The Hindu : Alienating anti-terror allies

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 05, 2002

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Alienating anti-terror allies

THE HUMANITARIAN TRAGEDY which the U.S. seems unable to control during its ongoing military campaign against the rump elements of the Al-Qaeda inside Afghanistan cannot be explained away. At least 40 Afghan civilians are reported to have been killed and 70 others injured as a result of a new tragic episode at this point. The push-button culture of America's satellite-guided warfare is said to be technologically advanced, but the "smart weapons" have not always hit the right targets. Washington has, of course, characterised the several episodes of civilian deaths in its "novel war" against the Taliban-Al-Qaeda terrorist cartel as "collateral damage". Since October 7 last year, when the U.S. launched military raids against the "terrorist infrastructure" in Afghanistan, many civilian deaths have occurred on account of America's actions. However, an authentic estimate of the killings has not been made. One of the factors behind such a rudimentary lapse can be traced to the nature of America's high-tech military drive itself — the growing impersonalisation, even de-humanisation, of the remote-controlled war itself. This dimension of America's experiment with the techniques of `post-modern' warfare cannot, however, exonerate the Bush administration of its responsibility, even culpability, regarding the deaths of ordinary Afghans as distinct from the terrorists and their patrons. Several persons as also the materials belonging to America's allies in the campaign against terror, be they state actors or international humanitarian organisations, have also come under fire from Washington's warriors. It is against this background that the U.S. must quickly identify the circumstances of the latest tragic episode.

The transitional government in Kabul seems convinced that the U.S. is to blame for callous negligence that killed at least 40 ordinary Afghan civilians in the latest manifestation of "collateral damage". Washington is reluctant to accept the blame and expose itself to any kind of international scrutiny on this score. This explains the inordinate delay in the efforts by the U.S. military authorities to determine the sequence of events that led to the latest humanitarian fiasco. On one occasion earlier, Washington had rejected the claims by Afghan officials that an American military pilot had caused the deaths of some ordinary people in a case of mistaken identity. The traditional but "celebratory" use of small arms by a few Afghans during a wedding ceremony was said to have been misconstrued as an attempt, even if only an amateurish one, at damaging a U.S. combat aircraft. Even now, similar accusations are being hurled at the Americans who, in turn, have not entirely ruled out the possibility of blaming an errant "smart bomb" — a precision-guided warhead that might have gone astray from a B-52 bomber.

America's deep sense of discomfort has been accentuated by the fact that the latest criticism has come from an Afghan Government that is headed by Hamid Karzai, who is widely recognised as a U.S. "protege". Afghanistan, a fractious and multi-ethnic society, is at present engaged in a delicate exercise to democratise itself by shedding its image and habits of a failed state. Now, even as Afghanistan tries to move away from its more recent moorings as a sanctuary for international terrorists, the diverse ethnic communities within Afghan society are beginning to reassert their traditional spirit of unfettered thinking and of political independence. It is this aspect that accounts for the severe criticism of the U.S. that the present Kabul regime, a U.N.-guided dispensation, has resorted to. America's task, therefore, is quite clearly cut out. Although the U.S. faces no significant opposition from any section of the international community, Washington has the moral responsibility to ensure that its hunt down of the Taliban-Al-Qaeda remnants does not trample upon the fundamental rights as also the basic dignity of the ordinary Afghan people.

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