 | | | | by Brendan O'Neill |
The USA will 'stop chasing shadows' said a US military spokesman on 7 January 2002, after being asked the million-dollar question 'where is bin Laden?' one time too many (1). A hundred days into their war against terrorism, and the US government, military and intelligence agencies seem to know less than ever about the whereabouts of al-Qaeda leader bin Laden and former Taliban frontman Muhammad Omar.
| On 6 January, Bob Graham of the US Senate Intelligence Committee said bin Laden and co 'had escaped, and are probably over the border in Pakistan' (2) - while on 14 January US officials were reported to believe that al-Qaeda leaders 'are crossing the borders into Iran' (3). The following day, intelligence expert and former CIA chief Vince Cannistraro said, 'I think most intelligence analysts are absolutely convinced…that bin Laden has slipped the noose and has left Afghanistan and Pakistan' (4).
| Absolutely convinced? Not quite. Cannistraro suggested that bin Laden might have escaped Pakistan by boat and be hiding out somewhere in the Arabian Sea, but nobody knows for sure.
| According to US secretary of state Colin Powell, 'I have seen nothing that suggests we know where he is, whether it's in Afghanistan, Pakistan or somewhere else', but US forces are still in 'hot pursuit' of him (5). So is the USA going to stop 'chasing shadows' or is it hotly pursuing a man who could be anywhere in Central Asia, Asia, the Middle East, north Africa or the surrounding seas? Just don't ask US defence secretary and man-in-charge of the war on Afghanistan Donald Rumsfeld, who says looking for bin Laden is 'like looking for a needle in a haystack' (6).
| The US authorities' dearth of intelligence on bin Laden, Omar and the rest of the al-Qaeda and Taliban rumps says much about the confused and uncertain nature of the war against terrorism. So how did the US authorities respond to the new year 'revelations' that their intelligence agencies haven't got a clue where bin Laden is? They changed their war aims. Again.
| | | The caves themselves seem to have assumed an evil force |
| 'American military chiefs have made a subtle change in Washington's war aims to help mask their continued failure to capture bin Laden', said one report on 14 January (7), as former leader of the US armed services committee and senator John McCain tried to make not knowing where bin Laden is sound like a success story: 'He's on the run now….a far different scenario than the one where he had sanctuary and was able to operate.' (8) According to President Bush, 'He's on the run….I mean this is a guy who three months ago was in control of a country' - seeming to have confused bin Laden with Taliban leader Omar (9).
| So America's war aim has gone from getting bin Laden 'dead or alive' to bringing him to justice to dismantling his organisation to giving him the runaround as a means of foiling his dastardly plan. Never have so many aims being targeted at so few people in so little time.
| This isn't the first time the war aims have shifted over the past hundred days. What started as an attempt to destroy al-Qaeda soon became a job of overthrowing the Taliban (sometimes with the help of the Northern Alliance but other times not), and then shifted towards rebuilding Afghanistan, or at least granting rights to women, and has now evolved into a fight against terrorism wherever it rears its ugly head.
| There was that time in November 2001 when US joint chief of staff General Richard Myers claimed that the Taliban defences had been 'eviscerated', only to hear Pentagon spokesman Admiral John Stufflebeem express his 'surprise' the following week at the Talibans 'doggedness' (10). And when operational commander General Tommy Franks claimed on 5 November 2001 that 'we're not occupying major strategic terrain like Mazar-e-Sharif, that's not our approach', only to say three days later that 'yes, we are interested in Mazar-e-Sharif' (11).
| Things weren't much better in the UK, where deputy prime minister John Prescott said at the end of October 2001 that 'the objectives are clear, and the one about the removal of the Taliban is not something we have as a clear objective', only to be contradicted by his boss Tony Blair the following day, who said getting rid of the Taliban was 'desirable' (12). No wonder former British Army major Ian Wright felt compelled to weigh in to the discussion in mid-November 2001, with the advice: 'Have a good reason for deployment, set clear objectives and stick to them.' (13)
| | | When war has to care as well as kill, tough guy talk won't be tolerated |
| It might not make the headlines like it used to, but the West's bombardment of Afghanistan continues unabated. You may well ask what they are bombing, now that the Taliban has been routed, a new interim government installed, and with intelligence chiefs 'absolutely convinced' that bin Laden and his cronies are in Pakistan/Iran/Somalia/the Arabian sea. The answer is: caves.
| On 10 January 2002, nine bombers and tactical aircraft dropped bombs on caves and tunnels in the Zhawar Kili region; from 11 to 13 January, there was further sustained bombing of 'tunnel networks' in Zhawar Kili, using B-52 and B-1 long ranger bombers and a Navy F-18 strike aircraft; and on 14 January there was the heaviest bombing of the new year, as the Pentagon said it was bombing caves to destroy al-Qaeda's 'infrastructure' and to prevent the terrorists from 'regrouping'.
| The caves themselves seem to have assumed an evil force all of their own - with President Bush saying 'We're gonna drive those terrorists out of their hidden caves', while one commentator says the thought of 'all those underground networks' is 'frightening'. But not everybody is convinced that the caves are a big, ominous, scary threat. According to a former CIA agent who spent three years on the ground in Afghanistan during the Afghan war against the Soviets, 'Talk of caves is overdone. Most of [them] are dugouts, man-made things' - while Bob Gulden, an expert caver from Washington DC, says that 'Afghanistan is conspicuously absent from the list of the world's impressive caves' (14).
| But the bombing of the caves is a snapshot of a desperate war where the warmongers don't know what they're doing. The attempt to destroy caves, tunnels and rocks from the air with massive and devastating firepower might reveal the might of America's military machine - but it is also an act of desperation, born out of uncertainty over what to do or where to turn next. That special forces are then scouring the destroyed geology for 'dismembered fingers and human organ tissue' to see if bin Laden has been hit really captures the degraded and directionless nature of the war on terror (15).
| Back home, the USA is getting all defensive and embarrassed about its treatment of al-Qaeda prisoners. The US authorities have been bombarded with criticism about their treatment of the prisoners flown to its Guantanamo base in Cuba. Human rights organisations lambasted America for sedating the prisoners and strapping them to their seats during the long-haul flight from Afghanistan to Cuba - while others attacked the USA's disrespect for cultural diversity when it shaved off the prisoners' beards. 'We will not tolerate the abuse of war prisoners', said Hugo Young in the UK Guardian, claiming this would be the one issue to dent America and Europe's shoulder-to-shoulder stance on terrorism (16).
| | | That the war is confusing makes it no less deadly |
| The problem for the USA is that, having played its part in creating the idea of humanitarian warfare over the past 10 years - conflicts carried out in the name of protecting the poor little people, whether they're suffering in Iraq, Somalia or Kosovo, rather than for the greedy good of America - it now finds it hard to play the tough guy in relation to war or war's prisoners. So rather than standing up to its critics over the Guantanamo prisoners, US politicians were defensive about it - claiming that, yes they're in horrible outdoor cages, but we've given them copies of the Koran; yes, we shaved off their beards, but physically and spiritually they are being treated well. In a world where war has to care as well as kill, the USA has found that tough guy talk won't be tolerated.
| That the war against terrorism is confused and confusing doesn't make it any less deadly. In fact, it can make it even worse. Already one university academic says that the Afghan civilian death toll is over 4000 (surely an underestimation?), while huge parts of the already-destroyed Afghanistan have been destroyed even further. And now the war on terror is drifting into surrounding regions, stoking up tensions and storing up conflict for the future.
| 'Somalia and Yemen, not Iraq, likely to be targets of American military action' warns one headline (17), as US deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz claimed that Somalia or Yemen might have offered refuge to al-Qaeda. Already, US special forces have visited rebel forces in Somalia and offered America's support, leading to rising levels of violence - while according to Somali president Abdiqassim Hassan, '[Somali] people are terrorised by [America's] propaganda campaign against Somalia' (18).
| Meanwhile, on 9 January Pakistan gave permission to US forces to cross its borders in pursuit of al-Qaeda members if necessary (19), while on 15 January US forces joined with government forces in the Philippines to launch attacks on Muslim guerrillas (20). None of America's widening of the war on terrorism seems to have any direction, looking more like a desperate scrabbling around for some kind of terrorism to fight against, some kind of goal to achieve, some kind of hope that bin Laden might be found. Such desperation does not bode well for those countries being intervened in.
| So what next for the war on terror? According to one Pentagon official, America is keen to 'wrap up' its war, while on 13 January US military chiefs warned that the worldwide war against terrorism could last 'until 2008' (21). By which time they might even have found bin Laden.
Brendan O'Neill is coordinating the spiked-conference Panic attack: Interrogating our obsession with risk, on Friday 9 May 2003, at the Royal Institution in London.
Read on:
spiked-issue: After 11 September
(1) US 'chasing shadows', continues Afghan bombing, Reuters, 17 January 2002
(2) Al-Qaeda quietly slipping into Iran, Pakistan, Ilene R Prusher and Philip Smucker, Christian Science Monitor, 14 January 2002
(3) Al-Qaeda quietly slipping into Iran, Pakistan, Ilene R Prusher and Philip Smucker, Christian Science Monitor, 14 January 2002
(4) CIA: bin Laden escaped Afghanistan, Brian Ross, ABC News, 15 January 2002
(5) CIA: bin Laden escaped Afghanistan, Brian Ross, ABC News, 15 January 2002
(6) We're looking for needle in haystack: Rumsfeld on Osama, Indya.com, 26 October 2001
(7) America quietly changes war aim, Roland Watson, The Times (London), 14 January 2002
(8) Pentagon warns of war lasting six years, David Wastell, Telegraph, 17 January 2002
(9)We may never find bin Laden, Bush concedes, Ed Helmore, Guardian, 30 December 2001
(10) Message control in Afghanistan war, BBC News Online, 9 November 2001
(11) Message control in Afghanistan war, BBC News Online, 9 November 2001
(12) 'Taliban overthrow not clear aim', BBC Online, 1 November 2001
(13) 'Decide our aims and stick to them', BBC News Online, 15 November 2001
(14) Afghanistan's 'hidden caves' a myth, experts say, Dallas Morning News, 16 October 2001
(15) Bloody search for DNA to discover bin Laden's fate, David Rose, Observer, 13 January 2002
(16) We will not tolerate the abuse of war prisoners, Hugo Young, Guardian, 17 January 2002
(17) Somalia and Yemen, not Iraq, likely to be targets of American military action, Rupert Cornwell, Independent, 9 January 2002
(18) Somali ruler says country terrorised by US, Reuters, 11 January 2002
(19) Pentagon to pursue fighters into Pakistan, Guardian, 9 January 2002
(20) US advisers to expand war on terror to Philippines, Reuters, 14 January 2002
(21) Pentagon warns of war lasting six years, David Wastell, Telegraph, 17 January 2002
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