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- President Truman, August (1945)
There is, however, a concern for the ordinary - and innocent - "civilian" Afgan, who is seen not a part of the strategic games played by the ruling Taliban (as an offside: this is a comforting imagery for the Western world, and has its roots in an cultural assumption that consumption and comfort is more important than threat of death; that not getting killed is a more noble value than dying for a cause; that collective fabric of a society is alienated from the individual aspirations of its people). In any case, the Western allies are at pains to convince the world (that is, each other, since rest of the world does not seem to be so convinced) that the attack will be targetted and not directed at any civilian establishment. The reality, however, is that in any war, people die - not just those who are fighting the war, but also those who just happened to be there, by force of historical and geographical circumstances of their birth. In the last decade, we have seen two other wars - in Gulf and in Kosovo - and this concern for civilian casualities has always been on the forefront. The record of "collateral damages", however, has been far from comforting so far (in spite of the media projections to the contrary).
During the Gulf War, President George W Bush, Sr, is on record to make this statement:
In the post-Gulf War scenario, the sanctions on Iraq have caused more deaths (estimated around 500,000 accroding to a UN report) due to malnutrition, starvation, nuclear exposure from the uranium depleted bombs, land mines, etc. Kosovo In 1999, between March 24 and June 10, NATO (again, mainly US and British forces) waged another war against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in Kosovo, to free the people from the rule of President Milosevic.... ...(this was, incidentally, just after 3-4 years, when the then US Envoy to Yugoslavia, Richard Holbrooke, had described President Milosevic as "a man we can do business with, a man who recognises the realities of life in former Yugoslavia", and the US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had described The Kosovo Liberation Army - to whose rescue NATO had fought this war - as "no more than terrorists")... During these 72 days of bombing, NATO conducted more than 10,000 sorties, dropped 7000 tons of explosives (including depleted uranium bombs and cluster bombs), and destroyed among other things:
In one of the press briefings, Rear Adm. Thomas Wilson, Joint Staff Director for Intelligence (US Army) said:
Correspondingly, by end of May 1999:
...and now, Afganistan Naturally, this kind of war raised a few eyebrows around the world at that time. So this time, US and UK leaders are going all out to to emphasise that the strike will be "targetted", "swift" and not involving any "collataral damages". US has even granted a package of $320mn for humanitarian aid for the refugees (The annual defense budget of US is $360bn!!!). All such gestures are even more important, because last time in 1998, when US had fired missiles against terrorists in Sudan, it had ended up targeting and destroying a medicine factory, which had contracts from UN!!! In addition, this time, unlike in Kosovo and Gulf, NATO has a UN Resolution to back its actions - and the large diplomatic international coalition (which includes countries ranging from Indonesia to Russia, Israel to Pakistan), which backs its attacks. The previous two times, US/UK had not even bothered to move a consensus in the Security Council)... And this time NATO is definitely in luck. No one can blame them for "collatoral damages": there are hardly any bridges, roads, hospitals, collages and schools - even people (most have left) - in Afganistan. Even the buldings which were turned to ruins when Taliban took over have not been repaired... Taliban has already done in last 5 years, what NATO would have done in just 3 weeks... It is not surprising that the total casualities in the first day's attack - involving some 50 Tomahawk missiles - were just 30!!! Now why would a nation (or a coalition of nations) shower bombs and millions of dollar worth of high-tech weapons on the world's poorest and most ravaged country where there is not much to destroy, and not many to fight?... ...and that too, by an alliance led by a nation, which just 4 months back in May 2001, had offered $43mn aid to Afganistan? [for those ignorant about Afganistan, $43mn is a lot of money for a country with a GDP of $78mn!!] As Mir Tamim Ansary's article pointed out:
So why bomb a country, where even a collateral damage is not possible? There are no ready answers, just indications:
Tail Piece.... On April 19th, 1995, Timothy McVeigh, a decorated veteran of the Gulf War, blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The blast, executed with precision with a ferilizer bomb, left 168 people -including 19 children - dead. Timothy McVeigh was later arrested and convicted for the act. However, he defiantly justified it as retaliation for the U.S. government's actions against the members of a white seperatist movement at Waco and Ruby Ridge. In a famously chilling quote, McVeigh - who must have done well in his lessons in US foreign policy - admitted that the deaths of all those women and children was "a large amount of collateral damage".
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