Michael Randle, Britain: Statement on Attacks on Afghanistan

Letter to a Member of Parliament

Mr Christopher Leslie
House of Commons
Whitehall,
London SW1

Dear Mr Leslie,

I am writing to express my opposition to the threatened military attack on Afghanistan. This is not out of the slightest sympathy with the regime in power there, or because I do not share fully the general sense of horror at the attacks on 11 September on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. I have many good friends in the US, including one who lives within a mile of the World Trade Centre who has sent me a vivid personal account of the horrors of that day. But he too, like many Americans, is opposed to a war in response to it. Here are a few of my own reasons for opposing it.

1. The attacks truly constituted crimes against humanity. But the appropriate response to a crime is to arraign the suspected criminals before a properly constituted court. True, if the Afghan government refuse to hand over the suspects there is no clear way in the short term to achieve that goal. But that was equally true in the case of the criminal destruction of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988, yet with time and pressure two suspects were eventually handed over and tried. On yesterday's Radio 4 Today programme, a professor at Yale who lost her husband in the September 11 atrocities, argued for pursuing justice in this way and eschewing war. Others, too, in the US and this country, who have lost offspring or relatives have made the same plea.

2. It is not good enough for Mr Bush, Mr Blair or the NATO Council to say they have seen overwhelming evidence that Osama bin Laden and his organisation, al Qaida, was involved in the plot but that the evidence cannot be made public because of the sensitivity of the sources. Incontrovertible evidence was also claimed against both Libyan suspects tried over Lockerbie, one of whom was subsequently acquitted by the court Yet on the basis of the claim about al Qaida, the US and British governments are preparing to go to war, not only against that organisation but against Afghanistan which harbours him. Indeed the US government at one point was talking about getting bin Laden 'dead or alive'. This is the language not of justice but of the lynch mob. Moreover, several reports I have read state that bin Laden has a larger military force at his disposal than the Taliban government and that it is actually beyond their power to hand him over.

3. The notion of a war in the literal not metaphorical sense - to eradicate terrorism once for all is clearly absurd. Yet this is the declared aim of the operation initially given the grand title Operation Infinite Justice. If taken at face value, it would be a declaration of unending war, for at what point could one say that terrorism had been finally defeated? And if in the course of pursuing it, there were high civilian casualties, that would breed terrorism not eliminate it. We must all be grateful to Claire Short for giving a public warning to this effect.

4. A war waged impartially against all organisations employing terrorist tactics, and the governments harbouring them, would rule out any possibility of the kind of alliance that the US and NATO are trying to establish because some of the governments concerned are themselves involved in harbouring, or even training, such organisations. Pakistan, for example, harbours groups campaigning over Kashmir, one of which was responsible for a suicide attack yesterday in which 38 people were killed. And India in turn harbours Tamil Tigers who have been responsible for atrocities in Sri Lanka.

5. Mr Blair has assured us that the military operation will be proportionate and targeted, avoiding civilian casualties as far as possible since the Afghan people are not our enemies. Similar statements were made before the massive bombardment of the Gulf War of 1991 which wrecked Iraq's infrastructure, including water and power supplies, and according to some estimates resulted in 200,000 civilian deaths. In the 1999 war with Serbia over Kosovo, the NATO spokesman, Jamie Shea, again gave a public assurance at the start of the conflict that the people of Serbia were not our enemies and that therefore civilian targets such as power stations would not be targeted. Yet within a week or so they became some of the principal targets.

6. But even if this time there is a genuine intention to concentrate on military targets, the civilian casualties could still be enormous. Already the threat of bombing has caused millions to flee their homes, some crossing into Pakistan, many more becoming refugees within the country. George Monbiot argues in yesterday's Guardian that unless a massive relief effort starts now before the onset of winter, hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, will die of hunger and exposure. And he further argues that such a humanitarian effort on the necessary scale is incompatible with a military attack on Afghanistan which would necessitate the closing of many crossing points and make the necessary air-lift of essential supplies too dangerous to be contemplated.

7. The worst outcome would be if the war came to be seen as one between the West and Islam and this would be likely outcome if Iraq, and perhaps other countries, were also attacked. A report in the Guardian yesterday stated that Mr Bush has given Jordan's King Abdullah an assurance that Iraq will not be attacked as part of the operation. However, some of the hawks in the Administration are reported to favour this option, and indeed Mr Bush's early statements threatened to take the war to any country known to be harbouring terrorist organisations.

At a silent candle-lit vigil in Bradford city centre last week, people held placards stating Shoulder to Shoulder for Peace and Justice. No More Violence. It is in this spirit, and from this perspective, that I urge you to speak out and act against the war that is being contemplated.

Yours sincerely
Michael Randle