The Other Criminal War
By Max Kantar
30 May,
2008
Countercurrents.org
As we have recently eclipsed
the five year anniversary of the illegal occupation and unlawful aggression
in Iraq, there is very little discussion or attention given to the
'other' war in Afghanistan. There seems to be widespread acceptance
within the United States that our war in Afghanistan is nothing more
than a just retaliation for the horrific attacks of September 11th.
A closer look may tell us otherwise.
The clearly stated war aims for the Afghanistan invasion were to capture those suspected of masterminding the 9/11 attacks, including Osama Bin Laden. Within a week after the bombings began, the Taliban rightfully told the United States that "if the Taliban is given evidence that Bin Laden was involved [in the 9/11 attacks] we would be ready to hand him over" if the U.S. stopped bombing the Afghan people.
President Bush rejected this offer as "non-negotiable" stating that "the bombing will not stop unless Bin Laden is turned over." In regards to following basic international law that demands that sufficient evidence must be provided to authorities before a suspect can be apprehended, Bush noted that "there is no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."
On this basis, where the United States imposed mass starvation, bombed, and invaded a sovereign nation to apprehend suspected perpetrators of terrorism, it is important to ask if this was lawful, let alone, moral, in accordance to international procedure. To clearly illustrate U.S. hypocrisy, consider the following examples.
Emmanuel Constant, now living freely in the U.S., was the secretary general and founder of the right-wing Haitian organization called FRAPH, which ruled Haiti during the early 1990s, conducting a reign of terror, consisting of torture, rape, and the slaughter of an estimated four or five thousand people in one 1994 massacre. Haitian officials and human rights groups have presented unwavering evidence convicting Constant of his crimes and despite several calls for extradition, most recently on September 30th, 2001, the United States has refused to turn him over.
Orlando Bosch, a Cuban exile living in Florida, is a former CIA operative who, among other things, blew up a Cuban civilian airplane, carrying mostly the Cuban fencing team, killing 76 people. Much like the case of Emmanuel Constant, damning evidence has been presented against him for perpetrating terrorism, yet the United States government refuses to negotiate his extradition to proper authorities.
Not surprisingly, both of the aforementioned terrorists had full support from the U.S. while committing their respective atrocities.
If the assumption is that the United States should apply to itself the standards it applies to others, then Washington should immediately call for the military invasion and occupation of the United States by Haiti and Cuba. Using these elementary standards, there is no question of the legality or morality of the U.S. war on Afghanistan.
Returning back to the early weeks of the war in Afghanistan, just two weeks after President Bush told the Taliban that the United States would continue to bomb Afghanistan until Bin Laden was handed over; a new war aim was announced by Britain's chief of defense staff, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce.
On October 28th Boyce stated that the U.S. and Britain would continue bombing the Afghan people "until [the Afghans] get their leadership changed." This is probably the clearest depiction of international terrorism one could encounter, pending, of course, that we use the official U.S. definition of terrorism. Also, notice how Boyce's threatening statement could be directed only at the Afghani general population, not those that the U.S. and Britain deemed to be terrorists.
Bush was even more illustrative in this change of policy when he stated in March of 2002 that he "[didn't] care where Bin Laden [was]." He further made his point noting that the capture of the suspects was "not that important" and "not our priority."
If the war aims were subject to change so quickly, perhaps 9/11 was only the pretext for a war in Afghanistan that had already underwent specific planning well before terror reigned in New York City.
In April of 2001, former Secretary of State and prominent Carlyle Group member, James Baker authored and submitted a report to Vice President Cheney, entitled, "Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century."
In the report, Baker urges that a potential change in U.S. foreign policy geared toward oil production and exportation from the "Caspian Basin region" could "facilitate" and "secure an economical export route." Baker is undoubtedly referring to the long revered plan and goal of building a permanent pipeline that extends through Afghanistan and the Caspian Basin region for corporate export, namely to satisfy India's growing energy demands while profiting U.S. multinationals instead of the region's population.
Baker's
report is just one small, yet illustrative example. Countless scholarly
works and declassified government documents consistently show the
deep commitment of those in power to secure control over Central Asia's
energy resources.
With U.S. troops stationed all over the region in Georgia, Uzbekistan,
and Tajikistan, the occupation of Afghanistan is clearly a strategic
stronghold for maintaining world dominance in ensuring the U.S. energy
veto power in the global market.
Not only is the war on Afghanistan illegal by its originally stated
aims, but as we can see, Afghanistan is just another piece of the
imperialist pie for the power structure to devour at its own discretion,
for its own interests, regardless of the Afghan people, who are only
getting in the way.
Naturally, they must be neutralized: driven out, slaughtered, or starved
into submission, just like the Iraqis.
