**After Afghanistan: Should the United States be bombed?
**According to America’s own framework for justifying violence against another state, the answer is an unequivocal ‘yes’. The Bush Administration rationalised the invasion and bombing of Afghanistan by arguing it was a necessary requirement to destroy Al Qaeda, find Bin Laden, and importantly to our question, ousts the Taliban; who were accused of ‘harbouring’ terrorists. Ignored were the repeated offers by the Taliban to hand Bin Laden over; a week after the war had broken out they had even openly offered to have Bin Laden tried so long as sufficient evidence for his involvement in 9/11 was given [1]. Needless to say, the Americans, whose obvious concerns lay with the geopolitical importance of Afghanistan rather than capturing Bin Laden, rejected this. Importantly, the United States had followed the principle of not only going after terrorists; but also the states that allegedly ‘harbour’ them. This continues to be the case. In his August 2006 address to the American Legion National Convention, Bush repeated “we have made it clear to all nations, if you harbor terrorists, you are just as guilty as the terrorists; you’re an enemy of the United States, and you will be held to account.” [2]. Under this context, Afghanistan was “held to account” by being bombed; and it was possible for any state which the United States alleges to be ‘harbouring’ terrorists to be “held to account” in the same way.
If this principle were applied universally, the United States would be bombed to oblivion (assuming other states held the capacity to do so). Despite requests from South American countries to the opposite, America continues to ‘harbour’ and protect terrorists from Latin America who have collectively been responsible for a much larger and brutal death toll than was the case in 9/11. As William Blum notes, numerous foreign terrorists and human rights violators “have enjoyed safe haven in the United States.” [3] This includes leaders and generals of death squads (such as El Salvador’s Jose Guillermo Garcia and Haiti’s Carl Dorelian, both responsible for more than twice the number of deaths as 9/11) who were responsible for coercing populations through terrorising, murdering, torturing and raping thousands (far more than those killed in 9/11) of innocent people. The reason these terrorists enjoy a safe haven in America is because they advanced American interests during the Cold War; many of them had been taught their murderous and coercive skills through CIA manuals. The same, incidentally, was the case for those who would later form Al Qaeda; it was America who taught them the tools of the trade regarding terrorism. From every corner of the world come terrorists who enjoy safe haven in the United States. The United States, irrefutably, ‘habours’ these terrorists, despite many attempts by their host countries to have them extradited and tried for their crimes.
Well before the Afghanistan war, President Clinton, in 1995, declared “If we do not receive adequate cooperation from a state that harbors a terrorist whose extradition we are seeking, we shall take appropriate measures to induce cooperation. Return of suspects by force may be effected without the cooperation of the host government.”[4] Clinton’s coordinator for counter-terrorism, Richard Clarke, later in 1999 reasoned “We may not just go in a strike against a terrorist facility; we may choose to retaliate against the facilities of the host country, if that host country is a knowing, cooperative sanctuary.” And then, “those Governments need to know that if they continue to be a sanctuary that they are now at risk, not just the terrorist facilities in those countries…”[5] Were this applied to the United States itself, every federal government building responsible for foreign policy would be bombed. More importantly, if the rest of the world were to follow the Bush Administration’s precedent for invading a whole country and instilling regime change, then the United States would be bombed and invaded. Moreover, its political structure, which perpetuates a two-party system where both parties are indifferent in their brutal pursuit of foreign objectives, would be torn to pieces, and replaced with a drastically new one which would no longer sponsor terrorism and harbour terrorists. No one of course believes that the United States should be bombed (if other states had the capacity), invaded and forced to undergo ‘regime change’. But far too many people still believe that the principle of invading countries which allegedly ‘harbour’ terrorists is a rational one. These people, hypocritically, would be disgusted at the thought of the United States being on the receiving end of its own framework. The blood of the poor who perish in ‘non-civilised’ countries, far away from the tributes of celebrities and sports events, seems far less valuable to these people than those that died in the Twin Towers, days before jingoistic fervour swept America.
Facing Reality: Terrorists harbouring Terrorists
In contrast to the Taliban, which was merely guilty of ‘harbouring’ terrorists (even though it offered to hand them over, unlike the US), The United States is in itself a terrorist state which habours terrorists; making expectations that it will ever hand these terrorists over unreasonable. International terrorism is defined by the FBI as “the unlawful use of force or violence committed by a group or individual, who has some connection to a foreign power or whose activities transcend national boundaries, against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” Under this definition (which seems adequate enough), the United States, as Noam Chomsky notes, has been the “leading terrorist state” since 1945. Indeed, as Chomsky further expresses, America has been “the only country that was condemned for international terrorism by the World Court” for the pivotal support it gave in the 1980s to the Contras in their terrorist campaigns in Nicaragua.[6] As Blum points out, “From 1945 to the end of the century, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements struggling against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair.” [7]
Expecting the leading terrorist state to stop harbouring terrorists would be absurd. And similarly to a good number of the people that vote in the polls for these terrorists, these officials value Western blood and disregard the rest. Al Gore, the terrorist-turned-global-warming-activist who now writes books and makes movies about the potential destruction of human life as a result of climate change, displayed his care for such life in 1998 by threatening South Africa (a country where almost one in five adults has AIDS) with sanctions if it dared used cheaper AIDS drugs and better the life of its suffering population.[8] The reason Gore did this was simple; South Africa having cheaper generic AIDS drugs would hurt the sales of US companies. Gore, incidentally, had substantial ties to the drug industry. Even more disregarding of non-Western life was Madeleine Albright’s reply to reporter Lesley Stahl, who acquired on American sanctions against Iraq in the 90s by asking “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And – you know, is the price worth it?” Albright responded “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it.”[9] Imagine the outrage had those half a million children been American. And then there was General William Looney’s view on the repeated bombing of Iraq during the 90s: “They know we own their country. We own their airspace… We dictate the way they live and talk. And that’s what’s great about America right now. It’s a good thing, especially when there’s a lot of oil out there we need.”[10]. Those aren’t the words of a Nazi (strictly speaking), but a blunt explanation of US foreign policy by an American general, whose country allegedly fights for ‘freedom’ around the world. Presumably, these same people who ridiculed the blood of non-Westerners, shed a legion of tears when far less people in a far less brutal manner were murdered by terrorists in New York, Madrid and London. The reason is simple: when Western blood is shed, it is terrorism; when non-Western blood is shed, even if it be in the same manner, it’s collateral damage.