Vigilante Justice Would Be An Improvement
by Sanjoy Mahajan
1 November 2001
Our bombing of Afghanistan is more like a lynching. Vigilante justice
implies finding the likely suspect and giving them a thorough hiding.
It does not include picking a target for other reasons and destroying
them. Actually, the US and UK bombing is worse than a lynching. A
lynching also has little to do with finding the right suspect, and is
merely revenge. But a lynching doesn't include blowing up the city in
which the `suspect' lives. So as an alternative title: `If only it
were a lynching...'
The Oxford English Dictionary gives an instructive definition of
`lynch law':
Origin US. The practice of inflicting summary punishment upon an
offender, by a self-constituted court armed with no legal authority.
A few little-reported points about our gangsterism:
1. The Taliban have been making reasonable statements. When Bush
demanded bin Laden's extradition, they asked for evidence so that they
could process the request. Who knows if they are serious, since Bush
responded: Hand him over unconditionally or face death.
Imagine that Chile accuses Kissinger of supporting terrorism and asks
for his extradition. How far would they get without showing evidence?
How far would they get even if they showed evidence? The last
question is answered by the example of Emmanuel Constant. Haiti has
asked the United States to extradite him for massacres under the
US-backed junta. Evidence abounds; Constant has been convicted in
absentia, and sentenced to life in prison. When the United States
invaded Haiti to `uphold democracy', it stole all the secret police
files, and for obvious reasons is refusing to give them back to Haiti.
But enough other evidence exists in Constant's case. Constant still
lives happily in the land of the free, and the chance of his
extradition is zero.
One explanation for Bush's refusal to provide evidence about bin Laden
is that there is none (see below). Another explanation is that the
United States believes in undermining international law whenever
possible. Or that it wanted war at all costs. Or all three.
On 7 October the Taliban offered to put bin Laden on trial under
Islamic law. The offer is well known, to readers of the Chinese press
(the article is below). We never found out how serious the offer was,
because Bush said go to hell, we're going to bomb you anyway. Perhaps
one reason we started bombing on Sunday is that otherwise people might
find out about the offer, and peace might break out. On the other
hand, the press is so corrupt that it would never be known generally.
(Both offers from the Taliban were extracted by threat of force,
illegal under the Vienna convention on treaties, which America has
signed, and repeatedly violated: for example by threatening to bomb
Yugoslavia unless it signed the notorious Rambouillet `agreement',
which gave Nato troops the right to roam all over Yugoslavia.)
The `war at all costs' explanation gets support from how the United
States destroyed Iraq. After Iraq invaded Kuwait (with US
encouragement), the United States said leave or die. So Iraq
realising that it would be obliterated said we'll leave. Bush Sr
ignored the offer, carefully suppressed by the press, and promised
instead to devastate Iraq, an approach that had the benefit of testing
new high-tech weapons and showing the world that we're ruthless enough
to use them. The press praised Bush for `going the extra mile for
peace'.
2. In the 1980s, when the United States waged its terrorist war
against Nicaragua -- i.e. we were training and harbouring terrorists
-- Nicaragua did not bomb Washington. Instead it took the United
States to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague, where
the United States later sited its kangaroo tribunal for Yugoslavia, to
give it bogus legitimacy. The ICJ ruled against the United States,
saying that no claim of human rights can justify mining harbours or
sponsoring terrorist attacks. It ordered the United States to pay
potentially billions of dollars in damages to Nicaragua. As the
world's leading supporter of international law, the United States
responded by mocking the ICJ and refusing to recognise the judgement
(like stenographers, the press wrote articles to match) and withdraw
its automatic acceptance of ICJ jurisdiction (which is why
Yugoslavia's case against the United States had to be dropped). Like
stenographers, the press wrote articles praising the US respect for
international law. Academics filled the cheering section. A leading
professor of international law, Thomas Franck, said that `America --
acting alone or with its allies -- still needs the freedom to protect
freedom,' so it had to ignore the ruling.
The US response is its normal one. But the interesting action is
Nicaragua's. The United States could have take the Taliban government
to the ICJ. But the United States might not even have needed to, if
it were willing to investigate the Taliban offers of extradition or
trial.
Given the Lockerbie pattern, however, it's predictable that the United
States would refuse a legal solution. When Libya offered to hand over
the two `suspects' for trial in a neutral country, the United States
refused for over 7 years. After the ICJ made a preliminary ruling
against the United States, deciding by a vote of 13-2 that it had
jurisdiction, only then did the United States allow a trial. The
press reported this history as Libya's refusal to allow a trial, which
thereby `justified' the crippling sanctions we placed on Libya. The
trial itself was a farce but that's a different sordid story (one that
might explain a reluctance to extradite to a US-controlled court).
The Afghanistan bombings, no matter what the US or UK liars say, are
illegal in international law, and are therefore war crimes: planning
and waging aggressive war, the `supreme international crime' according
to the Nuremberg judgement. It's a joke to call bombing civilians
self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Self-defence implies
an attempt to stop an attack, whereas this bombing will produce only
more of the same -- what Bush will be quite happy about (see below).
3. The United States probably has no evidence against bin Laden.
President Blair released his so-called dossier of 70 points a few days
ago. Leaving aside the summary (points 4 and 5), the first 60 points
say nothing about the September 11th attacks. They are instead
character evidence, if you can call them evidence, about how bin Laden
did this or that bad thing a while ago and are therefore irrelevant to
who did the September 11th attack.
Starting with point 61 we get evidence. They say they've identified
19 of the hijackers, and three are `associates of al-Qaeda'. What the
hell is an associate? If someone agrees with bin Laden that the
United States has invaded Saudi Arabia and is destroying Iraq, then
are they an associate? Probably half the Arab world is now an
associate. Plus, who knows whether the 19 identifications are
correct; according to many reports, the hijackers used false
passports.
Point 63 is mere assertion:
63. Osama Bin Laden remains in charge, and the mastermind, of
al-Qaeda. In al-Qaeda, an operation on the scale of the 11 September
attacks would have been approved by Osama Bin Laden himself.
That's the entire evidence for that point. How do we know what
al-Qaeda's decision procedures are? How do we even know that
al-Qaeda did this attack?
In points 64 and 65 we learn that the modus operandi and the scale and
sophistication are consistent with other attacks alleged to be by
al-Qaeda. The evidence is thin and the logic thinner, as in this gem:
`No warnings were given for these three attacks, just as there was
none on 11 September' (point 65). Does the CIA warn Cubans before it
attacks Cuba with biological and chemical warfare? Does the lack of
warning mean that the CIA attacked the WTC?
Point 66 has nothing to do with September 11. Point 67, in its
entirety, is:
67. The operatives involved in the 11 September atrocities attended
flight schools, used flight simulators to study the controls of larger
aircraft and placed potential airports and routes under surveillance.
and says zero about al-Qaeda or bin Laden. Anyone with an IQ greater
than 50 who planned the same attack would also have gone to flight
school.
Point 68 is hardly more convincing: `Al-Qaeda's attacks are
characterised by total disregard for innocent lives, including
Muslims.' The same callousness describes many organisations, for
example the US government as it bombs Afghanistan.
Then the capstone:
69. No other organisation has both the motivation and the capability
to carry out attacks like those of the 11 September - only the
al-Qaeda network under Osama Bin Laden.
No evidence, just assertion. Even so it's false. For example,
Mossad, MI6, the CIA, or the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (who probably did the Lockerbie bombing).
Point 70 merely summarises the others. The dossier boils down to:
`There is evidence of a very specific nature relating to the guilt of
Bin Laden and his associates that is too sensitive to release' (Point
62). So we just have to trust our leaders. Their record does not
inspire confidence. During the Gulf War, they said we were fighting
to restore democracy in Kuwait (still a one-party theocratic state).
During the Yugoslavia bombing, they said we were fighting for human
rights, by cluster-bombing hundreds of thousands of Yugoslavs out of
their homes. The same humanitarians have now appointed themselves
judge, jury, and hangman. (Or simply judge and hangman -- see section
8 below for New Labour's views on juries.)
4. Like the Gulf `War', this bombing, or rather massacre, will boost
the weapons economy and provoke terrorist attacks in response.
Wonderful! The US government has been looking for an enemy since the
collapse of the USSR (that is, an enemy besides its own population).
A few more attacks on America and it has one. The public will give
our gangster leaders carte blanche to increase `defence' spending and
to attack whomever they please.
5. Which is the world's leading terrorist state right now? The United
States fund, trains, and equips death squads in Colombia, to the tune
of $1 billion. We support, with weapons and money, the massacre
squads in Turkey. We kill 5000 Iraqi children every month with the
sanctions, not to mention the soldiers we roasted during the Gulf War
as they fled along the road to Basra. Not only does the United States
have no moral authority to attack anyone in the name of `fighting
terrorism', but its interventions destroy the people they `help'.
Our past history is hardly better. A little-known example is
Suharto's coup in Indonesia (1965-66). The CIA participated, and when
it came time to murder the `communists', the CIA provided lists to the
death squads; in the US Embassy, operatives checked off names as the
persons were assassinated. At least 500,000 were slaughtered by
Suharto. The CIA helped kill thousands directly; and the blood of all
500,000 are also on our hands. As Howard Federspiel, at the time an
Indonesia expert in the State Department, said, `No one was getting
very worked up about it.' Instead they were learning from it. The
murder programme provided the model for Operation Phoenix in Vietnam,
a CIA torture and assassination operation like the Einsatzgruppen of
the Third Reich; it slaughtered over 20,000 people. In testimony to
Congress, a former member of the squad, Barton Osborne, said that not
one prisoner survived interrogation.
6. The plan to drop bombs and butter amazed me with its cynicism, and
I consider myself pretty cynical. The United States ordered Pakistan
to close its border to Afghanistan, probably to avoid a
public-relations disaster of refugees streaming across the border. So
aid cannot get to refugees, they cannot get to the aid, and they will
sicken, starve, or freeze. Instead the United States is dropping a
minuscule amount of food to replace what cannot be trucked in now.
Who knows who will get the food. Maybe warlords or black marketeers.
Maybe people who aren't hungry. Starving people are unlikely to
venture into the hills to find the food crates (which even in the
ideal case could feed only several thousand people for a day). If the
Germans had dropped food packets on London during the Blitz, to prove
that they had `no quarrel with the British people', would anyone trust
the food not to be poisoned? The food drops are strictly for domestic
consumption, so that we can swallow the lie of a humanitarian war
(remember Yugoslavia). Even the BBC, a loyal servant of the state,
admitted the food drops were strictly for public relations.
On BBC Radio 4's Today Programme (8 October), the UK Foreign Secretary
Jack Straw was asked whether it would be a `sustained campaign'. He
said, yes it would last as long as it takes. He added that it would
be sustained in another sense as well, that we would be sustaining the
`standard of living' of the Afghani people. He actually said that!
If you're going to tell a lie, tell a big one (A. Hitler).
To sustain the Afghan people, Bush called upon the children of America
to `help the children of Afghanistan' because `Their country has been
through a great deal of war and suffering. Many children there are
starving and are severely malnourished.' Here is what Bush asked:
We are asking every child in America to earn or give a
dollar that will be used to provide food and medical help for the
children of Afghanistan. You can send your dollar in an envelope
marked America's Fund for Afghan Children, right here to the White
House...This is an opportunity to help others while teaching our own
children a valuable lesson about service and character.
These funds, to be channeled through the Red Cross, could help repair
the Red Cross warehouses that we twice bombed.
Our devotion to service was recently shown by our broadcasts over
Afghanistan (reported in the Independent on 30 October):
"Attention, noble Afghan people," starts the message broadcast in both
Pashto and Dari. "As you know, the coalition countries have been air
dropping daily humanitarian rations for you. The food ration is
enclosed in yellow plastic bags. They come in the shape of rectangular
or long squares. The food inside the bags is halal and very
nutritional."
"In areas away from where food has been dropped, cluster bombs will
also be dropped. The colour of these bombs is also yellow. All bombs
will explode when they hit the ground, but in some special
circumstances some of the bombs will not explode."
The `noble Afghan people' are then reassured that `In future cluster
bombs will not be dropped in areas where food is air dropped.' I
don't have enough imagination to make this stuff up.
7. Who created bin Laden, training and funding his terrorist
organisation for over a decade? Of course his band are gangsters: We,
through the CIA, trained them. We also trained the gangsters who
now call themselves the Northern Alliance (who cleverly chose, or had
chosen for them a nice Western name, sounds like a neighbourhood bank).
They are big-league rapists and murderers, as Robert Fisk has
reported, so bad that the population welcomed the Taliban when it
kicked them out. The Northern Alliance are probably even more
involved in the heroin trade (created by the CIA to fund the war
against the Russians) than the Taliban is. Now most of the heroin in
Europe comes from Afghanistan to Pakistan and then through Albania and
Kosovo (recent CIA haunts, in the runup to and during the Yugoslavia
war).
We could not care how the Taliban or the Northern Alliance treat
women (a common argument for why we are at war with the Taliban is to
support feminism). The odds are not high that our new friends will be any
better to women. Besides, the Taliban is not the target of our bombs.
The people who will starve will be the civilians, men and women. If
we had wanted to help the women of Afghanistan, we would feed them,
not bomb them.
The upcoming increase in the drug trade is also going to harm women
(and men): gangsters follow the drug trade. The Taliban had been
reducing the drug trade, which got the United States mad at them. The
United States cut off funds from a UN drug control program that
encouraged crop substitution. It wanted the Taliban to agree instead to biowarfare
with Fusarium mold (what the United States plans for Colombia), a
highly nasty organism. Without a country's agreement, dropping the
organism would be considered biological warfare. The Colombian
government, also ready to make war on its own population, had at first
agreed then backed down when people in Colombia found out. The fungal
spores don't stay confined to opium plants; they spread to other trees
and plants, as they did in Peru when the United States tried it out.
It's New Model Agent Orange.
The Northern Alliance, or whichever thieves' coalition takes power,
will no doubt show more understanding about the drug trade, and not
try rash actions like eradicating poppy plants.
The United States has its geopolitical goals -- create enemies,
maintain control of the heroin trade, keep radical fundamentalists
around to bully various Russian republics into signing favourable oil
pipeline and other big business deals, etc. Protecting women is not
among them. The United States will cut whatever sordid deals are
needed in this bombing. They are already discussing whether to bomb
other countries, such as Iraq.
When a moderate regime came to power in the Middle East, one that
treated women very well, the United States destroyed it. In 1953
Mossadeq's parliamentary democracy in Iran was overthrown by the CIA
(he wanted some of the Iranian oil profits to go to Iran), and we put
in the Shah. He tortured all his opponents, of which he had many, and
the only people who could stand it were fundamentalist fanatics --
Khomeni and friends. So Iran then became a theocracy that treated
women badly. Let's not mention Saudi Arabia, also not a women's
paradise, which is propped up through $50 billion/year of US military
spending. The `we are bombing for women's rights' argument is hardly credible.
8. The biggest beneficiary from the WTC attack is Bush (and to a
lesser extent Blair). From village idiot to George W Churchill! His
approval rating now exceeds his IQ. People will accept more military
spending and will allow him to attack whomever it suits. Meanwhile he
can sneak through all manner of criminal legislation. On the New York
Times comment page (3 October), in the lower right quarter of the page,
usually reserved for ExxonMobil propaganda, there was a great ad by
TomPaine.com pointing out the nefarious interests benefiting from the
attack. It proved a short respite from the usual New York Times'
propaganda. And it proved correct. The next day Exxon returned to its
spot, describing how fast-track legislation will pull the world
economy out of the current slump caused by the WTC attacks. Another
big lie. We can soon look forward to a `free' trade area of the
Americas, helping South America just like NAFTA has helped North
America.
The biggest beneficiaries of the attacks on Afghanistan are bin Laden,
Blair, and Bush. Bin Laden has gained many more followers. Blair and
Bush get their war economy and a frightened, obedient population. The
goal of government is making war on its population. This war is
difficult to wage in the West, where the population has been
restricting government power for hundreds of years, so one government
teams up with another: You trash my population and I trash yours.
In England, Blair has been using the WTC attacks as a smokescreen for
releasing unpopular news. For example, that Sellafield has started
reprocessing nuclear fuels. Jo Moore, a New Labour adviser, was
caught having sent a memo, a whole hour after the second plane hit the
WTC, saying `It's now a very good day to get out anything we want to
bury' and trawling around for such items. The idea was sound New
Labour doctrine, but Ms Moore could only come up with a bush-league
example in the memo. So she may get fired for lacking imagination.
(A riddle for the reader: What kind of doctor has done the best under
New Labour?)
New Labour just released a plan
on reforming the English criminal justice system. They plan to abolish double-jeopardy
protection, so that the state can try you again after an acquittal,
and to make the abolition retrospective. The privilege against double
jeopardy is ancient. Pratt, the Chief Justice of England said: `It
was never yet known that a verdict was set aside by which the
defendant was acquitted, in any case whatsoever upon a criminal
prosecution.' That was in 1724, and no examples have been known
since. In 2002 New Labour will solve this problem. New Labour also
plan to abolish the right of juries to acquit `against the law', so no
more Clive Ponting acquittals or those of peace activists who damage
Trident submarines or protesters who pull up genetically modified
crops. (So why have juries? Just let the judge throw them in jail.)
This right of juries dates back to the famous case of Edward Bushell
in 1670, far too ancient for the New Labour modernisers. These
reforms were such a shock that the report got some coverage though
only on the inside pages. Blair will try to force the `independent'
recommendations (he picked a reliable crony to do the recommending)
through Parliament in the coming months. A recent issue of Private
Eye had a cartoon with a caption `Blair recalls Parliament', and Blair
in it saying, Ah yes, Parliament, that's the bunch I tell what to do
and they do it.
If we want to prevent attacks, the only way is by making a decent
world. As criminal as the United States is, it could be an equally
powerful force for good. It could stop training death squads. It
could stop profiting from the drug trade. It could stop protecting
the Saudi royal family, a band of women-oppressing gangsters if there
ever were any. It could abolish third-world debt. It could stop
blocking a Palestinian state. It could cut its military budget by a
factor of 10 and use the money to reconstruct the countries it has
destroyed. It could stop starving the Third World with structural
adjustment programmes. It could stop enforcing its patent `rights' in
third-world countries (just as the US refused to recognise foreign
patents or copyrights when it was a developing country in the 19th
century).
The world would be amazed, and the citizens of the world themselves
would make sure there were no terrorist attacks. But it will not
happen as long as Americans are fed lies day and night.
Sanjoy Mahajan
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