afghanistan
19 Sep 2008
Terrorise Like it's Going Out of Style
The US military aren't great at telling the difference between civilians and fighters on the Afghan/Pakistan border. But that's OK because they don't care anyway, writes Irfan Yusuf
Last week Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith had a conversation with Jim Middleton on the Australia Network's Newshour program. Part of that conversation, held on 12 September 2008, went like this:JM: It's a pessimistic outlook ... isn't it, if the Pakistanis won't allow cross-border operations — that you can hold the Taliban but you can't win.
SS: Well, it's quite clear that what's been occurring is that the extremists, the terrorists, the Taliban move across that border area [between Afghanistan and Pakistan] for respite and then return. And so clearly both Pakistan and Afghanistan and the international communities have to come to grips with that.
If you only heard this part of the interview, you'd think Smith regarded this migration as temporary and something peculiar to extremists, terrorists and/or Taliban personnel. You'd also think Smith was alleging such migration has only been happening since the Taliban were overthrown or even since the Taliban first came to power in Afghanistan.
Of course our new Foreign Minister, like anyone with at least a rudimentary knowledge of that area and its people, knows that the artificial borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan drawn by the British during the 1940s hardly represent the social realities on the ground. There are families and tribes whose members live on either side of the border. Some are semi-nomadic peoples whose movement is quite regular.
Unfortunately, not everyone in our anti-terror coalition understands these on-the-ground realities. Indeed, some don't even care about differentiating between combatants and civilians. Among them is Robert Bolton, former US Ambassador to the UN and an architect of the so-called "Bush doctrine".
Bolton was interviewed by Leigh Sales on ABC's Lateline program on their 11 September episode. It was a curious choice of interviewee on the anniversary of the attacks of the Twin Towers and Washington. Bolton is a hawk whose views are regarded by many friendly critics of the United States as dangerous. By the same token, Bolton is also regarded as one of the architects of the so-called "War on Terror", the first phase of which was the invasion of Afghanistan.
Robert Bolton told Leigh Sales on that Lateline episode that winning the battle of hearts and minds in the places where we think terrorists live "when it's useful for our interests to do it. Let me just say when you talk about civilians, your viewers should not have the idea of civilians like in the suburbs of Sydney. The frontier area is a wild, wild area ... distinguishing between who is a civilian and who is not a civilian in that environment is often very, very difficult".
In other words, these people look, talk, dress and worship differently to us. They also happen to look just like terrorists. Or rather, terrorists deliberately look and dress just like civilians. Dead civilians only really count when it's bad PR back home. We don't actually need to get to know them as people and communities. We just want to kill as many as possible so our people back home will feel safer, even if they don't actually become safer.
Indeed, the US has had a disastrous record in Afghanistan, Pakistan (just ask Mamdouh Habib) and Iraq in distinguishing civilians from terrorists and other combatants. Mahvish Khan worked as a translator with lawyers acting for Guantanamo Bay detainees. Her book My Guantanamo Diary tells the stories of ordinary Afghan civilians picked up and shipped to Guantanamo Bay to be tortured. The Age reports that among Khan's clients was Dr Ali Shah Mousovi, an Afghan paediatrician who belonged to the Shia minority persecuted by the Taliban. Another was an 80 year old paraplegic arrested in 2003 when he went to US authorities to enquire about the arrest of his son.
Still, our troops continue to fight terrorists in Afghanistan. Kevin Rudd has even spoken about the need to send more troops over there. Is he hoping a larger Australian force will follow the United States into a possible showdown with Pakistan? Bush Jnr has already given his troops the go-ahead to enter Pakistani territory.
Is our PM prepared to risk Australian lives supporting such a risky US adventure? And what does he make of claims by the UN's senior expert on al Qaeda that:
"The presence of foreign forces provides a glue and they have been quite clever to exploit fears of an outside force ... You could say that the threat of foreign occupation is giving them oxygen in the region with tribal leaders leaving aside local differences to unite against foreign forces."
Terrorists hate us for our values. Terrorists kill people without caring to distinguish combatant from innocent civilian. Meanwhile, the innocent civilians who happen to live in the general vicinity of where we think terrorists might be hiding are also terrorised — by us and our allies. As one Pakistani commentator recently noted:
"Where al Qaeda and the Taliban is concerned, the task of exerting moral pressure is nearly impossible: despite the fact that they are causing more deaths, the increased hatred reserved for the US occupation ensures that the Taliban can kill at will without ever being shamed or humiliated for their cruelty."
Seven years after the September 11 attacks, it seems our War on Terror has become just terror all round.
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Yes, and GWB is still in power for another four months or so! Scary!
One really has to wonder why Elmer Fudd and SS are so Gung-Ho in their support of a fading megalomaniac and his cronies. Can’t they just wait a little longer and see how things are going to turn out with either McCain/Palin (shudder!!) or Obama (??) at the Button? After all, if Palin (forget McCain, he is just a figure-head now, Plain would be wearing the pants) gets in, we will all be at war with Russia within months! She said so! Dazza.
Utah Phillips an American peace activist suggested this question -
If a man you respected , one of your elders , handed you a gun and said those people in that house over there are bad people go over and kill them , would you ?
For me that is the simplicity of the situation that no construct of words can get around.
There is no justification for our involvement in Afghanistan.
There is no justification for the recent deaths of people in those villages.
Individuals are responsible .
Kevin Rudd and Stephen Smith included.
They have surrendered their moral autonomy to political authority and that is the death of a society.
We are the world’s terrorists today, and if we do not start some serious self analysis and a policy of cease and desist, we and our children will pay dearly for these transgressions against humanity.
Get real people, what if those pasenger-laden jets flown by bin-laden stooges had flown into our densely populated areas, and thousands had died within minutes?
GWB has at least prevented another incident like this happening on his watch!
Dudd or Fudd, whatever you want to call him, would not like one to happen on his watch either.
So they’ve "interviewed" a few Osama look-likes, and they got a bit of info. like where saddam was hiding (maybe not as significant as where all the wmd’s are, or the stolen treasures from Baghdad’s museum.) however, one wonders how many slipped through too.
So, yes we’re the big bad west and the poor Islamic terrorists are just misunderstood civilians posing as terrorist-civilians or is it civilian-terrorists?? "pardon me, but does my bomb look big in this hijab?"
Anyway, it’s not the next few months that worries me.
They struck America only a short time into Bush’s regime, maybe in the aftermath of some of his predecessor Clinton’s bungled attempts to neutralize a clear and present danger to the US back then.
I want to put it on the record that I fully support the US, Australia and others in Afghanistan, in their war against reactionary feudalists and pseudo-Islamists, people who are vastly more reactionary than the Yanks. All the way.
Let’s get some friendly discussion going here ! Joe
Young Irfan
This may or may not be of interest to you…as a journalist I tried to remain neutral on the issue of David Hicks and the war on terror….
http://teamuzunovmedia.blogspot.com/
DAVID HICKS MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE
by Sasha Uzunov
David Hicks, the Australian convicted of supporting terrorism in Afghanistan, has been in the news again.
Whatever you think of David Hicks, there is certainly more to the story than meets the eye.
In May 2007 as an Australian journalist, along with Canadian colleagues, Scott Taylor and David Pugliese we were granted an interview with a former Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan, who spent 4 years in Guantanamo Bay, and were surprised to hear his negative thoughts about David Hicks…
This was an exclusive Australian story in the Melbourne Herald Sun newspaper at the time.
I also video taped an interview with the ex-Taliban diplomat.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21743054-662,00.html
Herald Sun newspaper
David Hicks not ‘true Muslim’
Sasha Uzunov
May 17, 2007 12:00am
DAVID Hicks was not a true Muslim and was regarded as a possible spy by other accused terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, says a former inmate and one-time Taliban diplomat.
"All the people, including me and the Arabs, we’re thinking he was a spy," said Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, back in Afghanistan after spending nearly four years in US custody including at Guantanamo Bay.
"He was separated from us. The Americans were scared he would be killed by the other prisoners," the Afghan man said in an interview in Kabul. "He was not a true Muslim."
After five years in US custody, Hicks is expected to leave Guantanamo Bay within days for Australia, where he will serve nine months in a jail near Adelaide before being set free. He is being returned to Australia under a deal after pleading guilty in a US military commission to a charge of providing material support for terrorism.
Hicks was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001, where he was accused of training with al-Qaida and of fighting alongside Taliban troops. But Zaeef, a former Taliban minister and ambassador to Pakistan, denied Hicks was part of the Taliban regime, toppled from power in Afghanistan by the US invasion in 2001.
After his release without charge by the US, Zaeef now lives in Kabul but under the close watch of the Hamid Karzai Government, which provides a security guard for his protection.
Zaeef said he was not in contact with the current Taliban leadership, who are fighting Australian and other coalition troops.
He said Australia was now an enemy of the Afghan people because it had supported the US-led war in Afghanistan. Zaeef said coalition forces had killed a lot of Afghani people.
"And the people became enemies of the Americans, of the Canadians and others," he said.
"People are not thinking the Americans, the Canadians are neutral, that they have come for peace and stability. "The people are thinking that the Canadians, the British, the Americans are all enemies since they are killing us."
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LINKS:
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=86adcc80-9ee6-49b…
NATO, U.S. stand in way of peace in Afghanistan: Taliban chief
Most Afghans blame foreign forces for civilian deaths, former official says David Pugliese, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Wednesday, May 09, 2007
–––––––––––––––––––
http://www.espritdecorps.ca/Traveling%20in%20Northern%20Afghanistan/Trav…
PHOTOS of 2007 Afghan trip
–––––––––––––––––––
Sasha Uzunov is a freelance photo journalist, blogger, and budding film maker whose mission is to return Australia’s national defence/ security debate to its rightful owner, the taxpayer.
He also likes paparazzi photography!
He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 1991.
He served as a professional soldier in the Australian Army from 1995 to 2002, and completed 2 tours of duty in East Timor. As a journalist he has worked in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan.
great post sasha, but hicks seems a bit thick to be a plant doesn’t he and wouldn’t his handlers have fixed things with the PTB if this were the case. Terrorists are menat to be a superstitious lot so anyone from the wrong subset would be automatically suspect wouldn’t they?
Dear Banville
Thanks for your note.
Im trying to be neutral. I dont want to condemn or condone Hicks’s actions but something just dont add up… Im thinking out aloud here of course.
On the one hand we were told by PM Howard that Hicks was Aussie Public Enemy Number 1, whilst a senior ex-Taliban leader, Mullah Zaeef disowned him…
Who knows where the real story lies… That’s why when i was in Afghanistan in 2007 I posed this question to the ex-Taliban diplomat.
But it raises more questions than answers…On the balance of probabilities Hicks may have been a low level Taliban supporter/helper/collaborator…
cheers Sasha