The deep craters and pieces of shrapnel indicate that America's
weapon of choice in Kabul was the Mark 82 500lb bomb, which is
designed to be guided to its target by the pilot, a nearby
observation plane or a spotter on the ground.
But there was nothing accurate about the 500lb bomb which fell
on Bibi Mahru.
It killed Gul Ahmad, 40, a Hazara carpet weaver, his second wife
Sima, 35, their five daughters and his son by his first wife.
Two children living next door were also killed.
Children killed because of war or terrorism is not a subject I
like to contemplate. I draw away from it instinctively, perhaps
because the unnecessary death of a child represents the horror
of our society and I can do so little about it. I prefer to
escape this horror by focusing on the enjoyable aspects of my
place in modern life: my warm apartment, the food in my
refrigerator, books, movies, music, hiking, travel, my work, and
most importantly, the personal human relationships which give me
love, friendship, security, and a feeling of belonging.
However, thousands of innocent people have died in Afghanistan,
and are still dying, and every death is, after all, the death of
somebody's child. I know I am in some way related to their
death, because first of all I am another human being sharing
their world, participating in the creation of that world in my
daily life. I'm also connected because I grew up in the country,
the U.S.A., whose political system has organized the bombing:
the bombs that killed were partially paid by my tax dollars, and
the same political system also issued my passport, which gives
me privileges most people in the world lack. And in a small way
I participate in that political system. So I feel I have some
small responsibility to face the fact of these dead children and
to talk about them.
The children who died, and are dying, in Afghanistan because of
U.S. bombing do not merit much attention in our mass media.
They are small news, other people's children. Perhaps this is
even more of a reason for me to talk about them. They seem to me
to be an important part of the story.
Perhaps the reason that the mass media keep the story small news
is to maintain wide support for this war, and the next one. That
is certainly a possibility.
But for the mass media the deaths of poor people are usually
small news, throughout the year. How many newspapers put this on
the front page?
On Sept. 11, more than 35,000 of the world's children died of
starvation. A similar number have perished from hunger every day
since then in developing countries, according to figures from
the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
Another reason for the lack of coverage is that we don't want to
know about U.S. bombs killing other people's children. It
threatens our sense of who we are. We prefer to cast ourselves
as the good guys, and good guys don't kill children. This can be
seen as proof of our humanity. After all, if we were completely
depraved the news of the deaths of children would not disturb
us.
On the other hand, when we so willingly and easily allow
ourselves to be ignorant of the results of U.S. bombing we are
also, perhaps, indicating our level of morality. I'm not sure
about this. Measuring the level of morality is hard enough, if
not impossible, for myself, so how can I hope to measure the
level of my culture's morality? Is morality something that can
be measured? If it cannot be, then how does George Bush know we
are 'good' and they (Osama bin Laden, the Taleban, etc.,)
are 'evil'?
Perhaps my focus on the deaths of children is a result of
morbidity. If so, then at least I share some respectful company.
For example one of my favorite writers, Kentucky farmer Wendell
Berry, also is contemplating the deaths of other people's
children these days:
Here is the other question that I have been leading toward, one
that the predicament of modern warfare forces upon us: How many
deaths of other people's children by bombing or starvation are
we willing to accept in order that we may be free, affluent, and
(supposedly) at peace? To that question I answer: None. Please,
no children. Don't kill any children for my benefit.
I wonder how many children actually died? And what were their
names? And what has happened to their families? This brings up
another equally horrible fact to contemplate, what is happening
right now to the children who have (so far) survived? Some are
freezing to death, others are starving:
Farough, an 11-year-old boy whose family of six arrived here
from Chaghcharan a month ago, says he spends his days begging
for a piece of bread or a sip of clean water or standing in line
for hours in the cold in hope of getting a bag of rice.
"My mother is deaf and dumb and my father is very old," he
explained. A 2-year-old sister died from the cold a few days
ago. "We came because we had nothing to eat at home, but here
sometimes I eat and other times nothing. The ground is my
mattress and the sky is my roof. We are very miserable."
How many are orphans? How many have wounds that will disfigure
and affect them for the rest of their lives? And, yet another
addition to the horror, how many will die or be disfigured in
the years to come from all the unexploded cluster bombs (the
bomblets are yellow, and look very similar to the food packets
that were dropped) which the U.S. left behind? The harmful
effects of the U.S. bombing will last for years, and we will
never know the true human cost to the people of Afghanistan.
In Laos, Cambodia, and Viet Nam people are still dying from the
land mines planted by the U.S. military 30 years ago. (Why did
we plant these mines in the first place? Anybody know?) The U.S.
is one of the few countries in the world to refuse to sign an
international treaty to ban land mines.
We do know that as a result of the bombing a country that was
dependent upon international aid for survival before September
11, has become an even more desperate place:
The U.S. bombing campaign, while helping to defeat the
oppressive Taliban regime, has exacerbated the humanitarian
crisis in two ways.
First, hundreds of thousands of people, terrified by the bombs,
have fled their villages and swelled the ranks of the refugee
population. Second, before the Oct. 7 air attack, millions of
Afghans were receiving international assistance despite the
difficulties of working with the Taliban. But after the bombing
began, humanitarian agencies pulled their staff from the country
and closed, or severely curtailed, their operations.
The U.S. is currently preventing aid from reaching people by
refusing to support an international peacekeeping force to
insure the aid gets to the people in need, though it's possible
this will change soon:
All of the aid groups I talked to in Afghanistan say that unless
an international force is sent in to secure the roads,
Afghanistan will be the scene of a humanitarian crisis of
horrific proportions.
The good news is that England, France, Turkey, Jordan,
Bangladesh and Indonesia have all offered troops to carry out
this mission. The bad news is that the Pentagon and the Northern
Alliance are resisting the introduction of such a force.
When the American terrorist and Gulf War hero Timothy McVeigh
blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City he also blew up a
day care center. The death of those children was big news in the
U.S. They were not other people's children, they were our
children. McVeigh called it 'collateral damage', a phrase he
learned from the U.S. officials who used it to describe the
200,000 civilians killed by the U.S. bombing of Iraq.
Since our bombing of Iraq in 1991 over a million Iraqis have
died because of U.S. imposed trade sanctions. The man who used
to be in charge of this 'program', Hans Von Sponeck, says this:
"The fact that today, on average, according to UNICEF, 5,000
children are dying every month because of sanctions, is a
violation of human rights. The Convention of the Rights of the
Child is violated. The Covenant on Political and Civic Rights is
violated. The Hague Convention is violated."
Another UN official who resigned said this:
"We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as
simple and terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral." Denis
Halliday, after resigning as first UN Assistant Secretary
General and Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, The Independent,
15 October 1998
In addition many are dying in Iraq from cancer caused by the
depleted uranium in the bombs that were dropped. The U.S. also
dropped depleted uranium bombs on Kosovo and Serbia. Here is a
recent headline about that subject:
US Wins Defeat of Depleted Uranium Study
McVeigh said he blew up the building because the Federal
Government killed a lot of adults and their children in Waco,
Texas. He was avenging those deaths, he said, and also he hoped
to prevent more deaths in the future, by using terrorism against
the Government. From his point of view it seemed like a logical
thing to do. To me it seems insane. Perhaps it was insane. But
the surviving members of families who lost children in
Afghanistan due to U.S. bombing might feel like doing the same
thing. It's not unlikely:
Rukia, 39, who like many Afghans uses only one name, lost her
family five days ago when she says a United States bomb hit her
Kandahar neighborhood. Wounded in the stomach and with her left
arm shattered, she had to flee before she could bury her
children.
She was nearly bombed again, while a relative was driving her to
a hospital in Pakistan
"They're bombing anything that moves," she said. "It's not true
that they bomb civilians by accident. They're targeting the
innocent people instead of Osama bin Laden."..
..Rukia covered her face and started to cry when asked what she
wanted to tell the Americans about the loss of her five
children. She thought a while before responding: "Destroy,
finish, terminate America."
Why disturb ourselves with reading articles about civilian
deaths? Isn't it better to console ourselves with the idea that
even though children died, it was worth it because the bombing
prevented more children from dying in the future?
I think many people feel this way.
That is one reason they support what they call war and what I
call state terrorism. And maybe they are right. The problem is
this: however pleasant the idea that 'bombing is good', there is
no evidence that supports it, in reality. How does bombing
defenseless civilians prevent terrorism or promote peace? The
past two months of bombing have not made our world a safer, more
peaceful place to live in. It has helped certain politicians,
certain arms manufacturers, and promoted the philosophy
of 'might makes right'.
But I don't really believe that people support the bombing
because they think it will prevent children's deaths in the
future. I think, instead, that people support it because they
are able to ignore the deaths of other people's children, and
they are afraid.
Perhaps I'm wrong. But there is definitely a strong correlation
between refusing to acknowledge the suffering our bombing is
causing other people, and support for the bombing. Most people
who support the bombing of Afghanistan have no idea how many
civilians were killed by the bombing of Iraq, or the bombing of
Viet Nam. A Viet Nam war memorial showing the names of every
civilian killed by the U.S. in that war would be at least 40
times longer than the one in Washington. But we don't want to
know that, it's old small news. That makes it easier for us to
support bombing Afghanistan.
There is also an element of moral cowardice. This is a dangerous
subject to broach because maybe it represents my own version of
self-righteousness. It probably does. However it seems true to
me, so I'll say it. I think many people support the bombing
because they are afraid to speak out against it. I think it
takes moral courage to oppose the government during a war, and
to speak out to your friends, family, co-workers, and daily
acquaintances. Instead it is so much easier to identify with the
government leaders, to allow ourselves to be guided in our
opinions by the mass media, and to pretend that we are being
brave by supporting the bombing.
Our culture tells us all our lives that the heroes are the men
who kill for the good cause. But it takes no heroism to support
war, absolutely none. But men in particular like to think of
themselves as possible heroes, that if necessary they will also
have 'the stomach' to kill. It pleases their self-image to
support the war, and to see themselves as 'protecting' someone
by killing others. They can easily dismiss those who disagree
as 'peaceniks' who just do not understand. A real man, in their
view, must not get emotional and worry about the deaths of other
people's children. He must be mature and be willing to follow
the leader and kill, and support killing with pious logic
about 'just war'. This is one way many men conform and support
mass murder and pretend to themselves they are being brave by
doing so.
I think most women who support the bombing do so because they
are able to ignore the deaths it causes, and because they
think 'since politics are controlled by men, it's their
responsibility'. Women seem to be less inclined to heroic
fantasies about the necessity of war, perhaps because women and
children are always the one who suffer the most in modern war.
However I think a lot of people, men and women, agree with me,
but like me have little clue as to what to do about it. Many
people say we should, as citizens, act to restrain the military
capacity of our government.
Our government wants to militarize space in order to have
complete military hegemony over every other government in the
world. That is the plan according to the government document
Vision 2020 published during the Clinton Administration. On the
front cover it says: 'Dominating the Space Dimension of Military
Operations to Protect U.S. Interests and Investment.' This is
the meaning of the Missile Shield plan. This is why President
Bush is going to tear up the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
Most governments do not want to militarize space. They have
voted against it in numerous United Nations resolutions. But the
U.S. wants to do it, and probably will.
This brings me back to my question about measuring the moral
level of our culture. If we begin with a moral rule as old as
humanity, common to all cultures and religions, 'Do unto others
as you would have them do unto you', we can ask ourselves to
what degree we are following that moral rule.
But how can we follow this rule (supposing that we even want to)
if we refuse to learn just what we are 'doing' unto others? We
can first of all ignore the fact that our bombs are killing
other people's children. We can also rationalize it by repeating
what our leaders say, who describe the deaths as 'unintended
consequences' of our bombing. We can also refuse to name it what
it is: state terrorism, mass murder. If we ignore that we
are 'doing death' unto others, we will surely do nothing to
prevent further deaths in the future.
Just how many deaths of other people's children are we willing
to ignore, or to rationalize with words like 'unintended
consequences'? One million? Two million? If the government tells
us it is necessary, and the mass media makes the deaths small
news, could we perhaps ignore the deaths of ten million
children? Why not? It's certainly possible, given our recent
history.
Since WW II the United States has been regularly dropping bombs
on civilians, killing lots of people and their children, in
Japan, Korea, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Panama, Iraq, Yugoslavia, and
Afghanistan, and many other places. The U.S. directed and
supported Contras killed thousands of other people's children in
Nicaraugua:
In 1989 the US invaded Panama to overthrow the former CIA agent,
General Manuel Noriega - a man who had now become an enemy;
5,000 civilians were killed by American forces and buried in
mass graves. And in 1982 the US began funding the Contra war
against the Sandinista governm0ent. Corinto harbor was mined in
1984 and the court of world opinion recognized that the policy
of the United States was that of a war criminal.
Nicaragua, now the second poorest nation in the western
hemisphere, has never recovered from that war. There were 40,000
Nicaraguan dead, the innocent who were categorized as "soft
targets".
That's part of the Nicaragua story. The Afghanistan story goes
something like this: in 1979 Jimmy Carter's Secretary of State
Zbignew Brezinski authorized the training of foreign terrorists
to fight in Afghanistan, to draw the Soviet Union into a 'trap'.
This was before the Soviet Union invaded the country. After the
invasion the CIA continued the massive financial aid and
training for these Islamic extremists, most of whom came from
Middle East. Among those who answered the CIA's call was Osama
Bin Laden. This CIA operation was the biggest in its long
history of covert operations. The Soviet Union was successfully
driven out of Afghanistan but the country was devastated and the
U.S., goal accomplished, did nothing to help rebuild the
country. Out of this devastation arose the warlords of the
current Northern Alliance and also the Taleban. The Taleban was
supported by U.S. allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and the U.S.
itself. The U.S. oil company Unocal negotiated with the Taleban,
asking them to assist in the building of pipelines through the
country.
However Osama Bin Laden returned, after being driven from Sudan,
and his new battle was directed against the U.S., apparently
because of the U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia, his
homeland.
So what is the justification for killing over 3,600 civilians,
and putting hundreds of thousands at risk of starvation? This
was the news on December 9:
More than seven million people out of an estimated population of
22 million are classified by aid organisations as being at "very
high risk".
And from another source, on the same day:
Every night as the temperature dips well below zero, as many as
40 people die from cold and starvation. In the six cemeteries
scattered through the camp, many of the piles of stones marking
graves are so tiny that it is clear most victims are children
and babies.
15 out of 19 of the September 11 terrorists were from Saudi
Arabia. Not a single one was from Afghanistan. Not a single one
was a Taleban. The Sept. 11 terrorists have not even been proven
to have visited Afghanistan. The Taleban had agreed to negotiate
an extradition of Bin Laden, but the U.S. government refused.
Perhaps the Taleban were lying, but we will never know.
Certainly they were a terrible government, but our government
helped create them and helped create the foreign terrorists who
were living in Afghanistan, and then it kills innocent civilians
trying to destroy what they created, justifying this with
the 'war on terrorism'. And now there is no real government in
Afghanistan, just a loose assortment of warlords. And the
Taleban are still there, they've just switched sides.
All this death, sadness and suffering. President Bush says again
and again we are 'good'. He is confident that he knows our level
of morality. I'm not so sure.
We are killing other people's children and ignoring their deaths.
In fact we get upset if people bring up the subject. We condemn
people who call it 'U.S. terrorism'. For some reason when we
kill other people's children it's not terrorism. It's
the 'unintended consequences of a just cause'. When 'they' do
it, it's 'evil'. If we are willing to do this what is our level
of morality? As I said at the beginning, this is a difficult
question to answer, and I think it can be only answered as
individuals, talking to ourselves.
The U.S. government is currently taking the steps that greatly
increase the possibility of nuclear war in the future. The U.S.
government wants to be able to wage war on any country on the
planet without the risk of counterattack, just like we now can
bomb Afghanistan for months with little risk to our aircraft and
almost no risk to our own people and territory.
It's very possible that the U.S. Government will soon be able to
kill every child on the planet who is not a U.S. citizen,
without any reprisal. Many people in the U.S. advocated using
nuclear weapons in Afghanistan. What is our level of morality?
Are we truly 'good'? How will we use our military power? If we
were willing to ignore the deaths of civilians in the past, and
if we are willing to ignore the deaths of civilians now, what do
you think our behavior will be in the future?
Will civilian deaths in the future also be small news: other
people's children?
Lawrence McGuire lives in France. He can be reached at
blmcguire@hotmail.com
Source of quotes in text:
1 Published on Saturday, December 1, 2001 in the Guardian of
London
US Planes Rain Death on the Innocent
'Precision' Raids Kill Residents in Capital City By Rory
McCarthy in Kabul
2 December 10, 2001"A Dossier on Civilian Victims of United
States' Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan: A Comprehensive
Accounting"
by Professor Marc W. Herold Ph.D., M.B.A., B.Sc.
Study available here: http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mwherold/.
3 Published on Wednesday, November 28, 2001 in the Christian
Science Monitor
Injustice Seen as Fertile Soil for Terrorists
by Peter Ford
4 Published in the Winter 2001/2002 issue of YES! Magazine
The Failure of War by Wendell Berry
5 NEWARK STAR-LEDGER 11/30/01
For many, home is a blanket and the food is weeds
BY FARNAZ FASSIHI
6,7 Published on Sunday, December 16, 2001 in the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel
Feeding the Hungry May Be the Prime Task of Peacekeepers by
Medea Benjamin
8 December 6, 2001 OPPOSING SANCTIONS ON IRAQ
AN INTERVIEW WITH HANS VON SPONECK By Larry Everest
Published at http://www.zmag.org
9 Published on Friday, November 30, 2001 by Reuters
Going Backwards US Wins Defeat of Depleted Uranium Study
by Irwin Arieff
10 Published on Saturday, December 8, 2001 in the Sydney Morning
Herald
Terminate America: Message From an Afghani Mother in Mourning
by Tasgola Karla Bruner in Quetta, Pakistan
11 Published on Saturday, December 8, 2001 in Guardian of London
Selective Justice: The US Has Been Sponsoring Terror in My
Native Latin America for Decades
by Bianca Jagger
12 The Independent on Sunday (London) December 9, 2001
Humanitarian crisis: 'anarchy' leaves 1m without food
Conditions are worst in areas firmly under Northern Alliance
control
By Imre Karacs
13 The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.)
December 9, 2001
They call this 'the slaughterhouse'
Christina Lamb
More Quotes:
The river of victims runs through another war
By Robert Fisk in Chaman
The Independent (London)
04 December 2001
"From all over the countryside, there come stories of villages
crushed by American bombs; an entire hamlet destroyed by B-52s
at Kili Sarnad, 50 dead near Tora Bora, eight civilians killed
in cars bombed by US jets on the road to Kandahar, another 46 in
Lashkargah, 12 more in Bibi Mahru."
Published on Monday, December 3, 2001 in the Independent/UK
US Bombs Hit Wrong Target for Second Time in Two Days
by Richard Lloyd Parry in Jalalaba
"The American hunt for Osama bin Laden appeared to have gone
tragically wrong for the second time in two days yesterday, when
US bombers were reported to have killed scores of civilians in
eastern Afghanistan as well as friendly mujahedin fighters
supporting their battle against al-Qa'ida. A senior mujahedin
commander said US strikes killed more than 100 civilians around
Agam, 25 miles south of Jalalabad, on top of at least 70 killed
in air raids on Saturday night."
Published on Sunday, December 2, 2001 by Agence France Presse
15 Killed as US Mistakes Private Jeep for Military Vehicle:
Victim
"Fifteen villagers, including nine children, were killed in a
bombing raid on a hamlet in which US forces appeared to have
mistaken an ageing jeep for a military vehicle, the owner said.
Mohammed Khan, who arrived here from Kandahar for hospital
treatment to his wounded arms and legs, said that five of his
children were killed when the hamlet was attacked on Tuesday.
All five houses which made up the hamlet between Kandahar
airport and the city were demolished in the raid. A neighbor
lost four children in the attack, Khan said."
The Loyal Opposition
DENYING THE DEAD
In Pentagon Reports of Afghan Dead, Truth is the First Casualty
David Corn is the Washington editor of The Nation.
"But as he [Donald Rumsfeld] was talking, Washington Post
reporter Susan Glasser was filing a piece based on a visit to
Jalalabad's Public Hospital No. 1. In the previous four days,
the hospital had taken in 36 patients who said they were victims
of the U.S. bombing strikes targeting villages southwest of
Jalalabad, in an area where Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda
remnants are thought to be hiding in cave compounds. The
hospital had also received 35 dead. One of the injured was Noor
Mohammed, who had lost both eyes and both arms. Noor, who is
somewhere between 10 and 12 years old, told his uncle he heard
the sound of an airplane overhead, ran from his room, and did
not know what happened next. Asked how he felt, the boy
whispered, "I feel cold and I cannot talk." Glasser found other
wounded children from families who claimed they had been struck
by bombs while in their mud houses."
The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.)
December 9, 2001
They call this 'the slaughterhouse'
Christina Lamb
"A DIRTY grey blanket on the hard desert ground is all that is
home for Bibi Gul and her family in the new Afghanistan.
"The sky is my roof and the earth is my floor," she said,
gesturing across the dust-swept plains toward the minarets of
the ancient city of Herat. But the words from her chapped
swollen lips are of bitterness rather than romance.
It is more than a week since she and her five children had their
last meal - a begged bowl of rice - and on Friday she woke to
find her two-year-old son Tahir stiff and cold, frozen to death
in the rain.
While the West celebrates the surrender of Kandahar and the
collapse of the Taliban, here in Maslakh camp in western
Afghanistan there is no celebratory slaughtering of goats or
distribution of sweets, but only weeping and funerals.
It is a place that has been largely ignored by Western
governments and aid agencies; harrowing images of the starving
and dying have not been seen in the world's newspapers or on
television because journalists and camera crews have been
elsewhere in Afghanistan, concentrating on the war. But because
it hasn't been seen in its vivid awfulness doesn't lessen the
terrible suffering that goes on here.
Every night as the temperature dips well below zero, as many as
40 people die from cold and starvation. In the six cemeteries
scattered through the camp, many of the piles of stones marking
graves are so tiny that it is clear most victims are children
and babies.
