Barbelith Underground > Switchboard > Torn - peace and war and good and evil and...

quote:Will the advance of the Northern Alliance save people who are at risk of famine in Afghanistan? It will almost certainly save some of them. Much more aid is now entering the areas which have come under Northern Alliance control, though, like the retreating Taliban, the Alliance fighters have been looting supplies and commandeering UN vehicles. But for thousands the help is likely to have arrived too late. The interruption of supplies during the eight weeks in which they should have been stockpiled for the winter means that many of those living in the valleys made inaccessible by snow will die before they can be reached.

Will it lead to the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden? Possibly. Will it free the world from terrorism? No. Will it deliver regional or global security? Probably not. The Northern Alliance's gains represented a bounty for Russia and a blow for Pakistan, whose government is now facing a far graver test in victory than it would have faced in defeat. Even in Britain, a new poll by the Today programme shows 80% of Muslims opposed to the west's war.

But, as well as asking what this war has done to Asia, we must also ask what it has done to us. And here, it seems to me, the bugles sounding victory for civilised values are also sounding a retreat.

The first and most obvious loss is our repudiation of the very basis of civilisation: human rights. The new terrorism bills in America and Britain have required the suspension of both the US constitution and the UK's human rights act - it seems that in trying to shut the terrorists out, we have merely imprisoned ourselves.

One of the last smart bombs deployed in Kabul destroyed the offices of al-Jazeera, the only truly independent major television station in the Arab world. Al-Jazeera has consistently provided a voice for Muslims opposed to US military intervention in Afghanistan, as well as airing Bin Laden's inflammatory videos. A few weeks ago Colin Powell sought to persuade the emir of Qatar to close it down, without success. Its destruction suggests that free speech and dissent have now joined terrorism as the business of "evil-doers".

The second loss to the west is the triumph of war-war over jaw-jaw. The partial victory in Afghanistan appears to have convinced both governments and commentators that we can blast our way to world peace. No serious attempt was made, before the bombing began, to differentiate between just and unjust war. Justice in war, as almost every philosopher since Thomas Aquinas onwards agrees, requires that the peaceful alternatives should first have been exhausted. There is plenty to suggest that the initial aim - to capture Bin Laden - could have been achieved without recourse to arms. The Taliban twice offered to hand him over on receipt of evidence pointing to his guilt: a much lower barrier to extradition than western governments would have raised. We appear to have made no attempt to discover whether or not they could have been taken at their word. Now justice appears to have been redefined as success, and war as the only route to peace.

This new triumphalism is sliding effortlessly into a new imperialism. It conflates armed and ethical success, munitions and morality. If this is a victory for civilisation, I would hate to see what defeat looks like.

- George Monbiot, The Guardian.