By Mark LeVine, Al Jazeera, Aug 8, 2009
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| Some human rights groups want Obama to investigate top Bush administration officials [GETTY]
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Somewhere in the borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Bowe Bergdahl, a US soldier, is being held captive by the Taliban.
The threat of execution hangs over him if the US does not agree to the still unspecified demands of his captors.
Bergdahl is the first US soldier captured in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion and the circumstances of his capture, which occurred around July 1 outside a US military base in Helmand Province, remain unclear.
But in the wake of years of revelations of abuses by US personnel of Iraqis in Abu Ghraib, and of alleged Taliban or al-Qaeda detainees elsewhere, the spectre of US troops in enemy hands is disturbing because of the possibility that they could face copy-cat treatment.
This is even more troubling when factoring in that US methods involved the use of water-boarding and numerous other “enhanced” interrogation techniques.
So far, it appears that private Berghdal has been unharmed and his Taliban captors have said they would treat him “with dignity.”
It is difficult to determine at this point whether the Taliban position is in response to the shift in rhetoric under the Obama administration or as a propaganda counterpoint to the documented mistreatment of detainees under the previous Bush administration.
The recently issued Taliban “code of conduct” calling for minimising suicide bombings and civilian casualties suggests that it is part of a larger pattern to change the movement’s image both in the region and globally.
However, US military officials have condemned the release of a video depicting Berghdal in captivity as propaganda that is “exploiting the soldier in violation of international law”
“Nation of Laws”
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| Bergdahl was captured by the Taliban on July 1 |
Yet even as it condemns such practises, the Obama administration is struggling to come to grips with the many consequences of Bush-era detention and interrogation policies which will continue to impact the experiences of US forces on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.
According to major human rights organisations, Obama’s record on this issue remains disappointingly mixed.
On the one hand, Obama’s first actions upon taking office were to announce his intention to close Guantanamo Bay, and end water-boarding and other clearly cruel and degrading forms of interrogation.
These actions were part of a larger attempt to improve the US image in the Muslim world and convince friends and enemies alike that the US is once again a “nation of laws”.
All sides to a conflict are obligated to obey international law, regardless of the conduct of their enemies.
Obama’s actions are partially intended to help ensure that US soldiers who, like private Berghdal, fall into enemy hands are not subjected to the kind of treatment authorised under the Bush administration.
In substantive terms, however, the Obama administration is hewing a path far closer to its predecessor than most Americans realise. This reality could well frustrate Obama’s attempts to cool down anti-American sentiments among potential Taliban and al-Qaeda sympathisers.
It could also further weaken the fabric of the rule of law inside the US itself, enshrining Bush-Cheney-era policies as the political and legal status quo even as the Justice Department and Congress begin investigations into potential criminal conduct at the highest levels of that administration.
Slow progress
Most activists from the human rights community believe Obama walked into an untenable situation when he assumed responsibility for the detention and interrogation policies of the outgoing administration.
His unambiguous declaration that he would close Guantanamo within a year, ensure that the CIA would abide by the Army Field Manual guidelines for interrogating prisoners, and close all secret CIA detention facilities was welcomed around the world.
“The situation certainly improved in terms of the personalities making policy,” explains Gabor Rona, the International Legal Director for Human Rights First.
“There are now people in leadership positions that have a rather different view than their predecessors about both what is lawful and what is good policy.”
Chief among them is Eric Holder, the US attorney general, who has clearly expressed his discomfort at the possibility that those responsible for the torture policies may escape some form of investigation, if not prosecution.
Criticism increases
Beyond the level of rhetoric and as yet unfulfilled commitments, however, the Obama administration is facing growing criticism from human rights organisations.
To be sure, the situation Obama has taken ownership of offers few good choices.
According to a senior Amnesty International (AI) analyst, the new administration is being disingenuous when it claims that the situation was worse than they had imagined, and requires a more cautious move than originally intended.
“There was too much information already in the public realm for them to have been surprised,” Tom Parker, the AI’s Policy Director for Terrorism, Counter-terrorism and Human Rights, says
A more plausible reason for the slower pace of change is likely that while newly-appointed high level officials are adopting a different tone, below them the same people are running the show.
“I’m having the same conversations with the same people as under Bush,” a senior activist complained. “They remain as arrogant as ever.”
Indeed, on the ground, interviews with recently released Guantanamo detainees and investigations by organisations such as Human Rights First in Afghanistan are providing evidence that detainee abuse and lack of due process are continuing under the Obama administration, despite the shift in rhetoric.
Trial by hearsay
Parker believes significant attention is being focused on two issues which remain particularly egregious under the new administration: the continuing use of military rather than civilian trials, and the sanctioning of indefinite and potentially permanent imprisonment of detainees.
The latter is being considered even though Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, recently admitted some detainees had been acquitted by a military commission.
“This is one of the worst things I’ve ever heard a democratic state say,” Parker says.
Shayana Kadidal, the managing attorney for Guantanamo detainee cases at the Centre for Constitutional Rights, confirms that the worst policies of the last two years of the Bush Administration, including military trials and indefinite detentions, “are today being explicitly put forward as viable policies for the future, not just for cleaning up the mess Bush left behind.”
“Why do you need an indefinite detention scheme if you’re going to try people in military commissions? It’s ludicrous and reflects a situation in which the Obama administration has failed politically, while in terms of principle comes off looking unable to make up its mind about what to do.”
Is Obama “waffling”?
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| Some analysts believe Obama has been unable to move far from Bush’s policies [EPA] |
The most startling example of this continuity is the administration’s concerted efforts to continue detaining Mohammed Jawad, the youngest Guantanamo detainee, in a case the federal judge presiding says is “riddled with holes.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has criticised this move as reminiscent of the Bush Administration’s constant changes of strategy to frustrate directives from federal judges regarding Guantanamo detainees.
Other examples of such “waffling” is Obama’s objection to Congressional demands that all future interrogations be conducted only by official military personnel rather than contractors, and his willingness to admit hearsay as evidence in military trials.
Admitting hearsay would enable coerced statements to be used against detainees without affording them the opportunity to directly question an interrogator who used the coercive technique.
No new initiatives
Ultimately, in the words of one activist, whatever the good intentions of the Obama administration, the new pragmatic policy-making style remains devoid of new ideas.
“There is very little daylight between Obama and Bush,” Human Rights First’s Gabor Rona says.
Similarly, a senior member of another organisation explains that “renditions to countries that routinely use torture are continuing, as are military trials and indefinite detentions. So much of Obama’s line is that ‘we’ll do it smarter. You can trust us.’ But this is not acceptable.”
Rona, who worked for many years as a lawyer for the International Committee of the Red Cross, says the administration is “still using an overly broad application of the Laws of War paradigm to justify detentions that are not justifiable under international law.”
One reason for the pragmatism thus far is that a pitched battle is underway within the administration over how much of Bush’s policies should be retained.
“The new administration has not spoken with one consistent voice,” Rona says. “There are very strong voices within it that speak in support of the policies and practises of its predecessor.”
Even Obama’s attempt to recalibrate the balance of power between the Executive and Legislative branches back to the pre-Bush era of parity and consultation has failed to produce policy changes.
This is largely because the Democratic-controlled Congress is even more reluctant to take on Republicans on national security issues (and risk being labelled as soft on terrorism) than is the president.
Pursuing senior officials
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| Human rights groups want top officials, like Cheney, to be prosecuted [EPA] |
Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), believes the Obama administration can re-establish rule of law and US moral standing by bringing “those most responsible” for creating and executing illegal policies under the Bush administration to justice.
“Senior officials should be held to the same level of investigation as the soldiers who went to jail for the Abu Ghraib abuses,” he says.
A HRW statement in July urged Holder, the attorney general, to include senior Bush administration officials in his investigation.
“The United States can’t truly claim to have repudiated these egregious human rights violations unless it returns to the day when it treated them as crimes rather than as policy options,” HRW said. The ACLU has supported this position.
Such an investigation would have little to do with political payback.
Most activists agree that if Dick Cheney, the former vice-president, Don Rumsfeld, the former defence secretary and White House lawyers such as John Yoo and Jay Bybee (who developed the legal justifications for Bush officials), are not called to account for their actions while in power, future administrations will feel confident that they can resume now discredited practises without fear of prosecution.
This would make Executive Branch lawyers legal henchman, knowing that even the flimsiest of legal cover for such actions will be enough to protect from future prosecution.
The Centre for Constitutional Rights’ Kadidal argues that any investigation by the Justice Department or Congress “needs to go to the top”.
“This wasn’t a situation where people started doing things in the field under pressure and Washington just tried to give them legal cover afterwards. In fact, it’s just the opposite. It was top down; the directions came from Washington and were clearly signed off by Rumsfeld and Cheney,” she said.
Bush administration authorisation
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| Declassified reports indicate Rice authorised harsh interrogation methods [GETTY] |
According to a declassified Senate Intelligence Report released in April, Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser, John Ashcroft, the attorney general, and George Tenet, the CIA director and their legal councils all joined Cheney in authorising waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods in 2002.
What is still unknown but could be determined by a Justice Department or Congressional investigation is whether Bush was one of “the principals” who according to the report, “reaffirmed that the CIA [enhanced interrogation] program was lawful and reflected administration policy.”
But such an investigation will extract a high political price at a time when most Americans are not focused on these issues and not pressing the White House or Congress to act on them.
In the absence of such sustained public pressure, many human rights professionals believe that the failure of Bill Clinton, the former US president, to reform the military’s ban on gays serving openly still stands as a warning not to waste precious political capital on divisive issues that don’t have wide public support.
As AI’s Parker says: “What we haven’t been able to do is put millions in the streets [on this issue]. Amnesty can’t get a meaningful turnout, and if we can’t, no one can.”
Instead, the human rights community is focusing much of its energy on the mainstream media. But while most journalists and editors are sympathetic to a human rights agenda, they simply do not have the time or space to focus regularly on these issues.
A significant share of the Washington commentating class has accepted the administration’s arguments that pragmatism rather than pushing for human rights and democracy is the best rudder for US foreign policy.
Impetus For Obama
Is there a chance that Obama will take the lead on this issue? Roth is sure Obama at least knows the stakes.
“I met with Obama a few months ago. He fully understands the importance of maintaining the moral high ground to fight terror because without it the international co-operation needed to fight it is discouraged.”
While most Americans support human rights in principle, a majority still believe, erroneously, that torture works. As Kadidal points out, this makes it very hard to construct a powerful public narrative to motivate Americans en masse to push for real change.
“Most of the public do not know that torture and coercive interrogations don’t work. Regular polling conducted by the Open Society Institute reveals that the public still believes it can produce good intelligence. And with people worried today about losing jobs, global warming, and so on – there’s even less room to convince them otherwise.”
HRW’s Roth says such a situation makes it difficult to know whether Obama has the strength and political space to “abide with the insight he himself has, and share with the American people his understanding that human rights is not only the right thing to do but it’s also the smart thing to do.”
“Our golden rule is, ‘don’t do anything to detainees that you wouldn’t want done to one of your own captured soldiers’,” he says.
As the United States ramps up its military engagement in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Obama administration and its military leadership would be wise to heed this advice.
Mark Levine is a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine and author, most recently, of Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam (Random House 2008) and Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books, 2009).
“There is a unanimity of opinion about what our objective is, and the objective is to disable and destroy al-Qaeda,” David Axelrod insisted. But as General Stanley McChrystal seeks another major escalation as part of his “new” strategy, several officials have reservations.
The photos of abuse at several prisons have been a matter of no small controversy. The 
Peace and Justice Post 
A “War for Peace”
September 5, 2009Orwell’s 1984, Alive and Well in the Obama Administration
By Anthony DiMaggio, ZNet, September 5, 2009
Anthony DiMaggio’s ZSpace Page
The Obama administration is quickly proving itself a worthy successor to the militarism that defined the Bush administration. Obama was never an opponent of war; he is merely opposed to what he calls “dumb wars” like Iraq, which liberals in Washington view as too costly, unwinnable, or counterproductive. However, Obama remains optimistic on Afghanistan and Pakistan, promising that the U.S. will crush al Qaeda and defeat the Taliban (based in Pakistan and southern Afghanistan respectively).
George Orwell’s depictions of wartime propaganda seem as timely as ever when looking at Obama and Bush’s “War on Terrorism.” In his novel, 1984, Orwell described tyrannical governments that rely on “doublethink” propaganda, whereby officials “hold simultaneously two opinions which cancel out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them…to forget whatever it [is] necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment it [is] needed, and then promptly forget it again.” Through propaganda and manipulation, officials are “conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies.” The most notorious of such lies is the promise that peace is possible only through the pursuit of war.
In accordance with the principle of perpetual war, Obama refuses to establish a timetable for when his military crusade will end. As in 1984, the U.S. is engaged in an enduring “War on Terrorism,” consistently fought in the name of promoting peace. The doublethink “war is peace” framework was originally established by George W. Bush. In a 2002 speech, Bush addressed the Department of Housing and Urban Development, explaining: “I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace. We want there to be peace. We want people to live in peace all around the world…We’re going to be steadfast toward a vision that rejects terror and killing, and honors peace and hope.”
Obama is less clumsy and more eloquent in his use of Orwellian propaganda, but his message remains essentially the same. Obama condemns the Taliban’s “brutal governance” and “denial of basic human rights to the Afghan people,” and warns against “the return in force of al Qaeda terrorists who would accompany the core Taliban leadership” and “cast Afghanistan under the shadow of perpetual violence.” While the Taliban is obsessed with violence, U.S. leaders share a “responsibility to act – not because we seek to project power for its own sake, but because our own peace and security depends on it.”
American journalists see their role in foreign conflicts as dutifully reflecting the range of opinions expressed in Washington. In the case of Afghanistan, both parties lend their support to war as an integral part of U.S. foreign policy. “Responsible” criticisms are limited to questions of whether the war is unwinnable or too costly.
Afghan Corruption
The Obama administration paternalistically denigrates the Afghan government for complicity in corruption, ballot-tampering, collusion with warlords, narcotics dealing, and a lack of democratic responsiveness. These criticisms are echoed in news stories and editorials. The editors of the Los Angeles Times conclude that the Karzai government needs to help the Afghan people ensure “security, honest governance, impartial justice, economic development with far less corruption, and protection of women’s rights” (8/20/09). Reporters at the New York Times highlight the inability of the Afghan government to provide resources to local governors to promote “security,” medical care, educational resources, and advisement (Oppel, 8/23/09). The paper’s editors similarly lambaste the recent Afghan election as illegitimate, with “neither of the two main contenders offer[ing] serious solutions to the country’s problems” (8/20/09). Always benevolent in their intentions, U.S. leaders reserve the “right” to sit in judgment of other governments judged as impure in their motives and actions.
U.S. journalists predictably blame Afghan leaders for failing to ensure reconstruction of their country, while conveniently exonerating U.S. officials for their disinterest in humanitarian aid. The editors of the Washington Post congratulate Obama for his serious commitment to “nation-building” (3/28/09). The NY Times’ editors concur that Obama “must speed deployment of American civilians to help Afghan leaders carry out development projects” (8/29/09). Critics of the war can be forgiven for asking what evidence exists – outside of Obama’s rhetoric – that he is seriously committed to the reconstruction (rather than destruction) of Afghanistan. Little has improved in Afghanistan under U.S. occupation. The country remains one of the poorest, worst off countries in the world according to statistical indicators. Its 32 million people rank 174th of 178 countries in the United Nations Human Development Index. Afghanistan suffers from some of the highest infant mortality rates. Nearly two-thirds of children are unable to attend school and less than a quarter enjoy clean drinking water.
Available evidence does not vindicate Obama’s promises that humanitarian aid is a serious priority. The U.S. committed a mere $5 billion in reconstruction funds from 2002 to 2008 – despite the Congressional Research Services’ estimate that as much as $30 billion is needed through 2012. As of 2008, the Afghan government concluded that it needs as much as $50 billion for adequate reconstruction over the next five years. Barack Obama, in contrast, committed just $1 billion to reconstruction for 2010, but $68 billion for military activities. After looking at such figures, it’s easy to conclude that the escalation of war is seen as far more important than reconstruction.
Public Opinion
U.S. leaders not only hold the Afghan government in contempt, but also the people of Afghanistan and the United States. As of August 2009, 57% of Americans oppose the war. 77% of Afghans oppose U.S. airstrikes to “defeat the Taliban and anti-government fighters” as detrimental to their nation’s security. It’s not that widespread public opposition to war is always ignored in media reports – it’s just not a serious concern for reporters and politicians. The NY Times editors, for example, concede that “it is understandable that polls show that many Americans are tiring of the 8-year-old war” (8/29/09). This, however, doesn’t stop them from enthusiastically supporting the war as “the real front in the war on terrorism” (6/30/09). Although the paper’s reporters admit that southern Afghans are in “popular revolt” against Obama’s escalation, “extra [U.S.] forces” are still seen as vital for defeating Taliban forces and “securing” the region (Gall, 7/3/09; Oppel, 8/23/09).
Escalation
It is worth noting that almost all the major newspapers in the U.S. support escalation in Afghanistan. The editors of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Times all support the “surge” in troops. Opposition does exist from papers like the Boston Globe, where reporters ponder whether the conflict is becoming a “quagmire comparable to Vietnam” (Wayland, 7/23/2009). Such a position is the minority view, however. Editors at the Wall Street Journal agree that “more U.S. troops will likely be needed” (2/17/09), and a “proper counterinsurgency strategy” must be developed. The NY Times reports that there is not “enough equipment for patrols” of the Iranian-Afghan border, and that U.S. military commanders see “their forces [as] insufficient to get the job done” (Bumiller, 7/23/09; Cooper, 9/3/09).
The justification for war in Afghanistan and Pakistan is adequately summarized by the editors of the Washington Post, who approve of Obama’s claims that: “al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the U.S. homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan…if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban – or allows al Qaeda to go unchallenged – that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many people as they possibly can” (3/28/09).
Some common sense questions arise when contemplating escalation in Pakistan and Afghanistan – all of which are raised by non-mainstream journalists reporting from Afghanistan and scholars who study the Middle East. These views are generally ignored, however, by mainstream journalists and political officials. Middle East specialist Juan Cole questions the true extent of “al Qaeda’s capabilities. They don’t seem to have a presence in Afghanistan any more to speak of. What is called al Qaeda in the northwest of Pakistan is often just Uzbek, Tajik, and Uighur political refugees who have fled their own countries in the region because their Muslim fundamentalism is not welcomed by those regimes. The old al Qaeda of Bin Laden and al Zawahiri appears to have been effectively disrupted. Terrorist attacks in the West are sometimes planned by unconnected cells who are al Qaeda wannabes, but I don’t see evidence of command and control capabilities by al Qaeda central.”
Cole also warns about the unrealistic goals of the Obama administration and worries about a humanitarian crisis that will result from U.S. bombings. “What is the goal here in Afghanistan? If it is to wipe out the Taliban, the Taliban are a social movement that has a certain amount of support in the Pashtun areas and wiping them out would be a genocide. Very unlikely to be accomplished and very brutal if it were done. If the goal is to establish a stable Afghan government that could itself deal with challenges like the remaining Taliban, that’s state building on a large scale. Afghanistan’s a mess; it’s been through thirty years of war…it has no visible means of support, it’s a fourth world country…the kind of army Afghanistan would need to control all that territory would be 100,000-200,000 troops and cost $1-2 billion a year…and the government doesn’t have that kind of money. You’d have to have continual international aid flowing in. So there’s a real question of whether Afghanistan actually has the resources to accomplish what the U.S. wants it to do.”
Assessments on the ground raise similar concerns. Christian Parenti – a reporter for the Nation magazine and recently returned from Afghanistan – concludes that Obama’s plans are “insane as a policy. I don’t think the Obama administration believes it’s going to win in Afghanistan. They made a decision that you can’t lose two wars simultaneously…and to cover themselves politically in terms of electoral theater they’re going to make this big effort in Afghanistan, try and push the Taliban back from provinces around Kabul…make a little bit of progress, and then get re-elected and begin the process of disengaging…I don’t think the Obama administration thinks it’s going to win militarily against the Taliban, and I don’t think they’re stupid enough to think the institutions of the Afghan state are going to function. It’s considered one of the most corrupt governments in the world…Nothing gets done, the Afghan government has very limited ability to raise taxes, 95 percent of its comes from foreign aid [which again, is far from enough to cover the country’s needs], and very little for the people of the society is produced from that.”
Civilian Casualties & “Collateral Damage”
U.S. officials and media outlets are careful to project a rhetorical concern with civilians killed in Afghanistan. At times, the NY Times stresses that the thousands of Afghan civilians killed is “a decisive factor in souring many Afghans on the war” (Gall and Shah, 5/7/09). The Washington Post reports that “Afghan civilian deaths present [the] U.S. with strategic problems.” Such “mistakes” harm the United States’ image, and discredit official claims that “the Taliban is the main cause of suffering in the country” (Jaffe, 5/8/09). Whether these deaths constitute a “mistake,” or are an entirely predictable form of criminal recklessness and negligence, is a relevant question, although one that U.S. officials and media prefer not to ask. Journalists would rather assume that U.S. policy utilizes precision attacks, as the NY Times uncritically quotes official promises that “success” in Afghanistan “will not be measured by the number of enemy killed,” but by “the number of Afghans shielded from violence” (6/8/09). Civilian casualties may be tragic, as the NY Times reminds readers, but it is a necessary price to be paid for “progress” in ending terror in Afghanistan.
That officials and reporters claim they are concerned with minimizing deaths is no revelation. What leader would ever claim that their goal is to kill civilians or to make this an integral part of their policy planning? The reliance on humanitarian claims, however, presents us with an important lesson: official rhetoric about noble and humanitarian conventions is always a constant. As a result, these claims tell us literally nothing about the realities of U.S. policy.
Past military action in Afghanistan was unsuccessful in accomplishing the basic goals laid out by U.S. leaders. As the NY Times reported seven months after the end of the 2001-2002 U.S. campaign, “[U.S.] raids [had] not found any large groups of Taliban or al Qaeda fighters…virtually the entire top leadership of the Taliban survived the American bombing and eluded capture by American forces.” As international security specialist Paul Rogers explains, “the al Qaeda network anticipated a strong U.S. response to 9/11 and had few of its key forces in Afghanistan.” While Osama Bin Laden and Taliban officials did not suffer for the terrorist attacks, Afghan civilians did. Estimates suggest that civilian deaths from 2001 through 2009 are likely in the tens of thousands, although it is impossible to come up with a precise figure. Such casualties are quite serious in light of the fact that the 3,000 American lives lost on 9/11 provoked the U.S. to go to war with Afghanistan and Iraq. Similar problems continue today regarding U.S. escalation of humanitarian crisis. Gareth Porter reports in Counterpunch Magazine that “the strategy of the major U.S. military offensive in Afghanistan’s Helmand province [is] aimed at wrestling it from the Taliban,” but “is based on bringing back Afghan army and police to maintain permanent control of the population. But that strategy poses an acute problem: the police in the province, who are linked to the local warlord, have committed systematic abuses against the population, including the abduction and rape of pre-teen boys, according to village elders” (Porter, 7/30/09).
Aside from the criminality of its allies, the U.S. bombing campaign is also escalating civilian casualties at an alarming rate. As reported in Foreign Policy in Focus, Afghan civilian casualties escalated by 40 percent in 2008 to a total of 2,100 (Gardiner and Leaver, 3/30/09). This, keep in mind, was prior to the surge of U.S. troops, which will inevitably bring more casualties. U.S. bombings in Pakistan incite further misery. The 60 predator drone strikes undertaken by the U.S. from January 2006 to April 2009 resulted in the alleged deaths of 14 al Qaeda leaders, but an additional 687 Pakistani civilians. In other words, 94 percent of all deaths reportedly committed by the U.S. were innocent civilians. This inconvenient reality is shamelessly omitted from American reporting on the strikes. The Los Angeles Times, for example, ran a headline in March 2009 that read “U.S. Missile Strikes Said to Take Heavy Toll on Al Qaeda” (Miller, 3/22/09). The story referenced the alleged members of al Qaeda killed in U.S. attacks, but omitted any reference to the number of civilians killed. Nowhere in the piece were international legal scholars or anti-war critics cited explaining that these attacks are a criminal act of aggression and a blatant violation of international law.
Other crucial questions were neglected in this story. For one, how crucial were the hand-full of alleged al Qaeda members killed in Pakistan to the group’s structure and power? Juan Cole raises important questions about how central these people are to the al Qaeda network. The Obama and Bush administrations’ failure to consistently highlight the importance of these dozen or so deaths also raises serious questions – unasked by reporters – about whether these deaths significantly furthered the “War on Terror.” Another unasked question: are the attacks in Pakistan effectively reducing the terror threat, or increasing it by alienating fellow Muslims in the Middle East? There is certainly precedent to ask such a question. A 2007 study of global terrorism by Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, for example, found evidence of an “Iraq Effect,” whereby the invasion and occupation of Iraq was accompanied by a “sevenfold increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and thousands of civilian lives lost; even when terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is excluded, fatal attacks in the rest of the world have increased by more than one-third.”
In the case of Pakistan, U.S. attacks are undeniably accompanied by an increase in hostility from the Pakistani public. While the Pakistani people are supportive of their military’s attacks on the Taliban within Pakistan, they strongly reject U.S. bombings against alleged terrorist targets. The continued U.S. bombing, then, is inciting further anger against the U.S.
Many of the themes I’ve discussed here are not new. I documented the pattern of official and media censorship of the humanitarian implications of support for Afghan warlords and bombing of civilians in my book, Mass Media, Mass Propaganda. It seems clear, amidst the plethora of evidence, that U.S. actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan are unpopular, and are escalating a humanitarian crisis. Bombings of Pakistan threaten to further destabilize a nuclear power that is already dealing with its own threats from Islamic fundamentalist groups.
Claims that the U.S. is defeating terrorism in the Middle East are questionable at best and, in my assessment, little more than vulgar propaganda. Every few years, Americans hear Orwellian promises from officials that we will only win peace through open-ended war. Such claims are pure lunacy, and ensure continued death, destruction, and desperation in the wake of U.S. aggression.
Anthony DiMaggio teaches U.S. and Global Politics at Illinois State University. He is the author of Mass Media, Mass Propaganda (2008) and When Media Goes to War (forthcoming February 2010). He can be reached at: adimagg@ilstu.edu
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