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"WW III? No thanks...!" On-Line Library

What is an appropropriate response?
Political and philosophical considerations after the attack on the Word Trade Center

They opted to bomb, it had better work

Simon Jenkins
October 10 2001

So it must be done the old way after all.

The faces of BritainÕs rulers on Monday night said it all. They had lost 
the argument. Sitting in Parliament they looked haggard and wretched. Tony
Blair thumped on yet again about Osama bin Laden being a fiend and a 
monster. Everyone chanted that bombing should be "proportionate, measured,
targeted", knowing that this was beyond their control. Clare ShortÕs face 
was a picture of misery. She must now excuse the civilian deaths, the 
laying of cluster mines, the airborne terror for which she is responsible 
as a War Cabinet member. How skin-deep is humanity when the guns begin to 
fire. Whenever Americans start bombing, Britons dive under a blanket of 
Churchillian waffle.

Britain is not at war at present, any more than it was at war during the 
IRA bombing of London or after bin LadenÕs previous attack on New YorkÕs 
World Trade Centre. To describe what should be a relentless campaign 
against criminal terror as war is metaphor abuse. By hurling resources and
media attention at some distant theatre, it deflects effort from the 
domestic front. It also insults those who fought and died in real wars, 
when territory was threatened and states were at risk.

For the past three weeks, the case against bombing was marshalled in every
capital in the world. It was advanced in Washington itself by Colin Powell 
and Condoleezza Rice. Tony BlairÕs every waking hour was devoted to it. 
His round-the-clock diplomacy was to build up the case for "cunning not 
killing", not in the Middle East but in Washington. He was sincere but 
eventually he lost.

We need hardly repeat the argument. For the West to extract bin Laden from
his lair before winter is near impossible. While his networks and cash 
could and should be choked, regional diplomacy should use every 
conceivable means to get others to extract him. The heat should be put on 
every ally. All back-channels and bribes should be activated. September 11
had yielded an unprecedented "coalition of the willing" across the Middle 
East. Give it time to work, not just three weeks. Do not give up when the 
Taleban are showing some sign of wobbling if not collapsing.

Above all, the argument said, do not bomb. Do not raise expectations of 
military success. Bombing would not deter a new atrocity, only make it 
more likely. Bombing would achieve little in a land of hand-to-hand combat.
It would kill civilians and risk the security of cross-border platforms 
for special forces. It would turn hesitant new friends into sullen old 
enemies.

Round every table the argument raged, with Britain on the side of common 
sense. But once the bombers were in place, there was a dreadful 
inevitability to the outcome. As in Iraq, air forces can play all the best
overtures to war. They promise to kick butt and whup ass. They would avenge
America for the World Trade Centre. They would have the tabloids purring, 
speech-writers drooling and liberals trapped by their vitals. As for 
consequence, that was for politicians and wimps.

There is a fond belief in Downing Street that Britain has "influence" in 
Washington. It does not. Britain has the leverage of a comfort blanket. 
Now that sophistication has lost out in Washington, Britain must toe the 
line like an obedient junior. Indeed to prove its loyalty, it must bomb 
first. So much for influence.

In his desperate speech on Monday, Mr Blair played a cheap card. He 
depicted opponents of the bombing as being soft on bin Laden and the 
Taleban. Was he not an opponent himself just a week ago? Like the 
tongue-tied, fencesitting religious leaders who met him that day in 
Downing Street, he merely demonstrates BritainÕs subservience to America. 
How can Britain ever hope to join a panEuropean foreign policy on this 
performance? Those who disagree with Mr Blair are not on the side of bin 
Laden and the Taleban. They disagree over means, not ends. Britain is now 
committed to bombing Afghanistan to the next stage of the war, an obscure 
destination. In comparison, the bombing of Beirut, Tripoli, Baghdad, 
Mogadishu and Belgrade seem shrewd and calculated. Some pundits are 
explaining that the bombs will enable a special forces base to be set up 
to capture bin Laden. How rearranging the rubble of suburban Kabul 
achieves this is a mystery.

If I were special forces, I would be far more worried if the bombing led 
to a withdrawal of logistical support by neighbouring states. I would be 
alarmed at the mission creep which already has the Americans requesting an
extended war against other states in the region. I would want no return of 
the old CNN ritual of whooshing rockets, screaming rioters and wailing 
women. I would be appalled at Donald Rumsfeld mimicking MoscowÕs boast, 
that we can "forget about exit strategies; we are looking at a sustained 
engagement". When American Defence Secretaries ignore exit strategies we 
can bet the exit will be fast.

The bombing is not military but political. It is revenge, no less 
ferocious for being postponed. It will probably freeze the Taleban in 
their hold on power as long as it lasts, as is usual with bombed regimes. 
Nor is global terror deterred by such onslaughts, least of all the new 
suicidal terror. Bruce Hoffman of St Andrews University, in his recent and
prescient Inside Terrorism, cites the conclusion of a 1996 US government 
paper, that neither sanctions nor military action had ever had an effect 
against state-sponsored terrorism, except to be counter-productive. The 
growth of religious fanaticism and chemical weapons, he said, renders this
policy failure extremely dangerous.

In retrospect, the lack of follow-up to the 1993 New York bombing, given 
the evidence revealed at the trial, was criminal negligence on the part of
Western Intelligence. So too was the refusal of later Sudanese help against
bin Laden. Yet somehow a thundering blitz of Kabul atones for these 
mistakes.

For a moment this past month, we saw a new wisdom. Washington seemed to 
realise that the Muslim world resented its decades of mistreatment. A 
moment for possible rapprochement was at hand. The horror of September 11 
meant that East might join West in one humanitarian cause. When Mr Blair 
has not been on helium, he too seemed to glimpse that new dawn. He surely 
cannot see it now.

The past fortnight has been a battle of new guard against old. Those who 
wanted to concentrate on counter-terrorism, covert operations and "
coercive diplomacy" and who protested that bombing would endanger their 
work, have lost. Those who wanted a reprise of Baghdad and Belgrade, who 
wanted to play to the gallery with things that go bang on television, have
won. The old guard have triumphed. They must now deliver, as must those who
kowtowed to them.

The Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, must show how his Tomahawks will really
help to find bin Laden. He must bond with the bandits of the Northern 
Alliance as his predecessor, George Robertson, bonded with the Kosovo 
Liberation Army. Mr Blair must explain how firing missiles at empty 
hillsides will enhance his world congregation of virtue. Jack Straw must 
construct a puppet regime in Kabul more secure than that left by the 
Soviet Union. They must all explain how they will prop up a new regime 
indefinitely, or risk losing the "war" all over again.

From these people we want no nonsense about precision weapons and surgical
strikes. Bombs miss targets. Only infantry can shoot straight. We want no 
weasel words about "no quarrel with the Afghans". We want no fake dismay 
at a surge of anti-American riots, at British contracts cancelled, 
hostages taken and lives put at risk. This is the course on which the 
Government is set. When it bombs people, the innocent get hurt and the 
rest get angry.

Aerial bombardment is never proportionate, measured or targeted. It 
evolves a logic of its own, an escalation of horror similar to that 
unleashed by the terrorist. Like all distant and indiscriminate violence, 
it breeds a violent response. It is the dumbest weapon of war.

At present the bombing is likely to increase anti-Western hysteria in the 
Middle East and dissolve Mr BlairÕs coalition. We can only hope that it at
least installs "our" villains in Kabul, and one day captures bin Laden. It 
had better.

Source:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,256-2001352195,00.html