| Number 129 | October 26, 2001 |
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This Week:
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Greetings, Believe it or not, I had something of a plan for Nygaard Notes for the autumn months. A little on economics, the sociology of suicide, education, deregulation, a little on health care politics, the coming water wars, and so on and so forth. I suspect I am not alone in altering my plans subsequent to the events of September 11th. Many commentators have written many things about the current crisis, and I find myself joining the crowd. It appears that we are about to witness one of the great avoidable humanitarian disasters of my lifetime in Afghanistan. The actions bringing it about are being carried out in our name—yours and mine—as our government attacks one of the world's most miserable countries in pursuit of goals that can have nothing to do with protecting innocent Americans, since almost everyone agrees that the American attack will make all of us less secure. I can't stop thinking about it, I can't stop talking about it, and I can't stop writing about it. Please contact your elected representatives and tell them that you love your country enough to want to stop it from continuing this crime. And remember this: To raise one's voice in opposition to the violent vengeance upon which our great nation has embarked is the furthest thing from treason. Yours in peace, Nygaard |
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Both "President" G.W. Bush and Assistant President (a.k.a. British Prime Minister) Tony Blair have been quoted in recent weeks as saying "We are a peaceful people." As I pointed out in last week's Nygaard Notes, there is a major ongoing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, caused by years of war, Taliban rule, and drought. Now the U.S. bombings threaten to push this teetering mass of humanity—some 7.5 million people—over the edge from desperation to death. Besides the fact that the risk of being bombed has caused numerous humanitarian aid groups to suspend their operations in Afghanistan, and in addition to the danger of U.S. military air drops "sending hungry children into mine fields," the U.S. war has endangered humanitarian workers throughout the region by confusing their role in their host countries. "If you do not separate very clearly military operations and humanitarian operations, you destroy totally the credibility of the humanitarian operations," according to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler. The United Nations reported on October 8th that their facilities in Pakistan had been attacked by angry mobs, apparently bearing out Mr. Ziegler's point. Ziegler has called the U.S and British bombing of Afghanistan "totally catastrophic for humanitarian aid," a sentiment echoed by numerous aid workers active in the region. I found his comments in a report by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), being unable to find any reference to Mr. Ziegler, on any subject, in the U.S. media that I've looked at. Perhaps his comments are considered too upsetting for us "peaceful people." The Evidence On October 4th the British Prime Minister Tony Blair released a statement purporting to present the "evidence" linking Osama bin Laden to the September 11th attacks. Mr. Blair characterized the evidence as "overwhelming." However, if you actually read the statement itself you will find the following disclaimer: "This document does not purport to provide a prosecutable case against Usama Bin Laden in a court of law." So, it's not sufficient for a court of law, but apparently it is considered sufficient to justify a military attack that is likely to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents. The lengthy British statement included Section 68, which reads "Al Qaida's attacks are characterised by total disregard for innocent lives, including Muslims. In an interview after the East African bombings, Usama Bin Laden insisted that the need to attack the United States excused the killing of other innocent civilians, Muslim and non-Muslim alike." This is apparently included to provide a contrast between the Evil Ones and ourselves, the "peaceful people." Preferring Military Conflict Keeping this in mind, it's interesting to consider the comments of the American Secretary of State earlier this week. The Associated Press on October 24th quoted Colin Powell talking about the Irish Republican Army. According to the AP, Mr. Powell said the steps taken by the Irish Republican Army to disarm illustrate that "negotiations are always to be preferred to military conflict." Mr. Powell's statement notwithstanding, our actions tell the world that military conflict is to be preferred to negotiations when it comes to the War on Terrorism. Ten days earlier, the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) published an AP story which said that "Taliban Deputy Prime Minister Haji Abdul Kabir offered [on October 14th] to surrender bin Laden for trial in an unspecified third country if Washington stopped bombing and provided evidence of the Saudi exile's guilt. Bush said no." He certainly did say no, using these words: "There's no need to negotiate. There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty." No one else knows, however. As the (BBC) puts it in a recent report, "There is no direct evidence in the public domain linking Osama Bin Laden to the 11 September attacks. At best the evidence is circumstantial." There is a chance, maybe a small one, that the Taliban's offer was sincere. The United States could have called a halt to the bombing while they attempted to negotiate the offer, allowing desperately-needed humanitarian aid to be distributed during the break. By refusing to even consider this offer, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair have made it crystal clear they believe that their "need to attack" Osama bin Laden excuses, in their ghastly calculus, the killing of 100,000-plus innocent Afghans. Citizens of the region can be forgiven if they interpret the attack on Afghanistan as evidence that the "peaceful people" exhibit the same "total disregard for innocent lives" of which we rightly accuse whomever is responsible for the September 11th attacks on the United States. |
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It may seem difficult to make sense out of all of the terrible and terrifying things in the news these days. I have three suggestions for readers that may be helpful. Two Separate Stories Consider that the two major stories these days—the terror within the United States and the U.S. attack on Afghanistan—may be better understood if they are untangled from each other and thought about separately. Then, after you have done that, you need to put them back together in order to understand their relation to one another. You may be surprised to find that they are not connected in quite the ways that you think. Many Americans are justifiably frightened by the horrendous criminal acts of September 11th, and perhaps even more so by the ongoing anthrax attacks and warnings of other, as yet unknown, threats to innocent Americans. Consider that the actions our government is taking to protect us are almost entirely geared toward interrupting plans already in progress (the police/military response). That is, toward finding the people involved and stopping/punishing them. That's not a bad thing, but it's only one approach. Another approach would be to take action to actually reduce the making of such plans in the first place. That's an entirely different process, and a very important one. I suggest that our "leaders" will not even attempt it unless we—the citizens of this democracy—demand it in an organized way. Pretty much everyone agrees that the U.S. attack on Afghanistan is making the world a more dangerous place for Americans, since it is almost guaranteed to increase the likelihood of future terrorist attacks against our country. Yet the military campaign is presented to us as a part of the "War Against Terrorism." What kind of war strategy is it that makes the enemy more dangerous? And why is "national unity" threatened by an open, democratic debate about the wisdom of this war? A related question would be: If our attack on Afghanistan is not having a positive effect on our "national security," then what is in fact motivating it? I hope to discuss this in future issues of the Notes. Following the War Many citizens may think it important to follow the progress of the "war," (it's officially not one) and I think it is, too. But it's a good news/bad news situation when you consider how to do that. The bad news is that the corporate media are doing an extremely poor job of providing information on this war. The good news is that, while the press coverage of the war is shameful, it is quite possible to find (in the U.S. media or elsewhere) the information that one needs in order to make the important decisions about whether you want to offer your consent for this war or act in opposition to it. I gave some of these sources in the last edition of Nygaard Notes. The other absolutely crucial thing to keep in mind when reading any news about any aspect of the current national emergency is the almost universal truth that, in times of crisis, governments tend to lie. This is not to say that governments always lie, only that they often do. This is a large part of the reason why it is so important that we have a bill of rights that guarantees a free press; it's supposed to interrogate public officials if they are suspected of deceiving the public. This task is entirely different from simply writing down what officials say and distributing it to the citizenry, which amounts to nothing more than propaganda, as I pointed out in the last issue of the Notes. No Need to Be An Expert The third and final point to keep in mind is that the important decisions that a democratic country needs to make when deciding whether to go to war (or generally how to behave in the world outside of our borders) are not military decisions. Those decisions are decisions about goals, costs, rights, power, ethics, and morality, and they are, or should be, fairly easy to understand and absolutely open to debate. We do not need to be military experts to have an opinion on going to war any more than we need to be doctors to know what kind of medical system we want. Don't be intimidated by the "experts," and don't think you're not smart enough to raise your voice. Three important things to remember during the current national emergency, then, are:
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In the past two decades the United States military has attacked some of the poorest nations in the world, for a variety of reasons. Now we are attacking Afghanistan. Here is a little press release from the United Nations, dated October 8th, reproduced here verbatim: Level of Human Development in Afghanistan among Lowest in World "With an average life expectancy of about 40 years and a staggering mortality rate of nearly 26 per cent for children under five years of age, Afghanistan ranks among the most destitute, war-weary countries in the world, according to figures released today by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). "In a statement issued in New York, the agency said 70 per cent of the Afghan population was estimated to be under-nourished, and only 13 per cent have access to improved water sources. "‘In most aspects, Afghanistan is worse off than almost any country in the world,' said Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Director of UNDP's Human Development Report Office. ‘The country's social and economic indicators are comparable, or lower, than the indicators for sub-Saharan Africa.' "Among 187 countries, only seven have lower life expectancy than Afghanistan, including Sierra Leone and Zambia - countries ravaged by HIV/AIDS or armed conflict, UNDP said. One of every four children born alive in Afghanistan will not survive until their fifth birthday. Only three of the 191 countries surveyed have higher levels of mortality for children under five years: Angola, Niger and Sierra Leone. "Nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) of Afghani adults are illiterate, almost 15 per cent higher than the average level for least developed countries. Only five countries out of 171 surveyed have lower literacy rates than Afghanistan. "With less than one-third of children enrolled in schools in 1999, Afghanistan lags catastrophically behind other countries and regions. Only 14 of 172 countries surveyed have lower school enrolment than Afghanistan, which is the only country in the world that prohibits girls from attending school. "Due to a lack of available estimates of income per capita, Afghanistan has not appeared since 1996 in UNDP's Human Development Index, which is based on indicators for health, education and income. It then ranked as number 169 of a total of 174 countries." |