[R-G] Afghanistan, Six Years On: Thirteen Things You Should Know About Our “Good War”

[Anthony Fenton]

Afghanistan, Six Years On:
Thirteen Things You Should Know About Our “Good War”
by Gabriel Carlyle
	
October 05, 2007
Voices UK
http://www.voicesuk.org/

On 7 October 2001 US and British forces invaded Afghanistan, killing   
thousands of civilians. But following the Taliban's “defeat” in  
December 2001, Afghanistan dropped out of the media, and off the anti- 
war movement’s agenda.

Six years later, despite the mounting carnage, Afghanistan remains  
the establishment’s “good war” [i], which even The Independent cannot  
bring itself to oppose.[ii]

Here is some of the reality behind the spin.



1. War was not the only option in 2001.

The US and Britain chose to invade Afghanistan in spite of Taliban  
offers to extradite bin Laden[iii], and dire warnings from the  
international aid agencies regarding the likely humanitarian impact.



Over 2,000 civilians were killed directly by US/UK forces during the  
invasion itself.[iv] Indirect deaths - as the bombing disrupted vital  
aid supplies and forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes –  
were later estimated at between 10,000 - 20,000.[v]


2. Following the 2001 invasion, militias with horrific human rights  
records were 'brought to power with the assistance of the United  
States' (Human Rights Watch), and the political process was  
manipulated by the US in order to install a weak leader (Hamid  
Karzai), who was dependent upon foreign backing and the appeasement  
of these warlords.[vi]

In the 2004 Presidential elections voters in many rural areas were  
told by warlords and regional commanders how to vote[vii], while  
during the campaign period for the September 2005 parliamentary  
elections, Human Rights Watch ‘documented pervasive intimidation of  
voters and candidates, in particular women’.[viii]


Over half of the members of the Afghan parliament are linked to armed  
groups or have records of past human rights abuses.[ix]

3. Six years after the war to “liberate” them ‘[v]iolence against  
[Afghan] women remains endemic, with few avenues for redress’ (Human  
Rights Watch, World Report 2007).

A 2003 report by Amnesty International even noted that, ‘In some  
parts of Afghanistan, women have stated that the insecurity and the  
risk of sexual violence they face make their lives worse than during  
the Taliban era.’[x] Last year, Malalai Joya, a female MP, was  
physically attacked in parliament and threatened with death for  
criticising other members, notorious for their past and current human  
rights abuses.[xi]

4. Since 2001, torture and ill-treatment of detainees in US custody  
in Afghanistan is alleged to have included: sleep deprivation,  
stripping and forced nudity, stress positions, electric shocks,  
immersion in water, and cigarette burns.[xii]


Moreover, unlike their counterparts at Guantanamo those held at  
Bagram airbase have no access to lawyers and no right to hear the  
allegations against them.[xiii]

5. US/NATO bombing has killed hundreds – maybe thousands – of  
civilians since the start of 2006.

According to the UN mission in Afghanistan, more Afghan civilians  
died at the hands of US/NATO forces in the first six months of this  
year than were killed by the Taliban. [xiv]

Based on their own field research, the respected international policy  
think tank the Senlis Council, estimates that as many as 2-3,000  
Afghan civilians may have been killed by US/NATO air strikes in  
southern Afghanistan last year.[xv]

6. British forces have called in hundreds of airstrikes in recent  
months, killing dozens of civilians.

One such attack, this June, killed 25 civilians, including nine women  
and three young children.

The use of air power, and the human carnage it causes, is central to  
the occupation. As one NATO official explained: “[W]ithout air, we’d  
need hundreds of thousands of troops”.[xvi]

7. British forces have fired more than 2 million rounds in  
Afghanistan since the beginning of 2006.[xvii]

In late 2006 UK helicopter commanders in Afghanistan requested the  
acquisition of thermobaric warheads to improve the ‘effectiveness’ of  
their Hellfire missiles[xviii],  and British soldiers are being  
supplied with a shoulder-launched “enhanced blast weapon” based on  
thermobaric technology.

When used in confined spaces like buildings and caves, thermobaric  
weapons create a pressure wave which rips apart the internal organs  
of anyone caught inside.

8. US/NATO policies have caused a humanitarian crisis in southern  
Afghanistan.

Last December the Senlis Council reported that ‘famine’ was  
widespread in southern Afghanistan, ‘directly triggered by the  
international community‘s policies in the region’ – in particular,  
‘the devastation of Afghan villagers’ livelihoods by intense bombing  
campaigns and … poppy eradication.’[xix]

9. Aerial spraying of Afghanistan’s opium poppies – a policy that  
“could cause famine” – is likely to begin next year.

According to the FT, the new US ambassador to Kabul - who oversaw US- 
backed coca-eradication programmes in Colombia – ‘is understood to  
have told the Europeans spraying will begin next year.’[xx]

The humanitarian impact of spraying - as people’s livelihoods are  
destroyed - could be horrific: in February 2006, the then- Minister  
for the Middle East, Kim Howells, admitted that “aerial spraying  
could cause famine”.[xxi]


In Colombia, blood analyses indicate that those living near the  
frontier of spraying suffer chromosomal damage, and are at greater  
risk of developing cancer, mutations and congenital  
malformations.’ [xxii]

10. British hopes of brokering a series of ‘peace deals’ across  
Helmand province in southern Afghanistan – deals that would have  
permitted large-scale withdrawal of British troops - were sabotaged  
by the US earlier this year.

In February a potentially precedent-setting deal in the town of Musa  
Qala, collapsed following the appointment - under intense US pressure  
- of a new governor who disowned the accord, and a US airstrike which  
killed the brother and 20 followers of a key local Taliban leader. 
[xxiii]

11. In May the upper house of the Afghan Parliament passed a motion,  
calling for a military cease-fire, negotiations with the Taliban, and  
a date to be set for the withdrawal of foreign troops.[xxiv]

According to the secretary of the upper house, Aminuddin Muzafari,  
the motion reflected lawmakers’ belief that negotiations would be  
more effective than fighting.

12. A majority of the British public wants all British troops  
withdrawn from Afghanistan.

In a March poll, 53% of the British public said that all British troops

should be withdrawn from Afghanistan 'more or less immediately.' In  
an August poll, 65% said that all British troops should be withdrawn  
from Afghanistan ‘immediately’ (28%) or ‘within the next year or  
so’ (37%).

13. There are currently more British troops in Afghanistan than in  
Iraq, and the number in Afghanistan is likely to increase still further.

According to Air Chief Marshall Sir Jock Stirrup ‘the current force  
of almost 7,700 troops is likely to expand as British influence  
spreads across Helmand’ (Daily Telegraph, 27 July).



[i] How a ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan Went Bad, New York Times, 12  
August 2007, http://tinyurl.com/38pdtj
[ii] Afghanistan must not be Britain's Vietnam, Independent, 15 July  
2007, http://tinyurl.com/2yj6x5

[iii] See p. 37 – 38 of Milan Rai, War Plan Iraq, Verso 2002.

[iv] Marc Herold, Daily Casualty Count of Afghan Civilians Killed by  
US Bombing and Special Forces Attacks, October 7 until present day,  
October 16 2003, http://tinyurl.com/3bu9af

[v] Forgotten Victims, Guardian, 20 May 2002, http://tinyurl.com/3ac795

[vi] For a thorough account see p. 117 – 166 of Kolhatkar and  
Ingalls, Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords and the  
Propaganda of Silence, Seven Stories Press, 2006. Of course, there is  
nothing new about any of this: Britain first invaded Afghanistan in  
the late 1830s in order to install their own puppet monarch. A “dodgy  
dossier” (Lord Auckland’s ‘Simla Manifesto’ of 1838) was even  
published to justify the invasion.

[vii] ‘The Rule of the Gun: Human Rights Abuses and Political  
Repression in the

Run-up to Afghanistan’s Presidential Election’, Human Rights Watch  
Briefing Paper, September 2004.  http://tinyurl.com/2azshm

[viii] Country Summary: Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch, January  
2006. http://tinyurl.com/2easpz

[ix] Country Summary: Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch, January 2006.  
http://tinyurl.com/2easpz

[x] ‘No One Listens To Us and No One Treats Us as Human Beings:  
Justice Denied to Women’, Amnesty International, 6 October 2003.  
http://tinyurl.com/6xder

[xi] Country Summary: Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch, January 2007.  
http://tinyurl.com/ypl765

[xii] ‘USA: US detentions in Afghanistan: an aide-mémoire for  
continued action’, Amnesty International, 7 July 2005. http:// 
tinyurl.com/ys8ro9
[xiii] ‘A Growing Afghan Prison Rivals Bleak Guantánamo’, New York  
Times, 26 February 2006. http://tinyurl.com/zu9z5.

[xiv] 'Errant Afghan civilian deaths surge', LA Times, 6 July 2007,

http://tinyurl.com/yr8zet

[xv] Section B.2, Chapter 2, ‘Hearts and Minds in Southern  
Afghanistan’, Senlis Council, December 2006. http://tinyurl.com/yqhs3m.

[xvi] ‘Afghan civilian deaths damaging NATO’, International Herald  
Tribune, 13 May 2007. http://tinyurl.com/24n7fe

[xvii] ‘Afghanistan operation is ‘long-term commitment’, Independent,  
14 August 2007

[xviii] ‘UK looks at thermobaric hellfire for Afghanistan’, Janes  
Defence Weekly, 28 March 2007

[xix] Chapter 3, ‘Hearts and Minds in Southern Afghanistan’, Senlis  
Council, December 2006. http://tinyurl.com/yqhs3m.

[xx] ‘Allies fall out over poppy spraying’, Financial Times, 29 May  
2007. http://tinyurl.com/27v898

[xxi] Hansard, 7 Feb 06, Col 728.

[xxii] O’Shaughnessy and Branford, Chemical War in Colombia, Latin  
America Bureau, 2005, p.74.

[xxiii] ‘Taliban town seizure throws Afghan policy into disarray’,  
Observer, 4 February 2007. http://tinyurl.com/2u68b8. Selig S.  
Harrison, ‘Discarding an Afghan Opportunity’, Washington Post, 30  
January 2007. http://tinyurl.com/yqra9o

[xxiv] 'Afghan lawmakers call for ceasefire', Associated Press, 9 May  
2007, see

http://tinyurl.com/39lmtq