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the new era of war 2001-03

just peace

 

Afghanistan

 

 

Martin Shaw's column

costs and consequences

the alternative to war 

decadence and airpower 31 October 2001

Operation Enduring Freedom: why a higher rate of civilian bombing casualties? Carl Conetta finds that the air campaign claimed 1000-1300 civilian lives directly, and over 5000 altogether - why was this higher than in the 1999 Balkans war? See also his Strange Victory: 'the unintended consequences of the war overshadowed the intended ones'.

counting the dead Marc W Herold, in a survey of counts including Conetta's, justifies higher estimates. See also global exchange's report.

law and the war on terrorism the Pentagon view

prisoners and justice US doesn't have the right to decide who is or isn't a PoW
Michael Byers: 'The Geneva convention makes it clear that it isn't for Rumsfeld to decide whether the detainees are ordinary criminal suspects rather than PoWs.'

violence, law and justice in the global age David Held: 'Kant was right; violent abrogation of law and justice in one place ricochets across the world. ... If the political, social and economic dimensions of justice are separated in the long term, the prospects of a peaceful and civil society will be bleak indeed.'

'who may we bomb?' Barry Buzan, promoter of the 'English School' of IR, argues that in Afghanistan, and more generally, those civilians who support the enemy 'and even in some circumstances, those who acquiesce, are legitimate targets.' Martin Shaw argues that this 'is quite disgraceful'.

Intellektuelle Reaktionen auf den 11. September: Versuch einer vorläufigen kritischen Eeinordnung Andreas Hess identifies four main positions on the spectrum of intellectual responses to the crisis

the meaning of September 11th for the Left Leo Panitch: 'no sense can be made of the appalling predicament that all humanity at the beginning of the 21st century now faces unless it is put in perspective of the rise of the global American capitalist empire and the defeat of progressive nationalism and revolutionary socialism.'

in defence of just war thinking Richard Falk: 'given the unexpectedly rapid collapse of the Taliban regime there seems, at least temporarily, to be a restored sense of proportionality between means and ends.'

kill Bin Laden US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, asked whether he wanted to see Bin Laden killed: "Oh, my goodness gracious, yes, after what he's done," Mr Rumsfeld said. "You bet your life."

Bin Laden should be brought to trial Richard Holbrooke: "I know most people would rather he be killed. I'd kinda prefer to deny him the martyr status of a heroic death. I would like to see him diminished by being brought into a witness chair and made to show what he's really like."

attacking the Pakhtuns A Haroon Akram-Lodhi: 'Within the logic of Pakhtun society, the US intervention will permit an intensification of factional violence. In a country that has been in a state of civil war since 1974, the capacity to deepen the spiral of violence means that the US response is the wrong one.'

Bush made a "terrible and irreversible" mistake in calling his anti-terrorism campaign a war. Sir Michael Howard: 'Many people would have preferred a police operation conducted under the auspices of the UN on behalf of the international community as a whole, against a criminal conspiracy, whose members should be hunted down and brought before an international court.'

defining a just war Richard Falk: 'The destruction of both the Taliban regime and the Al Qaeda network are appropriate goals. ... (But) the justice of the cause and of the limited ends will be negated by the injustice of improper means and excessive ends.'

the anti-terrorist coalition Robert M Cutler: 'Does the universal international endorsement of Washington's war on terrorism render irrelevant the Sino-Russian entente that has evolved over the past decade?'

General Wesley Clark: 'Soon after September 11, without surrendering our right of self defense, we should have helped the United Nations create an International Criminal Tribunal on International Terrorism. We could have taken advantage of the outpourings of shock, grief, and sympathy to forge a legal definition of terrorism and obtain the indictment of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban as war criminals charged with crimes against humanity. Had we done so, I believe we would have had greater legitimacy and won stronger support in the Islamic world. We could have used the increased legitimacy to raise pressure on Saudi Arabia and other Arab states to cut off fully the moral, religious, intellectual, and financial support to terrorism. We could have used such legitimacy to strengthen the international coalition against Saddam Hussein.'

Iraq: no wider war appraising the war against Afghanistan Richard Falk: 'Many of us who acknowledged the legitimacy of the Afghanistan War were careful to indicate that the rationale for war did not create a broader mandate. There was neither need nor justification for a wider war.'

testing patriotism and citizenship in the global terror war Richard Falk: 'Tribal patriotism is a powerful vaccine that immunizes the body politic against self-criticism. In a globalizing world there is another way that reconciles love of country with responsibility to humanity: cosmopolitan patriotism.'

morality and politics 

moralism, terrorism and war Andrew Chitty attacks Martin Shaw's 'fruitless counterposition of moral judgements' and suggests that anti-imperialist impulses pull 'towards a positive defence of the Taleban and Osama Bin Laden'.

a confession from the amoral left Martin Shaw argues Chitty's 'realpolitik shows how close some anti-war politics comes to sharing the general philosophy of its American Conservative enemies - with which it also shares specific positions like the rejection of international justice.' 

ten challenges to antiwar politics Martin Shaw: 'The problem with anti-war politics is precisely that it is mostly against the war rather than for justice.'

Islamism

accusations of ‘Western’ malevolence and ignorance Sandra Halperin: 'many who oppose "Western" democracy as "inauthentic" seem not to have similar concerns about systems of dictatorial rule which are envisioned by some Islamists'

'Islamism': a Muslim reacts to Sandra Halperin Julian Symes

the original Sussex open meeting on 911 and the 'war on terrorism'

17 October 2001

audio

The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alasdair Smith

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Avi Shlaim (Oxford)

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Isam Al-Khafaji (Amsterdam)

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Sandra Halperin post-Cold War political topography of the Middle East (text)

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Stephen Burman scope of American ambition 

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Martin Shaw justice for the victims of massacre and war

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Thanks to Media Services Unit and David Berry for help with recordings.

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'They have one hope: that we are decadent, that we lack the moral fibre or will or courage to take them on.' Tony Blair 30 October 2001

No one doubts the will of Mr Blair, or President Bush, to defeat al-Qaida and the Taliban, although many question if they really have a workable strategy to achieve these ends. But in referring to 'moral fibre' and 'courage' Blair has raised the stakes. His ends may resonate with principle: but the means stink. The reliance on bombing - which transfers virtually all risk from American and British armed forces to Afghan civilians - is precisely a sign of the decadence that Blair denies.

Bombing is squandering the moral capital of September 11 and no amount of speeches will reclaim it. It says to the world that the West does not stand for the 'warrior's honour', as Michael Ignatieff called it, and it allows the Islamists - despite the huge atrocity of 911 - to reclaim it at least in the minds of Muslims.

Bombing is the Anglo-American way of war, pioneered by Britain in the Second World War and the method of choice for the US ever since. Historically it was the epitome of degenerate war, incinerating civilians in their hundreds of thousands, breaching all moral limits on a huge scale.

True, today's bombing is precision-targeted. It no longer causes mass death on the scale of Dresden, Hiroshima or Vietnam. It may formally fit the requirements of just war. That is debatable, but is largely beside the point. Small accidental massacres - a village here, a house there, with the odd hospital ward and Red Cross store thrown in - are still obscene, when the bombers fly comfortably above the fray. And in today's TV wars they cause huge political damage.

Polly Toynbee argues that those who oppose the bombing are 'soft liberals' or anti-Americans who wash their hands of the plight of the Afghans under the Taliban. However many who share her desire to see Afghanistan free, and have by no means given up on America, doubt that airpower is an appropriate or effective means of achieving its liberation.

Toynbee sees 'hard liberals' who support the war as the ones who are engaging with the problems of terrorism and Taliban repression. However liberals (and socialists) need to be hard-headed, not hard-hearted. They should say clearly that calling the anti-terrorism campaign a war was a 'terrible and irreversible mistake', as Michael Howard (doyen of British military historians) puts it - echoing what this column has said for some time - and that better means were and are available. 

In Afghanistan the war is of course a reality. The American and British governments cannot afford just to switch it off, and there would be consequences for the Afghan people if they did. But if they wish to pose as saviours of the Afghans, they need to do a lot less bombing and a lot more saving. Saving freedom and lives, whether by expelling the Taliban or securing safe passage for relief, is what might just restore some credibility to this campaign. But it will require the Americans to come down from 15,000 feet and into the messy and dangerous realities of life and politics on the ground. 

m.shaw@sussex.ac.uk

ten challenges to 'anti-war' politics

earlier columns: challenges of liberation/13 November; decadence and airpower/31 October; blair and the limits of humanitarianism/1 October; the West is becoming responsible for the starving Afghan children/30 September; the third way/22 September; stop the cycle of slaughter/12 September

theoretical analysis: extended paper theorizing the 'war against terrorism': a regressive crystallization of global state power

speech to the Sussex meeting: justice for the victims of massacre and war

comment on the war and on the views you read on this site - email us your response