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NEWS & LETTERS,
January-February 2002
Editorial
After Afghanistan, what?
With the Taliban driven out of
power and the Al Qaeda network on the run, there is a struggle inside the Bush
administration over what to do next in Afghanistan and the region. One of the
most serious dangers is that of a U.S. military attack on Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
Republican and Democratic hawks have been pushing for this and Bush has said
that he may attack "rogue states." An attack on Iraq would be a
dramatic and dangerous escalation that could lead to the kind of conflagration
that the murderous Osama bin Laden has been wishing for. Meanwhile, the unprecedented
military build-up in the region continues. There is no better indication that
the U.S. is going to be in the region for the long haul than the fact that the
101st Airborne Division has just been sent to Kandahar, Afghanistan to relieve
U.S. Marines there. Unlike the Marines, its role is to hold territory for an
extended period. With Russian acquiescence, the
U.S., France, and Britain are preparing a military presence in Central Asia that
will last many years. The Khanabad Air Base near the town of Qarshi in
Uzbekistan is now home to nearly 1,000 U.S. soldiers from the 10th Mountain
Division. In Kyrgyzstan, they are building a "transportation hub" as
part of the Manas airbase in Bishkek, the capital, that will house 3,000 troops
and accommodate many warplanes. Assistant Secretary of Defense
Paul Wolfowitz stated that the U.S. build-up in the region sends a signal to
"important countries like Uzbekistan that we have the capacity to come back
and will come back. We are just not going to forget them." In October, the
U.S. gave Uzbekistan's extremely authoritarian government an assurance of
security. Instead of undermining Islamic
fundamentalism, such actions may actually strengthen it. According to Raffi
Khatchadourian, in the Fergana Valley, where cotton plantations are the
mainstay of the economies of Uzbekistan, Tajikstan, and Kyrgyzstan,
"radical Islamic fervor has become inseparably interwoven with growing
popular discontent" against corrupt and brutal regimes (THE NATION, Jan.
21). GLOBAL REACH Meanwhile, the U.S. is sending
650 Special Operations troops to the southern Philippines to fight the Abu
Sayyaf group. Claims that it has links to Al Qaeda have been disputed. The
parliament of the Philippines has condemned the dispatch of U.S. forces and
warned of another Vietnam. In December, Amnesty
International Secretary General Irene Khan complained that the big powers are
using the war on terrorism to repress human rights all over the world. This
could be seen in the declarations issued by the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO), an organization that includes China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan,
Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The SCO met in Beijing in January and
agreed to coordinate responses to "terrorism, religious extremism, and
ethnic separatism," aimed at groups like the Chechens and Uighur minorities
in the western province of Xinjiang, China. While the Afghan people are
certainly relieved to be rid of the Taliban, two decades of war and three years
of a severe drought have displaced millions. Today nearly five million are
directly dependent on food aid for survival. Living conditions in refugee camps
in and outside Afghanistan are horrendous. Several thousand civilians died as a
direct result of U.S. bombings these past months and a million new refugees have
been added to the ranks of the old ones. According to UNICEF, 100,000 children
may perish in the next several months unless urgent measures are taken. Yet there is also tremendous
hope in the country, especially among the most oppressed group, the women. In
Kabul, the Zarghouna High School for girls is one of a dozen brought back to
life with the death of Taliban rule. Last month the principal and three women
teachers returned to a devastated building. Still, they found themselves deluged
by thousands of girls eager to go back to school. Today, nearly 2,600 are
studying there. When UNICEF arrived with plans for a gradual resumption of
schooling for girls, they were surprised to see how much self-organization had
already begun. LOCAL RULERS Such openings occur in the face
of tremendous obstacles. Most areas of Afghanistan are being run by guerrilla
chieftains called "governors" but who are more like feudal lords. For
example, Mazar-i-Sharif is ruled by Abdul Rashid Dostum, who prints his own
money. Another example is the city of Herat, ruled by Ismail Khan, who is armed
and supported by Iran. Some say Iran's fundamentalist regime will do whatever it
can to prevent the creation of a secular democracy in Afghanistan. The Central
Eastern provinces are ruled by the same tribal councils who held power under the
Taliban. The opposition to
U.S.-dominated global capitalism needs to take into account the fact that rulers
like the Taliban, Hussein, or the Iranian ayatollahs, as well as utterly
reactionary movements like Al Qaeda, are so oppressive that the masses living
under them will often welcome intervention from outside. The failure of many
leftist and peace groups to acknowledge this has made it impossible to build a
serious opposition to U.S. military intervention. As we face the threat of a new
war in Iraq, it is high time for a reorganization of our thinking and our
perspectives. |
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