Vengeance and rationality

Arundhati Roy

                                   The algebra of infinite justice

                                   As the US prepares to wage a new kind

of war, Arundhati

                                   Roy challenges the instinct for

vengance

                                   Arundhati Roy

                                   Guardian

                                   Saturday September 29, 2001

                                   In the aftermath of the

unconscionable September 11 suicide

                                   attacks on the Pentagon and the World

Trade Centre, an

                                   American newscaster said: "Good and

evil rarely manifest

                                   themselves as clearly as they did

last Tuesday. People who we

                                   don't know massacred people who we

do. And they did so with

                                   contemptuous glee." Then he broke

down and wept.

                                   Here's the rub: America is at war

against people it doesn't know,

                                   because they don't appear much on TV.

Before it has properly

                                   identified or even begun to

comprehend the nature of its enemy,

                                   the US government has, in a rush of

publicity and embarrassing

                                   rhetoric, cobbled together an

"international coalition against

                                   terror", mobilised its army, its air

force, its navy and its media,

                                   and committed them to battle.

                                   The trouble is that once Amer ica

goes off to war, it can't very

                                   well return without having fought

one. If it doesn't find its enemy,

                                   for the sake of the enraged folks

back home, it will have to

                                   manufacture one. Once war begins, it

will develop a momentum,

                                   a logic and a justification of its

own, and we'll lose sight of why

                                   it's being fought in the first place.

                                   What we're witnessing here is the

spectacle of the world's most

                                   powerful country reaching

reflexively, angrily, for an old instinct

                                   to fight a new kind of war. Suddenly,

when it comes to defending

                                   itself, America's streamlined

warships, cruise missiles and F-16

                                   jets look like obsolete, lumbering

things. As deterrence, its

                                   arsenal of nuclear bombs is no longer

worth its weight in scrap.

                                   Box-cutters, penknives, and cold

anger are the weapons with

                                   which the wars of the new century

will be waged. Anger is the

                                   lock pick. It slips through customs

unnoticed. Doesn't show up

                                   in baggage checks.

                                   Who is America fighting? On September

20, the FBI said that it

                                   had doubts about the identities of

some of the hijackers. On the

                                   same day President George Bush said,

"We know exactly who

                                   these people are and which

governments are supporting them."

                                   It sounds as though the president

knows something that the FBI

                                   and the American public don't.

                                   In his September 20 address to the US

Congress, President

                                   Bush called the enemies of America

"enemies of freedom".

                                   "Americans are asking, 'Why do they

hate us?' " he said. "They

                                   hate our freedoms - our freedom of

religion, our freedom of

                                   speech, our freedom to vote and

assemble and disagree with

                                   each other." People are being asked

to make two leaps of faith

                                   here. First, to assume that The Enemy

is who the US

                                   government says it is, even though it

has no substantial

                                   evidence to support that claim. And

second, to assume that The

                                   Enemy's motives are what the US

government says they are,

                                   and there's nothing to support that

either.

                                   For strategic, military and economic

reasons, it is vital for the

                                   US government to persuade its public

that their commitment to

                                   freedom and democracy and the

American Way of Life is under

                                   attack. In the current atmosphere of

grief, outrage and anger, it's

                                   an easy notion to peddle. However, if

that were true, it's

                                   reasonable to wonder why the symbols

of America's economic

                                   and military dominance - the World

Trade Centre and the

                                   Pentagon - were chosen as the targets

of the attacks. Why not

                                   the Statue of Liberty? Could it be

that the stygian anger that led

                                   to the attacks has its taproot not in

American freedom and

                                   democracy, but in the US government's

record of commitment

                                   and support to exactly the opposite

things - to military and

                                   economic terrorism, insurgency,

military dictatorship, religious

                                   bigotry and unimaginable genocide

(outside America)? It must

                                   be hard for ordinary Americans, so

recently bereaved, to look up

                                   at the world with their eyes full of

tears and encounter what

                                   might appear to them to be

indifference. It isn't indifference. It's

                                   just augury. An absence of surprise.

The tired wisdom of

                                   knowing that what goes around

eventually comes around.

                                   American people ought to know that it

is not them but their

                                   government's policies that are so

hated. They can't possibly

                                   doubt that they themselves, their

extraordinary musicians, their

                                   writers, their actors, their

spectacular sportsmen and their

                                   cinema, are universally welcomed. All

of us have been moved by

                                   the courage and grace shown by

firefighters, rescue workers and

                                   ordinary office staff in the days

since the attacks.

                                   America's grief at what happened has

been immense and

                                   immensely public. It would be

grotesque to expect it to calibrate

                                   or modulate its anguish. However, it

will be a pity if, instead of

                                   using this as an opportunity to try

to understand why September

                                   11 happened, Americans use it as an

opportunity to usurp the

                                   whole world's sorrow to mourn and

avenge only their own.

                                   Because then it falls to the rest of

us to ask the hard questions

                                   and say the harsh things. And for our

pains, for our bad timing,

                                   we will be disliked, ignored and

perhaps eventually silenced.

                                   The world will probably never know

what motivated those

                                   particular hijackers who flew planes

into those particular

                                   American buildings. They were not

glory boys. They left no

                                   suicide notes, no political messages;

no organisation has

                                   claimed credit for the attacks. All

we know is that their belief in

                                   what they were doing outstripped the

natural human instinct for

                                   survival, or any desire to be

remembered. It's almost as though

                                   they could not scale down the

enormity of their rage to anything

                                   smaller than their deeds. And what

they did has blown a hole in

                                   the world as we knew it. In the

absence of information,

                                   politicians, political commentators

and writers (like myself) will

                                   invest the act with their own

politics, with their own

                                   interpretations. This speculation,

this analysis of the political

                                   climate in which the attacks took

place, can only be a good

                                   thing.

                                   But war is looming large. Whatever

remains to be said must be

                                   said quickly. Before America places

itself at the helm of the

                                   "international coalition against

terror", before it invites (and

                                   coerces) countries to actively

participate in its almost godlike

                                   mission - called Operation Infinite

Justice until it was pointed out

                                   that this could be seen as an insult

to Muslims, who believe that

                                   only Allah can mete out infinite

justice, and was renamed

                                   Operation Enduring Freedom- it would

help if some small

                                   clarifications are made. For example,

Infinite Justice/Enduring

                                   Freedom for whom? Is this America's

war against terror in

                                   America or against terror in general?

What exactly is being

                                   avenged here? Is it the tragic loss

of almost 7,000 lives, the

                                   gutting of five million square feet

of office space in Manhattan,

                                   the destruction of a section of the

Pentagon, the loss of several

                                   hundreds of thousands of jobs, the

bankruptcy of some airline

                                   companies and the dip in the New York

Stock Exchange? Or is

                                   it more than that? In 1996, Madeleine

Albright, then the US

                                   secretary of state, was asked on

national television what she felt

                                   about the fact that 500,000 Iraqi

children had died as a result of

                                   US economic sanctions. She replied

that it was "a very hard

                                   choice", but that, all things

considered, "we think the price is

                                   worth it". Albright never lost her

job for saying this. She

                                   continued to travel the world

representing the views and

                                   aspirations of the US government.

More pertinently, the

                                   sanctions against Iraq remain in

place. Children continue to die.

                                   So here we have it. The equivocating

distinction between

                                   civilisation and savagery, between

the "massacre of innocent

                                   people" or, if you like, "a clash of

civilisations" and "collateral

                                   damage". The sophistry and fastidious

algebra of infinite justice.

                                   How many dead Iraqis will it take to

make the world a better

                                   place? How many dead Afghans for

every dead American? How

                                   many dead women and children for

every dead man? How many

                                   dead mojahedin for each dead

investment banker? As we watch

                                   mesmerised, Operation Enduring

Freedom unfolds on TV

                                   monitors across the world. A

coalition of the world's

                                   superpowers is closing in on

Afghanistan, one of the poorest,

                                   most ravaged, war-torn countries in

the world, whose ruling

                                   Taliban government is sheltering

Osama bin Laden, the man

                                   being held responsible for the

September 11 attacks.

                                   The only thing in Afghanistan that

could possibly count as

                                   collateral value is its citizenry.

(Among them, half a million

                                   maimed orphans.There are accounts of

hobbling stampedes that

                                   occur when artificial limbs are

airdropped into remote,

                                   inaccessible villages.) Afghanistan's

economy is in a shambles.

                                   In fact, the problem for an invading

army is that Afghanistan has

                                   no conventional coordinates or

signposts to plot on a military

                                   map - no big cities, no highways, no

industrial complexes, no

                                   water treatment plants. Farms have

been turned into mass

                                   graves. The countryside is littered

with land mines - 10 million is

                                   the most recent estimate. The

American army would first have

                                   to clear the mines and build roads in

order to take its soldiers in.

                                   Fearing an attack from America, one

million citizens have fled

                                   from their homes and arrived at the

border between Pakistan and

                                   Afghanistan. The UN estimates that

there are eight million

                                   Afghan citizens who need emergency

aid. As supplies run out -

                                   food and aid agencies have been asked

to leave - the BBC

                                   reports that one of the worst

humanitarian disasters of recent

                                   times has begun to unfold. Witness

the infinite justice of the

                                   new century. Civilians starving to

death while they're waiting to

                                   be killed.

                                   In America there has been rough talk

of "bombing Afghanistan

                                   back to the stone age". Someone

please break the news that

                                   Afghanistan is already there. And if

it's any consolation,

                                   America played no small part in

helping it on its way. The

                                   American people may be a little fuzzy

about where exactly

                                   Afghanistan is (we hear reports that

there's a run on maps of the

                                   country), but the US government and

Afghanistan are old

                                   friends.

                                   In 1979, after the Soviet invasion of

Afghanistan, the CIA and

                                   Pakistan's ISI (Inter Services

Intelligence) launched the largest

                                   covert operation in the history of

the CIA. Their purpose was to

                                   harness the energy of Afghan

resistance to the Soviets and

                                   expand it into a holy war, an Islamic

jihad, which would turn

                                   Muslim countries within the Soviet

Union against the communist

                                   regime and eventually destabilise it.

When it began, it was

                                   meant to be the Soviet Union's

Vietnam. It turned out to be

                                   much more than that. Over the years,

through the ISI, the CIA

                                   funded and recruited almost 100,000

radical mojahedin from 40

                                   Islamic countries as soldiers for

America's proxy war. The rank

                                   and file of the mojahedin were

unaware that their jihad was

                                   actually being fought on behalf of

Uncle Sam. (The irony is that

                                   America was equally unaware that it

was financing a future war

                                   against itself.)

                                   In 1989, after being bloodied by 10

years of relentless conflict,

                                   the Russians withdrew, leaving behind

a civilisation reduced to

                                   rubble.

                                   Civil war in Afghanistan raged on.

The jihad spread to Chechnya,

                                   Kosovo and eventually to Kashmir. The

CIA continued to pour in

                                   money and military equipment, but the

overheads had become

                                   immense, and more money was needed.

The mojahedin ordered

                                   farmers to plant opium as a

"revolutionary tax". The ISI set up

                                   hundreds of heroin laboratories

across Afghanistan. Within two

                                   years of the CIA's arrival, the

Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland

                                   had become the biggest producer of

heroin in the world, and the

                                   single biggest source of the heroin

on American streets. The

                                   annual profits, said to be between

$100bn and $200bn, were

                                   ploughed back into training and

arming militants.

                                   In 1995, the Taliban - then a

marginal sect of dangerous,

                                   hardline fundamentalists - fought its

way to power in

                                   Afghanistan. It was funded by the

ISI, that old cohort of the CIA,

                                   and supported by many political

parties in Pakistan. The Taliban

                                   unleashed a regime of terror. Its

first victims were its own

                                   people, particularly women. It closed

down girls' schools,

                                   dismissed women from government jobs,

and enforced sharia

                                   laws under which women deemed to be

"immoral" are stoned to

                                   death, and widows guilty of being

adulterous are buried alive.

                                   Given the Taliban government's human

rights track record, it

                                   seems unlikely that it will in any

way be intimidated or swerved

                                   from its purpose by the prospect of

war, or the threat to the lives

                                   of its civilians.

                                   After all that has happened, can

there be anything more ironic

                                   than Russia and America joining hands

to re-destroy

                                   Afghanistan? The question is, can you

destroy destruction?

                                   Dropping more bombs on Afghanistan

will only shuffle the

                                   rubble, scramble some old graves and

disturb the dead.

                                   The desolate landscape of Afghanistan

was the burial ground of

                                   Soviet communism and the springboard

of a unipolar world

                                   dominated by America. It made the

space for neocapitalism and

                                   corporate globalisation, again

dominated by America. And now

                                   Afghanistan is poised to become the

graveyard for the unlikely

                                   soldiers who fought and won this war

for America.

                                   And what of America's trusted ally?

Pakistan too has suffered

                                   enormously. The US government has not

been shy of supporting

                                   military dictators who have blocked

the idea of democracy from

                                   taking root in the country. Before

the CIA arrived, there was a

                                   small rural market for opium in

Pakistan. Between 1979 and

                                   1985, the number of heroin addicts

grew from zero to

                                   one-and-a-half million. Even before

September 11, there were

                                   three million Afghan refugees living

in tented camps along the

                                   border. Pakistan's economy is

crumbling. Sectarian violence,

                                   globalisation's structural adjustment

programmes and drug lords

                                   are tearing the country to pieces.

Set up to fight the Soviets, the

                                   terrorist training centres and

madrasahs, sown like dragon's

                                   teeth across the country, produced

fundamentalists with

                                   tremendous popular appeal within

Pakistan itself. The Taliban,

                                   which the Pakistan government has sup

ported, funded and

                                   propped up for years, has material

and strategic alliances with

                                   Pakistan's own political parties.

                                   Now the US government is asking

(asking?) Pakistan to garotte

                                   the pet it has hand-reared in its

backyard for so many years.

                                   President Musharraf, having pledged

his support to the US,

                                   could well find he has something

resembling civil war on his

                                   hands.

                                   India, thanks in part to its

geography, and in part to the vision of

                                   its former leaders, has so far been

fortunate enough to be left

                                   out of this Great Game. Had it been

drawn in, it's more than

                                   likely that our democracy, such as it

is, would not have survived.

                                   Today, as some of us watch in horror,

the Indian government is

                                   furiously gyrating its hips, begging

the US to set up its base in

                                   India rather than Pakistan. Having

had this ringside view of

                                   Pakistan's sordid fate, it isn't just

odd, it's unthinkable, that India

                                   should want to do this. Any third

world country with a fragile

                                   economy and a complex social base

should know by now that

                                   to invite a superpower such as

America in (whether it says it's

                                   staying or just passing through)

would be like inviting a brick to

                                   drop through your windscreen.

                                   Operation Enduring Freedom is

ostensibly being fought to

                                   uphold the American Way of Life.

It'll probably end up

                                   undermining it completely. It will

spawn more anger and more

                                   terror across the world. For ordinary

people in America, it will

                                   mean lives lived in a climate of

sickening uncertainty: will my

                                   child be safe in school? Will there

be nerve gas in the subway?

                                   A bomb in the cinema hall? Will my

love come home tonight?

                                   There have been warnings about the

possibility of biological

                                   warfare - smallpox, bubonic plague,

anthrax - the deadly payload

                                   of innocuous crop-duster aircraft.

Being picked off a few at a

                                   time may end up being worse than

being annihilated all at once

                                   by a nuclear bomb.

                                   The US government, and no doubt

governments all over the

                                   world, will use the climate of war as

an excuse to curtail civil

                                   liberties, deny free speech, lay off

workers, harass ethnic and

                                   religious minorities, cut back on

public spending and divert huge

                                   amounts of money to the defence

industry. To what purpose?

                                   President Bush can no more "rid the

world of evil-doers" than he

                                   can stock it with saints. It's absurd

for the US government to

                                   even toy with the notion that it can

stamp out terrorism with

                                   more violence and oppression.

Terrorism is the symptom, not

                                   the disease. Terrorism has no

country. It's transnational, as

                                   global an enterprise as Coke or Pepsi

or Nike. At the first sign of

                                   trouble, terrorists can pull up

stakes and move their "factories"

                                   from country to country in search of

a better deal. Just like the

                                   multi-nationals.

                                   Terrorism as a phenomenon may never

go away. But if it is to be

                                   contained, the first step is for

America to at least acknowledge

                                   that it shares the planet with other

nations, with other human

                                   beings who, even if they are not on

TV, have loves and griefs and

                                   stories and songs and sorrows and,

for heaven's sake, rights.

                                   Instead, when Donald Rumsfeld, the US

defence secretary, was

                                   asked what he would call a victory in

America's new war, he

                                   said that if he could convince the

world that Americans must be

                                   allowed to continue with their way of

life, he would consider it a

                                   victory.

                                   The September 11 attacks were a

monstrous calling card from a

                                   world gone horribly wrong. The

message may have been written

                                   by Bin Laden (who knows?) and

delivered by his couriers, but it

                                   could well have been signed by the

ghosts of the victims of

                                   America's old wars. The millions

killed in Korea, Vietnam and

                                   Cambodia, the 17,500 killed when

Israel - backed by the US -

                                   invaded Lebanon in 1982, the 200,000

Iraqis killed in Operation

                                   Desert Storm, the thousands of

Palestinians who have died

                                   fighting Israel's occupation of the

West Bank. And the millions

                                   who died, in Yugoslavia, Somalia,

Haiti, Chile, Nicaragua, El

                                   Salvador, the Dominican Republic,

Panama, at the hands of all

                                   the terrorists, dictators and

genocidists whom the American

                                   government supported, trained,

bankrolled and supplied with

                                   arms. And this is far from being a

comprehensive list.

                                   For a country involved in so much

warfare and conflict, the

                                   American people have been extremely

fortunate. The strikes on

                                   September 11 were only the second on

American soil in over a

                                   century. The first was Pearl Harbour.

The reprisal for this took a

                                   long route, but ended with Hiroshima

and Nagasaki. This time

                                   the world waits with bated breath for

the horrors to come.

                                   Someone recently said that if Osama

bin Laden didn't exist,

                                   America would have had to invent him.

But, in a way, America

                                   did invent him. He was among the

jihadis who moved to

                                   Afghanistan in 1979 when the CIA

commenced its operations

                                   there. Bin Laden has the distinction

of being created by the CIA

                                   and wanted by the FBI. In the course

of a fortnight he has been

                                   promoted from suspect to prime

suspect and then, despite the

                                   lack of any real evidence, straight

up the charts to being

                                   "wanted dead or alive".

                                   From all accounts, it will be

impossible to produce evidence (of

                                   the sort that would stand scrutiny in

a court of law) to link Bin

                                   Laden to the September 11 attacks. So

far, it appears that the

                                   most incriminating piece of evidence

against him is the fact that

                                   he has not condemned them.

                                   From what is known about the location

of Bin Laden and the

                                   living conditions in which he

operates, it's entirely possible that

                                   he did not personally plan and carry

out the attacks - that he is

                                   the inspirational figure, "the CEO of

the holding company". The

                                   Taliban's response to US demands for

the extradition of Bin

                                   Laden has been uncharacteristically

reasonable: produce the

                                   evidence, then we'll hand him over.

President Bush's response is

                                   that the demand is "non-negotiable".

                                   (While talks are on for the

extradition of CEOs - can India put in

                                   a side request for the extradition of

Warren Anderson of the US?

                                   He was the chairman of Union Carbide,

responsible for the

                                   Bhopal gas leak that killed 16,000

people in 1984. We have

                                   collated the necessary evidence. It's

all in the files. Could we

                                   have him, please?)

                                   But who is Osama bin Laden really?

Let me rephrase that. What

                                   is Osama bin Laden? He's America's

family secret. He is the

                                   American president's dark

doppelgänger. The savage twin of all

                                   that purports to be beautiful and

civilised. He has been sculpted

                                   from the spare rib of a world laid to

waste by America's foreign

                                   policy: its gunboat diplomacy, its

nuclear arsenal, its vulgarly

                                   stated policy of "full-spectrum

dominance", its chilling disregard

                                   for non-American lives, its barbarous

military interventions, its

                                   support for despotic and dictatorial

regimes, its merciless

                                   economic agenda that has munched

through the economies of

                                   poor countries like a cloud of

locusts. Its marauding

                                   multinationals who are taking over

the air we breathe, the ground

                                   we stand on, the water we drink, the

thoughts we think. Now

                                   that the family secret has been

spilled, the twins are blurring

                                   into one another and gradually

becoming interchangeable. Their

                                   guns, bombs, money and drugs have

been going around in the

                                   loop for a while. (The Stinger

missiles that will greet US

                                   helicopters were supplied by the CIA.

The heroin used by

                                   America's drug addicts comes from

Afghanistan. The Bush

                                   administration recently gave

Afghanistan a $43m subsidy for a

                                   "war on drugs"....)

                                   Now Bush and Bin Laden have even

begun to borrow each

                                   other's rhetoric. Each refers to the

other as "the head of the

                                   snake". Both invoke God and use the

loose millenarian currency

                                   of good and evil as their terms of

reference. Both are engaged in

                                   unequivocal political crimes. Both

are dangerously armed - one

                                   with the nuclear arsenal of the

obscenely powerful, the other

                                   with the incandescent, destructive

power of the utterly hopeless.

                                   The fireball and the ice pick. The

bludgeon and the axe. The

                                   important thing to keep in mind is

that neither is an acceptable

                                   alternative to the other.

                                   President Bush's ultimatum to the

people of the world - "If you're

                                   not with us, you're against us" - is

a piece of presumptuous

                                   arrogance. It's not a choice that

people want to, need to, or

                                   should have to make.

                                   © Arundhati Roy 2001

                                Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers

Limited 2001