No, the murderers among them have done their
massacres on home turf, in Afghanistan. Just like the Taliban…
Urged on by the Americans, the
Alliance boys have been meeting with the elderly and sick ex-King Mohamed
Zahir Shah, whose claim to have no interest in the monarchy is almost
certainly honourable - but whose ambitious grandson may have other plans for
Afghanistan… [T]he old king will be freighted in as a symbol of national
unity, a reminder of the good old days before democracy collapsed and
communism destroyed the country. And we’ll have to forget that King Zahir
Shah - though personally likeable, and a saint compared to the Taliban - was
no great democrat.” [6]
Human Rights Watch has also noted the anti-humanitarian nature of
U.S. support of the Afghan opposition. Sidney Jones, Executive
Director of the Asia division of HRW, urged that: “The U.S. and its
allies should not cooperate with commanders whose record of
brutality raises questions about their legitimacy inside
Afghanistan. Any country that gives assistance to the Afghan
opposition must take responsibility for how this assistance is
used.” Abuses by the opposition in late 1999 and early 2000 have
included “summary executions, burning of houses, and looting,
principally targeting ethnic Pashtuns and others suspected of
supporting the Taliban.” HRW also describes the parties comprising
the ‘United Front’ as having “amassed a deplorable record of attacks
on civilians between the fall of the Najibullah regime in 1992 and
the Taliban's capture of Kabul in 1996.”
[7]
Clearly then, the United States had planned to invade Afghanistan
and topple the Taliban regime a year ago, and had drawn up its
military plans in coordination with Russia and India. The terrorist
attacks against the WTC and the Pentagon in the U.S. have apparently
provided a pretext to justify executing these long-standing plans.
U.S. support of the Northern Alliance – which is as responsible for
the terrorization of the Afghan people as the Taliban is -
demonstrates that the motive behind the invasion of Afghanistan is
hardly genuinely humanitarian. The United States is apparently
perfectly happy with supporting undemocratic terror-toting proxies,
as long as they serve regional U.S. interests. Indeed, U.S.
indifference to tyranny, repression, gender-apartheid, genocide and
ethnic cleansing is further demonstrated by the fact that the U.S.
supported the Taliban from 1994-99 in order to secure its strategic
and economic interests in Afghanistan.
III. U.S. Support of the Taliban
Professor William O.
Beeman, an anthropologist specialising in the Middle East at Brown
University who has conducted extensive research into Islamic Central
Asia, points out:
“It is no secret, especially in the region,
that the United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have been supporting the
fundamentalist Taliban in their war for control of Afghanistan for some
time. The US has never openly acknowledged this connection, but it has been
confirmed by both intelligence sources and charitable institutions in
Pakistan.”[8]
Professor
Beeman observes that the U.S.-backed Taliban “are a brutal fundamentalist
group that has conducted a cultural scorched-earth policy” in Afghanistan.
Extensive documentation shows that the Taliban have “committed atrocities
against their enemies and their own citizens... So why would the U.S.
support them?” Beeman concludes that the answer to this question “has
nothing to do with religion or ethnicity - but only with the economics of
oil. To the north of Afghanistan is one of the world’s wealthiest oil
fields, on the Eastern Shore of the Caspian Sea in republics formed since
the breakup of the Soviet Union.” Caspian oil needs to be transhipped out of
the landlocked region through a warm water port, for the desired profits to
be accumulated. The “simplest and cheapest” pipeline route is through Iran -
but Iran is essentially an ‘enemy’ of the U.S., due to being overtly
independent of the West. As Beeman notes: “The U.S. government has such
antipathy to Iran that it is willing to do anything to prevent this.” The
alternative route is one that passes through Afghanistan and Pakistan, which
“would require securing the agreement of the powers-that-be in Afghanistan”
- the Taliban. Such an arrangement would also benefit Pakistani elites,
“which is why they are willing to defy the Iranians.” Therefore, as far as
the U.S. is concerned, the solution is “for the anti-Iranian Taliban to win
in Afghanistan and agree to the pipeline through their territory.”[9]
In 1996, Cable News Network
(CNN) reported that the “United States wants good ties [with the Taliban]
but can’t openly seek them while women are being repressed” - hence they can
be sought covertly.[10]
The Intra Press Service (IPS) reported in 1997 that underscoring “the
geopolitical stakes, Afghanistan has appeared prominently in US government
and corporate planning about routes for pipelines and roads opening the
ex-Soviet republics on Russia’s southern border to world markets.” Hence,
amid the fighting, “some Western businesses are warming up to the Taliban
despite the movement’s” responsibility for terror, massacres, abductions,
and impoverishment. “Leili Helms, a spokeswoman for the Taliban in New York,
told IPS that one U.S. company, Union Oil of California (Unocal), helped to
arrange the visit last week of the movement’s acting information, industry
and mines ministers. The three officials met lower-level State Department
officials before departing for France, Helms said. Several US and French
firms are interested in developing gas lines through central and southern
Afghanistan, where the 23 Taliban-controlled states” just happen to be
located, as Helms added, to the ‘chance’ convenience of American and other
Western companies.[11]
An article appearing in the
prestigious German daily Frankfurter Rundschau, in early October
1996, reported that UNOCAL “has been given the go-ahead from the new holders
of power in Kabul to build a pipeline from Turkmenstein via Afghanistan to
Pakistan. It would lead from Krasnovodsk on the Caspian Sea to Karachi on
the Indian Ocean coast.” The same article noted that UN diplomats in Geneva
believe that the war in Afghanistan is the result of a struggle between
Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and the United States, “to secure access to
the rich oil and natural gas of the Caspian Sea.” [12]
Other than UNOCAL, companies that are jubilantly interested in exploiting
Caspian oil, apparently at any human expense, include AMOCO, BP, Chevron,
EXXON, and Mobile.[13]
It therefore comes as no
surprise to find the Wall Street Journal reporting in 1997 that the
main interests of American and other Western elites lie in making
Afghanistan “a prime transhipment route for the export of Central Asia’s
vast oil, gas and other natural resources”. “Like them or not,” the
Journal continues without fear of contradiction, “the Taliban are the
players most capable of achieving peace in Afghanistan at this moment in
history.” The Journal is referring to the same faction that is
responsible for the severe repression of women; massacres of civilians;
ethnic cleansing and genocide; arbitrary detention; and the growth of
widespread impoverishment and underdevelopment.[14]
In a similar vein, the International Herald Tribunal reported that in
the summer of 1998, “the Clinton administration was talking with the Taleban
about potential pipeline routes to carry oil and natural gas out of
Turkmenistan to the Indian Ocean by crossing Afghanistan and Pakistan”. [15]
Even
members of the U.S. Government have criticized U.S. covert support of the
Taliban. One should note, for instance, the authoritative testimony of U.S.
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher concerning American policy toward Afghanistan.
Rohrabacher has been involved with Afghanistan since the early 1980s when he
worked in the White House as Special Assistant to then U.S. President Ronald
Reagan, and he is now a Senior Member of the U.S. House International
Relations Committee. He has been involved in U.S. policy toward Afghanistan
for some 20 years. In 1988 he traveled to Afghanistan as a member of the
U.S. Congress with mujahideen fighters and participated in the battle of
Jalalabhad against the Soviets. He testified before a Senate Foreign
Relations Subcommittee:
“Having been closely involved in U.S. policy
toward Afghanistan for some twenty years, I have called into question
whether or not this administration has a covert policy that has empowered
the Taliban and enabled this brutal movement to hold on to power. Even
though the President and the Secretary of State have voiced their disgust at
the brutal policies of the Taliban, especially their repression of women,
the actual implementation of U.S. policy has repeatedly had the opposite
effect… I am making the claim that there is and has been a covert policy by
this administration to support the Taliban movement’s control of
Afghanistan… [T]his amoral or immoral policy is based on the assumption that
the Taliban would bring stability to Afghanistan and permit the building of
oil pipelines from Central Asia through Afghanistan to Pakistan… I believe
the administration has maintained this covert goal and kept the Congress in
the dark about its policy of supporting the Taliban, the most anti-Western,
anti-female, anti-human rights regime in the world. It doesn’t take a genius
to understand that this policy would outrage the American people, especially
America’s women.” [16]
Yet U.S. plans fell through. The Taliban has simply proved incapable
of playing a suitably stabilising role in the region, particularly
due its inability to remain subservient to U.S. orders. P. Stobdan
reports that the terrorist antics of Taliban favourite Osama Bin
Laden caused a rift in the blossoming U.S.-Taliban relationship,
leading the American corporation UNOCAL to indefinitely suspend work
on the pipeline in August 1999. [17]
It thus appears that not long after the U.S.-Taliban relationship
soured, U.S. plans to topple the regime and install a new government
began to be explored and even discussed with other powers.
The
establishment of a strong client state in Afghanistan would strengthen U.S.
influence in this crucial region, partly by strengthening Pakistan –
formerly a prime supporter of the Taliban - which is the region’s main
American base. Of course, this also furthers the cause of establishing the
required oil and gas pipelines to the Caspian Sea, while bypassing Russia
and opening up the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) bordering Russia
to the U.S. dominated global market. This has been U.S. intention all along.
Previously, it was hoped that the Taliban – regardless of its domestic
record of terror, genocide and gender-apartheid – would be this strong
client state; yet since that is not the case, a band of murderers of the
same ilk as the Taliban – the Northern Alliance – can be installed most
probably under the leadership of a former undemocratic King. Canadian
foreign affairs commentator Eric Margolis – a specialist in the Middle East
and Central Asia – observes that:
“The first phase of the U.S. ‘war on terrorism’ will
likely be the attempted overthrow of the Taliban regime, which currently
rules 90% of Afghanistan. Washington is massing powerful strike forces
around Afghanistan and has unleashed a fierce propaganda offensive against
Taliban.
“The Bush Administration says it will embark on
‘nation-building’ in Afghanistan. Translation: imposing a pro-U.S. regime in
Kabul that will battle Islamic militants and open the way for American oil
and gas pipelines running south from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea.
Washington clearly hopes to make the Northern Alliance, a motley collection
of anti-Taliban insurgents, the new ruler of Afghanistan, perhaps under its
86-year old exiled king, Zahir Shah.” [18]
Concerns for democracy, human rights and socio-economic development
are simply public relations exercised designed to deflect from the
actual objectives.
IV. Was Osama Bin Laden Really Behind the U.S. Terror Attacks?
The Western
powers have failed to produce any credible evidence proving clearly that
Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon.
Indeed, they appear to have been eager, under U.S. leadership, to scapegoat
Osama Bin Laden so as to provide an adequate justification to execute
longstanding plans to invade Afghanistan and destroy the Taliban regime.
While President Bush was singling out Bin Laden as the prime suspect for the
attacks, Juergen Storbeck, Director of the European Union’s law enforcement
arm – Europol – “warned on Saturday against rushing to blame the Saudi-born
militant Osama bin Laden for masterminding Tuesday’s attacks on New York and
Washington,” reported Reuters.
“It’s possible that he was informed about the operation,
it’s even possible that he influenced it, but he’s probably not the man who
steered every action or controlled the detailed plan. As for the idea that,
sitting in Afghanistan, he could have controlled the last phase of the
operation is something we should not accept without a lot of doubt. Bin
Laden is not the automatic leader of every terrorist act carried out in the
name of Islam.” [19]
Indeed, the British Government’s 21-page dossier released on
Thursday 4th October 2001, purportedly providing clear
proof of Bin Laden’s guilt in relation to the attacks in the U.S.,
is in fact entirely devoid of actual evidence. The document collects
together the principal evidence against Bin Laden gathered by
Western intelligence agencies. The dossier was compiled by a
committee that included senior members of MI5 and MI6, under the
guidance of Washington. Yet as the London Independent
observes on analysis of the document:
“What the Government’s dossier against bin Laden doesn’t
say and can’t say: One thing is missing from the document ‘proving’ Bin
Laden’s guilt - the proof.
“It was too good to be true. We were told we would be
getting evidence of Osama bin Laden’s guilt. Instead, close analysis of the
21-page document put out by the Government on Thursday reveals a report of
conjecture, supposition and unsubstantiated assertions of fact. It uses
every trick in the Whitehall drafter’s arsenal to make the reader believe
they are reading something they are not: a damning indictment of Mr bin
Laden for the events of 11 September… Ministers believe the document has
sealed the propaganda war, convincing the country of the need to move
against Mr bin Laden and al-Qa'ida and to accept limited British and
civilian casualties. To their relief they are not being subjected to
rigorous questioning on the report, either from their own supporters, the
Opposition, or much of the media.
“Officials are also pleased: the document successfully
papers over the cracks in their own intelligence operations... The document
carries a health warning that intelligence material has been withheld to
protect the safety of sources. But, lawyers point out, this is not good
enough. Assuming one aim of the military build-up is to try to capture Mr
bin Laden and put him on trial, that so-far-unseen evidence would have to be
displayed – because on the basis of what has been released there is no
chance of his being prosecuted, let alone convicted.” [20]
British legal expert Robert Gordon QC thus notes that: “The Prime
Minister told Parliament that this evidence was of an even more
direct nature indicating guilt. The document makes it clear that the
additional evidence is ‘too sensitive to release’. That may be so,
but in any criminal prosecution against bin Laden the necessary
evidence would have to be adduced for the case to be proved.”
Commenting on the evidence presented, “All this shows in the
language of lawyers, propensity, but it proves little.” [21]
The
London Guardian similarly highlights the utter lack of direct
evidence demonstrating Bin Laden’s responsibility for the attacks,
or even the responsibility of elements within Afghanistan:
“Like almost everyone on earth, I want to believe that
the attack on New York was the work of a single despot and his obedient
commando. But the more evidence US intelligence presents to this effect, the
less credible the story becomes.
“First there was the car. A man had informed the police,
we were told, that he’d had a furious argument with some suspicious-looking
Muslims in the parking lot at Boston airport. He led investigators to the
car, in which they found a copy of the Qur’an and a flight manual in Arabic,
showing that these were the fundamentalists who had hijacked one of the
planes. Now flying an airliner is not one of those things you learn in the
back of a car on the way to the airport. Either you know how to do it or you
don’[22]t.
Leaving the Qu’ran unattended, a Muslim friend tells me, is considered
sinful. And if you were about to perpetrate one of the biggest terrorist
outrages the world has ever seen, would you draw attention to yourself by
arguing over a parking place?
“Then there was the passport. The security services claim
that a passport belonging to one of the hijackers was extracted from the
rubble of the World Trade Centre. This definitive identification might help
them to track the rest of the network. We are being asked to believe that a
paper document from the cockpit of the first plane - the epicentre of an
inferno which vapourised steel - survived the fireball and fell to the
ground almost intact.
“When presented with material like this, I can’t help
suspecting that intelligence agents have assembled the theory first, then
sought the facts required to fit it… The West, in the name of civilisation,
was insisting that Bin Laden was guilty, and it would find the evidence
later.
“For these reasons and many
others (such as the initial false certainties about the Oklahoma bombing and
the Sudanese medicine factory, and the identification of live innocents as
dead terrorists), I think we have some cause to regard the new evidence
against Bin Laden with a measure of scepticism… [I]f the West starts chasing
the wrong man across the Hindu Kush while the real terrorists are planning
their next atrocity, this hardly guarantees our security.”
It is worth
noting that although one of the hijacker’s passports, as Monbiot reports,
allegedly survived the WTC inferno – consisting of fire and heat over a
1,000 degrees Farenheit - according to FBI officials, all the Black Boxes
were in contrast totally destroyed and rendered unusable. The Black Boxes,
constituting a Flight Data Recorder and a Cockpit Voice Recorder in each
plane, are specifically designed to withstand massive explosions. According
to ABC News:
“Although investigators look for an entire black box,
sometimes the only parts of the device that survive are the recorder’s
crash-survivable memory units (CSMU). The CSMU is almost indestructible. It
is housed within a stainless-steel shell that contains titanium or aluminum
and a high-temperature insulation of dry silica material.
“It is designed to withstand heat of up to 2,000 degrees
Fahrenheit for one hour, salt water for at least 30 days, immersion in a
variety of liquids such as jet fuel and lubricants, and an impact of 3,400
G’s. By comparison, astronauts are typically exposed to up to six Gs during
a shuttle takeoff.” [23]
Each plane has two separate Black Boxes designed to be
indestructable in the event of crashes, which in total means that
there were eight Black Boxes – since there were four planes in total
used in the attacks on U.S. targets. Yet the FBI is asking us to
believe that while all eight Black Boxes were completely and utterly
destroyed in the crashes, a mere paper passport survived to be
discovered a few blocks away.[24]
CNN reported that: “The searchers found several clues, he said, but
would not elaborate. Last week, a passport belonging to one of the
hijackers was found in the vicinity of Vesey Street, near the World
Trade Center. ‘It was a significant piece of evidence for us,’ Mawn
said.”[25]
“In New York, several blocks from the ruins of the World Trade
Center, a passport authorities said belonged to one of the hijackers
was discovered a few days ago, according to city Police Commissioner
Bernard Kerik.”[26]
Not only then did a passport survive a plane crash that was
allegedly so intense it obliterated the virtually indestructable
Black Box, the same passport is also supposed to have flown down a
few blocks from the WTC. It is true that due to the sudden
shattering of the windows in the WTC, all paper materials in the
building were immediately ejected out before incineration. Yet a
passport in the pocket of a hijacker sitting within a plane that
explodes will naturally undergo the same process as the hijacker and
the plane he is sitting in, along with the other passengers:
absolute cremation.[27]
Robert Fisk has also highlighted some of the fatal inconsistencies
in the Bin Laden-theory that many, including those critical of U.S.
policy, have failed to take proper note of, choosing instead to
repeat the allegations of U.S. officials unthinkingly. One of the
alleged hijackers, Ziad Jarrer, hardly fit very well into the
category of “Islamic fundamentalist”, particularly the kind that
would be recruited, trained and commanded by Bin Laden.
He drank alcohol, had girlfriends, and
went to nightclubs. As Fisk observes: “And that, as they say,
is the hole in the story. Everyone I spoke to in Almarj told me that
Ziad was a happy, secular youth, that he never showed any interest
in religion and never visited the mosque for prayers, that he liked
women…
“Mohamad Atta, his friend - or fellow murderer - was also
known to knock back five stiff drinks in an evening. If they were Osama bin
Laden’s boys, they didn’t behave like it. Bin Laden would not let his men
smoke cigarettes, and drinking alcohol would have led to banishment from the
ranks of his Al Qa’ida movement… Who would believe that a young man drinking
in a bar - with a Turkish girlfriend back in Germany with whom he’d been
living - would be planning to crash an airliner on to the White House with
49 passengers aboard?” [28]
Fisk also points out inconsistencies within the five-page document
allegedly discovered by the FBI in Atta’s baggage, extracts of which
were published in the Washington Post. The document, writes
Fisk, “raises more questions than it answers”:
The document begins with the words: ‘In the name of God,
the most merciful, the most compassionate... In the name of God, of myself,
and of my family.’ The problem is that no Muslim -however ill-taught - would
include his family in such a prayer. Indeed, he would mention the Prophet
Mohamed immediately after he mentioned God in the first line. Lebanese and
Palestinian suicide bombers have never been known to refer to ‘the time of
fun and waste’ - because a true Muslim would not have ‘wasted’ his time and
would regard pleasure as a reward of the after-life. And what Muslim would
urge his fellow believers to recite the morning prayer - and then go on to
quote from it? A devout Muslim would not need to be reminded of his duty to
say the first of the five prayers of the day - and would certainly not need
to be reminded of the text. It is as if a Christian, urging his followers to
recite the Lord’s Prayer, felt it necessary to read the whole prayer in case
they didn’t remember it.
American scholars have already raised questions about the
use of ‘100 per cent’ - hardly a theological term to be found in a religious
exhortation - and the use of the word ‘optimistic’ with reference to the
Prophet is a decidedly modern word. However, the full and original Arabic
text has not been released by the FBI. The translation, as it stands,
suggests an almost Christian view of what the hijackers might have felt -
asking to be forgiven their sins, explaining that fear of death is natural,
that ‘a believer is always plagued with problems’. A Muslim is encouraged
not to fear death - it is, after all, the moment when he or she believes
they will start a new life - and a believer in the Islamic world is one who
is certain of his path, not ‘plagued with problems’. There are no references
to any of Osama bin Laden’s demands - for an American withdrawal from the
Gulf, an end to Israeli occupation, the overthrow of pro-American Arab
regimes - nor any narrative context for the atrocities about to be
committed. [29]
The
FBI claims that it discovered “essentially the same document” in the
wreckage of the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. However, no text
of this version has been released. Worse still, the five-page
pamphlet is supposed to have survived the same crash in which two
virtually indestructible Black Boxes were destroyed and/or damaged
beyond use. Fisk points out that: “In the
past, CIA translators have turned out to be Lebanese Maronite
Christians whose understanding of Islam and its prayers may have led
to serious textual errors. Could this be to blame for the weird
references in the note found in Atta’s baggage?” – and if this is
the case, then certainly the use of these documents as proof of the
terrorists’ connections to Islamic fundamentalism – and particularly
to Bin Laden – is clearly unwarranted. Indeed, Fisk’s observation
illustrates that U.S. intelligence is clearly open to subjectivity
and the imposition of personal – possibly anti-Muslim – prejudices
on to alleged findings. Fisk thus asks whether there is “something
more mysterious about the background of those who committed a crime
against humanity in New York and Washington, just over two weeks
ago?” [30]
Many legal experts have condemned this rather ominous void of
evidence. Vice-President of the Center for Constitutional Rights and
an expert on war powers, U.S. Attorney Michael Ratner, has
highlighted the fact that:
“The United States has yet to present convincing proof
that Bin Laden was involved in the attacks on September 11. Without such
proof it is unlikely Afghanistan will ever agree to his extradition and it
will be more difficult to get other nations to cooperate in a coalition.
Certainly before force is used that evidence should be revealed publicly and
the facts subject to scrutiny by the UN Security Council. Otherwise, the
U.S. may launch military attacks with no basis, much like it apparently did
in bombing a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.” [31]
The
West thus simply does not have proof of Bin Laden’s guilt – but that
is irrelevant. Clearly, the United States has been able to exploit
the tragedy which left up to 6,000 American civilians dead or
missing to implement its longstanding war plans in Afghanistan,
plans which had nothing to do with humanitarian concerns, and
everything to do with securing regional strategic and economic
interests revolving particularly around the establishment of
pipeline routes to Caspian oil. Although Bin Laden, in reality, may
have had no connection to the U.S. terror attacks - and while no
actual proof of his guilt has been produced – Anglo-American forces
have nevertheless seen fit to invade the country, seal the borders,
impose devastating sanctions, and bomb heavily-populated cities. The
reason the Western powers under U.S. leadership are unperturbed by
the absence of decisive proof of Bin Laden’s involvement is that
fighting against terrorism is not the real concern; securing
strategic and economic interests by removing the Taliban and
establishing an equally brutal regime subservient to U.S. demands,
is the primary objective.
V. A 21st Century Holocaust in Afghanistan
The
imposition of sanctions on Afghanistan in the wake of the U.S. embassy
blasts in East Africa attributed to Bin Laden, has not only failed to affect
the Taliban, but has served primarily to devastate the Afghan population
even more. “The U.S. engineered a punishing Iraq-style embargo of
war-ravaged Afghanistan at a time when many of its 18 million people are
starving and homeless,” observes the Toronto Sun. [32]
The London Guardian reports that:
“When the UN imposed sanctions a
year ago on the Taliban because of their refusal to hand over bin Laden, the
suffering in Afghanistan increased. The move has not hurt the Taliban. They
are well off. It is ordinary Afghans who have suffered. Those in jobs earn a
salary of around $4 a month, scarcely enough to live on. The real losers are
Afghanistan’s women, who have been for bidden by the Taliban from working.
Kabul is full of burqa-clad women beggars who congregate every lunchtime
outside the city’s few functioning restaurants in the hope of getting
something to eat.”
Indeed, the imposition of sanctions amidst the ongoing famine in
Afghanistan has quite predictably resulted in the exacerbation of the
country’s crisis. “The country is in the grip of an unreported humanitarian
disaster”, notes Luke Harding reporting from Kandahar. “In the south and
west, there has been virtually no rain for three years. The road from Herat,
near the Iranian border, to Kandahar, the southern desert city, winds
through half-abandoned vil lages and swirlingly empty riverbeds. Some 12m
people have been affected, of whom 3m are close to starvation.”[33]
A joint Special Alert from United Nations Food and Agricultural
Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) reported in June 2001 that
an estimated 5 million Afghans now “have little or no access to food”.[34]
With U.S. plans to conduct a military invasion of Afghanistan in
place, international policies designed to ruthlessly subjugate the
entire country escalated to an unprecedented degree. The New York
Times reported around mid-September that: “Washington has also
demanded [from Pakistan] a cutoff of fuel supplies,... and the
elimination of truck convoys that provide much of the food and other
supplies to Afghanistan’s civilian population.”[35]
By the end of that month, America’s ‘newspaper of record’ reported
that officials in Pakistan “said today that they would not relent in
their decision to seal off the country’s 1,400- mile border with
Afghanistan, a move requested by the Bush administration because, the
officials said, they wanted to be sure that none of Mr. Bin Laden’s
men were hiding among the huge tide of refugees.”[36]
The
U.S., in other words, effectively called for the mass slaughter of
millions of Afghans, most of them already on the brink of starvation
thanks to sanctions imposed under U.S. pressure, by severing the
country’s last few sources of limited sustenance. Additionally, almost
all aid missions withdrew or were expelled from Afghanistan in
anticipation of the coming bombing campaign, while several million
innocent Afghans fearfully fled to the borders creating a massive
refugee crisis. With the borders of surrounding countries sealed for
several weeks under U.S. pressure, the refugees were trapped, deprived
of sustenance and largely destined to die with international community
barely even batting an eyelid. Indian journalist Arundhati Roy
commented aptly on what was at first dubbed Operation Infinite
Justice, now euphemistically retitled Operation Enduring Freedom:
“Witness the infinite justice of the new century. Civilians starving
to death while they’re waiting to be killed.” [37]
This,
indeed, is the assessment of UNICEF, the World Food Programme, the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations
Programme for Humanitarian Affairs, the Office for the Coordination of
Development, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights. A joint statement issued towards the end of September by the
above named warns that:
“A humanitarian crisis of stunning proportions is
unfolding in Afghanistan… With the eyes of the world on Afghanistan and the
neighbouring countries, we call attention to the following indicators of a
broad and disastrous humanitarian crisis:
a. More than five million people currently require humanitarian assistance
to survive, including more than one million people who have been displaced
from their homes.
b. Tens of thousands of people are now on the move in search of safety and
assistance and UNHCR believes that many more are unable to move.
c. Already, 3.8 million Afghans rely on UN food aid to
survive. By November 1, WFP estimates that 5.5 million people will depend on
its food shipments.
d. Nearly 20 per cent of those in need are children under the age of five,
according to UNICEF, many of whom are already struggling to survive.
… [L]ack of international humanitarian access is
hastening the deterioration of the situation. No additional food supplies
can be delivered to Afghanistan at the moment and WFP estimates that food
reserves in the country will be exhausted within two to three weeks.” [38]
According to UN estimates, about 7-8 million Afghans are now at risk
of imminent starvation. The New York Times noted, for instance,
that nearly 6 million people depend on food aid from the UN. Another
3.5 million in refugee camps outside the country, many of whom fled
just before the borders were sealed, also face imminent starvation.[39]
Meanwhile, the U.S. has been dropping a meagre amount of food aid
daily, knowing full well that the aid will leave the vast majority of
millions of Afghans facing death through hunger, for the purpose of
public relations. According to the Christian Science Monitor:
“Experts also urge the United States to improve its image by
increasing aid to Afghan refugees.”[40]
On the first day of the bombing campaign, the U.S. dropped only 37,500
packaged meals, a number far below the daily needs of even a single
large refugee camp.
The
duplicity of the U.S. propaganda campaign through minimal food drops has
been noted by veteran aid worker Jim Jennings. Jennings, who as President of
Conscience International, a humanitarian aid organization, has been involved
in humanitarian aid work for 20 years around the world – and most recently
was in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan in May 2001 – observes that:
“The conditions of
the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan earlier this year were the worst I have
ever seen - and I have seen a lot. The camps inside Afghanistan are in even
worse shape; for example in Herat there are 600,000 people on the verge of
starvation. Food drops from high altitudes alone absolutely cannot provide
sufficient and effective relief that is urgently necessary to prevent mass
starvation. If you provide one pound of food per day, the minimum for bare
survival, it would take 500 planeloads a month to supply the one camp in
Herat alone, and Afghanistan is the size of Texas. The administration has
stated that two aircraft are being used for food relief so far - for all of
Afghanistan. Three weeks ago the head of the United Nations High Commission
for Refugees (UNHCR) in Islamabad said that the food would run out - in
three weeks.” [41]
And
now to make matters worse, the World Food Programme suspended all food
convoys to Afghanistan on 8 October in response to the Western bombing
campaign.
As for the
allegedly “surgical strikes” of the Anglo-American forces now bombarding the
major cities of Afghanistan, which are purportedly “selective” and targeted
only at military installations, such claims can hardly be taken seriously by
anyone aware of the West’s bloody record. Indeed, Middle East expert Stephen
Zunes, Associate Professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco
and senior policy analyst at the Foreign Policy in Focus Project, points out
that:
“The use of heavy bombers against a country with few hard
targets raises serious doubts about the Bush Administration’s claim that the
attacks are not against the people of Afghanistan. The Taliban has allowed
Bin Laden and his followers sanctuary, but there is little evidence that
they have provided the kind of direct financial or military support that can
be crippled through air strikes.” [42]
In
the Gulf War, for example, while the Western public were informed by
military and political leaders of the pinpoint targeting of Iraqi
military structures by the Allied forces, with Iraqi civilians rarely
in any danger, the fact of the matter was that the West had covertly
included the Iraqi civilian population as an official target of the
bombing campaign. A report by the U.S. General Accounting Office, for
instance, explicitly affirms that the Desert Storm air campaign of
1991 was aimed at: “Five basic categories of targets - command and
control, industrial production, infrastructure, population will, and
fielded forces.” The bombing of civilian infrastructure - including
electricity, water, sanitation and other life-sustaining essentials -
was intended, according to the report, to “degrade the will of the
civilian population.”[43]
Middle East Watch (MEW), affiliated to the international U.S.-based
rights monitor Human Rights Watch (HRW). MEW has documented numerous
cases of the intentional mass destruction of civilian buildings and
areas, all of which occurred largely in broad daylight with no
governmental or military structures in the vicinity.[44]
The Western Allies under U.S. leadership embarked on the purposeful
destruction of almost the entirety of Iraq’s civilian infrastructure.
Eric Hoskins, a Canadian doctor and Coordinator of a Harvard study
team on Iraq, observed that the bombing “effectively terminated
everything vital to human survival in Iraq - electricity, water,
sewage systems, agriculture, industry, health care. Food, warehouses,
hospitals and markets were bombed. Power stations were repeatedly
attacked until electricity supplies were at only 4 per cent of prewar
levels.”[45]
Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law at the University of
Illinois, points out that:
Most of the targets were civilian facilities. The United
States intentionally bombed and destroyed centres for civilian life,
commercial and business districts, schools, hospitals, mosques, churches,
shelters, residential areas, historical sites, private vehicles and civilian
government offices. In aerial attacks, including strafing, over cities,
towns, the countryside and highways, United States aircraft bombed and
strafed indiscriminately. The purpose of these attacks was to destroy life
and property, and generally to terrorise the civilian population of Iraq. [46]
To
this day, Anglo-American forces operating over the Iraqi no-fly-zones
on the pretext of monitoring and protecting the population from Saddam
Hussein’s atrocities, continue to routinely bomb not only military
targets, but specifically civilian targets as well, as recorded in an
internal UN Security Sector report for a single five-month period:
“41 per cent of victims of the bombing were civilians in
civilian targets: villages, fishing jetties, farmland and vast, treeless
valleys where sheep graze. A shepherd, his father, his four children and his
sheep were killed by a British or American aircraft, which made two passes
at them.” [47]
NATO’s
military intervention in Kosovo under U.S. leadership was similar. In April
1999, the Washington Times reported that NATO planned to hit “power
generation plants and water systems, taking the war directly to civilians.” [48]
The New York Times similarly reported that: “[T]he destruction
of the civilian infrastructure of Yugoslavia has become part of the strategy
to end the war on Kosovo... We are bringing down terror on the Serbian
people”.[49]
In May, NATO Generals admitted that: “Just focussing on field forces
is not enough... The [Serbian] people have to get to the point that their
lights are turned off, their bridges are blocked so they can’t get to work.”[50]
“NATO officials also have said they believe that putting pressure on
the civilian population will undermine the regime,” reported the San
Francisco Examiner.[51]
A British Harrier pilot who had been bombing Serbia in April 1999 was
led to remark: “After a while you’ve got to ignore the collateral damage
[i.e. civilian casualties] and start smashing those targets”[52]
– in other words, bomb indiscriminately with no regard for the civilan
death toll. NATO’s attacks were therefore aimed against civilian targets
right from the outset of the campaign, when a tractor factory was destroyed
by cruise missiles. According to an employee of a U.S. intelligence
organisation, the CIA had been charged with crafting lists of Yugoslav
economic assets – the official testified that “basically, everything in the
country’s a target unless it’s taken off the list.”[53]
So brutal was the bombing campaign that former U.S. President Jimmy Carter
stated:
“[Our attack] has been counterproductive, and our
destruction of civilian life has now become senseless and excessively
brutal... The American-led force has expanded targets to inhabited areas and
resorted to the use of anti-personnel cluster bombs. The result has been
damage to hospitals, offices and residences of a half-dozen ambassadors, and
the killing of innocent civilians... [Our] insistence on the use of cluster
bombs, designed to kill or maim humans, is condemned almost universally and
brings discredit to our nation.” [54]
Given this grim record, one can only expect more of
the same in Afghanistan. The official disregard for civilian life is
clear in the arbitrary prevention of food aid to the Afghan people
despite the Holocaust-like proportions of the consequences. There is
therefore no doubt that Anglo-American forces are employing the
traditional methods of indiscriminate bombardment, methods that also
amount to acts of terrorism.
Conclusion
The official FBI definition of terrorism
states that: “Terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence against
persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian
population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social
objectives.” The Western powers under U.S. leadership have violated
international law by undertaking a military intervention without consent
from the UN Security Council, and have violated the Geneva Conventions by
imposing fatal sanctions and border-closures, combined with a day-to-day
bombing campaign, on Afghanistan.
Even if a UN mandate exists, it is illegal to endanger the civilians and
civilian infrastructure.
However, a UN mandate does not exist. Article
2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits the use of force except in two
circumstances: where the UN Security Council authorises the use of force
under Chapter VII of the Charter; and where a country resorts to
self-defence in the face of an armed attack. The U.S. has publicly cited the
latter right as a legal justification for its current policy. But while
Article 51 of the UN Charter allows a country to defend itself against an
armed attack, the U.S. response must conform to the International Court of
Justice’s landmark ruling on the scope of Article 51, as issued in relation
to its Nicaragua judgment of 1986. The Court defined armed attack as either
an event in which one State directly sends troops into another or “the
sending by or on behalf of a State of armed bands... which carry out acts of
armed force against another State... [amounting to] actual armed attack by
regular forces”.
While it is entirely obvious that that the U.S.
terror attacks amount to the use of armed force committed by armed bands, in
order to justify an attack on Afghanistan, the United States would at least
have to prove beyond doubt firstly that Bin Laden was responsible, and
secondly that he acted “on or behalf of” the particular State it is
attacking, i.e. the Taliban regime. As is noted by one of the most eminent
American scholars of international law, Professor Louis Henkin, the right of
self-defence stipulated in Article 51 is:
“… limited to cases of armed attack that are generally beyond doubt; a
state’s responsibility for acts of terrorism is rarely beyond doubt and
difficult to prove... Article 51 gives a right... to defend against an armed
attack. This right does not allow retaliation for armed attacks...or (force)
to deter future attacks... [A] state that has been the victim of an act of
terrorism will have to pursue other remedies against states that it believes
responsible and against the states that encourage, promote, condone, or
tolerate terrorism or provide a haven to terrorists.”[55]
Yet the Western powers under U.S. leadership have scorned other remedies. It
has failed to provide reasonable proof of Bin Laden’s responsibility; it has
refused to seek authorisation from the UN Security Council; it has dismissed
out of hand the Taliban offer to extradite Bin Laden given proof of his
responsibility for attacks in New York and Washington, although
international law requires that parties first seek a peaceful resolution. As
noted by Rahul Mahajan, National board member of Peace Action and a specialist on South and Central
Asian affairs, “The Taliban have recently shown willingness to negotiate -
just releasing a British journalist and, within the last 24 hours, offering
to try bin Laden before an Islamic court. Instead of making a reasonable
counteroffer, the Bush and Blair governments started bombing.” [56]
In this way, the U.S. has demonstrated its sheer contempt for international
law and thus qualified itself – once again – as a “rogue state”. As U.S.
international law expert, Professor Francis Boyle advises:
“The United States is under an absolute obligation to
resolve this dispute with Afghanistan in a peaceful manner as required by UN
Charter Article 2(3) and Article 33.... Accordingly, this dispute must be
resolved by invoking the 1971 Montreal Sabotage Convention and the 1997 UN
International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings.
Furthermore, the United States should offer to submit this entire dispute
with Afghanistan to the International Court of Justice in The Hague (the
so-called World Court).”[57]
The political or social
objectives of Anglo-American terrorism in Afghanistan are the removal of the
Taliban regime, and its replacement with a subservient puppet-government
made up of murderers and rapists of exactly the same ilk as the Taliban. The
ultimate hope is that a route can be opened up for the United States to
access Caspian oil, influence the Central Asian states on Russia’s borders,
and penetrate this lucrative region to extend its hegemony and secure its
interests, while establishing a strong military-political foothold in the
region to protect these interests. Human life is merely an insignificant
obstacle to this process.
Afterword: "Not in Our
Names"
“I mourn the death of my uncle, and I want his murderers
brought to justice. But I am not making this statement to demand bloody
vengeance. A senator from my state, Dianne Feinstein, said: ‘U.S. must spare
no effort to uncover, ferret out and destroy those: who commit acts of
terrorism; who provide training camps; who shelter; who finance; and who
support terrorists. Whether that entity is a state or an organization, those
who harbor them, arm them, train them and permit them must, in my view, be
destroyed.’ How does one destroy states? Through the covert subversion of
their societies? Through carpet bombing? Afghanistan has more than a million
homeless refugees. A U.S. military intervention could result in the
starvation of tens of thousands of people. What I see coming are actions and
policies that will cost many more innocent lives, and breed more terrorism,
not less. I do not feel that my uncle’s compassionate, heroic sacrifice will
be honored by what the U.S. appears poised to do.”
U.S. citizen Matthew Lasar, whose uncle Abe Zelmanowitz,
died in the World Trade Centre because he refused to abandon his
wheelchair-using colleague after the first plane hit on the 11th
September
(Institute for Public Accuracy, Washington
DC, 27 September 2001)
__________________________
“We read enough of the news to sense that our government
is heading in the direction of violent revenge, with the prospect of sons,
daughters, parents, friends in distant lands dying, suffering, and nursing
further grievances against us. It is not the way to go... not in our son’s
name.”
U.S. citizens Phyllis and Orlando Rodriguez, who lost
their son Greg in the WTC attacks
(The Guardian, 4 October 2001)
__________________________
“Bombing Afghanistan is just going to create more widows,
more homeless, fatherless children.”
Judy Keane, who lost her husband Richard in the 11th
September attacks
(CNN, 25 September 2001)
__________________________
“If you choose to respond to this incomprehensible
brutality by perpetuating violence against other innocent human beings, you
may not do so in the name of justice for my husband.”
Amber Amundson, who lost her husband, Craig, in the
Pentagon
(Chicago Tribune, 25 September 2001)
__________________________
Notes:
[1]
BBC News, ‘US strikes at Afghan targets’, 7 October 2001.
[2]
Starr, S. Frederick, ‘Afghanistan Land Mine’, Washington Post, 19
December 2000.
[3]
Toronto Sun, 4 December 2000.
[4]
Guardian, 24 November 2000.
[5]
HRW press release, ‘Afghanistan: Ban Weapons to All Warring Factions’,
Human Rights Watch, New York, 15 December 2000.
[6]
Fisk, Robert, ‘Just who are our allies in Afghanistan?’, The
Independent, 3 October 2001.
[8]
Beeman, William O., ‘Follow the Oil Trail - Mess in Afghanistan Partly Our
Government’s Fault’, Jinn Magazine (online), Pacific News Service,
San Francisco, 24 August 1998, web-site at http://www.pacificnews.org/jinn.
Thus, we may note the observation of Hizb ut-Tahrir: “The importance of
Pakistan [to the US] comes from the effect it has on neighbouring
countries like Iran, Afghanistan and India. Pakistan is a powerful tool of
American which has established, supported and guarded the Taliban in her
control of Afghanistan.” (‘An Army General in Pakistan Overthrows the
Prime Minister’, Hizb ut-Tahrir,15 October, 1999,
http://www.khilafah.com
)
[9]
Ibid. As Beeman points out, the U.S. bombing of a Bin Laden outpost in
Afghanistan in response to his alleged prior bombing of U.S. embassies was
designed to send a message to the Taliban that they must “ditch Bin
Laden”, whose anti-Americanism threatened the U.S.-Taliban relationship.
However, the action may not ultimately be successful in this regard. That
the U.S.-Taliban relationship has consequently degraded irreparably is not
because of U.S. concern for human rights, since U.S. support of the
Taliban has been an ongoing reality for many years - a
geopolitical/business-orientated strategy that utterly (and knowingly)
disregards the human rights of millions of Afghans. Any such degradation
is an effective result of Bin Laden’s anti-Americanism, and its effects on
the Taliban’s approach to the U.S., in light of the U.S. response to the
latter.
[10]
CNN, ‘U.S. in a diplomatic hard place in dealing with Afghanistan’s
Taliban’, 8 October 1996.
[12]
Frankfurter Rundschau, October 1996. Also see Catalinotto, John,
‘Afghanistan: Battle deepens for central Asian oil’, Workers World News
Service, 24 October 1996.
[13]
Goltz, Thomas, ‘The Caspian Oil Sweepstakes - A Great Game Replayed’,
Jinn Magazine (online), Pacific News Service, San Francisco, 15
October 1997, http://www. pacificnews.org/jinn.
[14]
Wall Street Journal, 23 May 1997.
[15]
Fitchett, Joseph, ‘Worries Rise that Taleban May Try to Export Unrest’,
International Herald Tribunal, 26 September 1998; also see Gall,
Carlotta, ‘Dagestan Skirmish is a Big Russian Risk’, New York Times,
13 August 1999.
[16]
Statement of Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, ‘U.S. Policy Toward
Afghanistan’, Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on South Asia, 14
April 1999.
[17]
Stobdan, P., ‘The Afghan Conflict and Regional Security’, Strategic
Analysis (Journal of the Institute for Defence & Strategic Analysis [ISDA]),
August 1999, Vol. XXIII, No. 5, p. 719-747.
[18]
Margolis, Eric, ‘Spare Afghanistan from U.S. Nation Building’, Toronto
Sun, 30 September 2001.
[19]
Reuters, ‘Europol Questions Bin Laden’s Role in the Attacks’, 15 September
2001.
[20]
Blackhurst, Chris, ‘Missing: crucial facts from the official charge sheet
against Bin Laden’, The Independent, 7 October 2001.
[22]
Monbiot, George, ‘Collateral Repair: How to Win the War with Peace’,
The Guardian, 25 September 2001.
[24]
It is worth noting that United Airlines flight 93 crashed into a field in
Pennsylvania, without any explosion or impact into a building, thus
escaping the same inferno that engulfed the WTC. Amazingly, both its Black
Boxes are supposed to have been destroyed or unusable.
[27]
See Zaman, Shibli, ‘FBI’s Investigation of the WTC Tragedy Exposed’,
Houston Tx, 18 September 2001, Shibli@Zaman.Net
.
[28]
Fisk, Robert, ‘Stunned into disbelief as their normal son is blamed’,
The Independent, 16 September 2001.
[29]
Fisk, Robert, ‘What Muslim would write ‘The time of fun and waste is
gone’?’, The Independent, 29 September 2001.
[31]
IPA Press Release, ‘Interviews Available on Legal Issues’, Institute for
Public Accuracy, Washington DC, 25 September 2001,
http://accuracy.org
[32]
Margolis, Eric, ‘US-Russian Crusade Against Osama Bin Laden’, Toronto
Sun, 4 December 2000.
[33]
Harding, Luke, ‘Chasing monsters’, Guardian, 24 November 2000.
[34]
Special Alert, ‘FAO/WFP Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission to
Afghanistan’, Food and Agricultural Organization and World Food Programme,
No. 315, 8 June 2001.
[35]
New York Times, 12 September 2001.
[36]
New York Times, 27 September 2001.
[37]
The Guardian, 29 September 2001.
[38]
Joint Statement, ‘In Afghanistan, A Population In Crisis’, Geneva/New
York, 24 September 2001. Signed by Carol Bellamy, Executive Director
UNICEF; Catherine Bertini, Executive Director World Food Programme; Ruud
Lubbers, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; Mark Malloch
Brown, Administrator United Nations Programme for Humanitarian Affairs;
Kenzo Oshim, Emergency Relief Coordinator Office for the Coordination of
Development; Mary Robinson United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights.
[39]
New York Times, 25 September 2001.
[40]
Christian Science Monitor, 28 September 2001.
[41]
IPA Press Release, ‘As Bombing Proceeds: Now What?’, Institute for Public
Accuracy, 8 October 2001,
http://accuracy.org
[42]
IPA Press Release, ‘As Bombing Proceeds: Now What?’, op. cit.
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