On late Sunday and early Monday, U.S. air strikes in the Kandahar province in Afghanistan killed 20-80 suspected Taliban militants (a coalition statement confirmed 20 Taliban killed, while other sources reported as many as 60 more unconfirmed killed). The targets were a religious school and mud brick homes in the village of Azizi, where the suspected Taliban were taking refuge. According to Afghan officials, 17 civilians were also killed in the attacks. A large part of U.S. military superiority can be attributed to air power and precision weapons, which was first demonstrated in the 1991 Gulf War and subsequently in Operation Iraqi Freedom. But while air power may be the decisive advantage in defeating a military adversary on the open battlefield, it is less useful against insurgent and guerrilla forces such as the Taliban. In fact, it may be counterproductive.
According to a U.S. military spokesman, "We targeted a Taliban compound, and we’re certain we hit the right target." But the real issue is not whether it was the right physical target – the question is whether the people targeted and killed were the correct targets. More to the point, were any of them actual threats to U.S. security that warranted the use of American military forces?
Even if we are willing to believe that all those killed were indeed Taliban members, does that automatically make them mortal U.S. enemies? To be sure, the Taliban under Mullah Mohammed Omar that previously ruled Afghanistan were complicit with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. But it may be a mistake to simply equate the Taliban with al-Qaeda. It is important to remember that the larger Taliban movement – derived largely from Afghanistan’s Pashtun population – is about instituting a very strict version of Islamic Shari’ah law. As such they may be more of a threat to the Karzai government and the administration’s vision of democracy in Afghanistan than a terrorist threat to the United States.
Moreover, the national security of the United States does not require a stable, democratic, multiethnic, representative government in Afghanistan. Even if Afghanistan reverted to its traditional form of governance – a decentralized system with a nominal national government but with most power held by regional leaders – U.S. security interests demand only that whatever government is in power not provide haven and support for al-Qaeda terrorists.
However, even if the compound in Azizi was a legitimate target and all those within the compound real threats, 17 civilians were also reportedly killed. This inevitable collateral damage creates spillover effects that result in creating more new terrorists – much like the cycle of violence the Israelis experience in the West Bank. For example, the suicide bomber responsible for killing 19 Israelis in Haifa at the beginning of October 2003 was a 29-year-old apprentice lawyer, Hanadi Jaradat – an educated woman with a good, well-paying job who would not ordinarily fit a terrorist profile. According to John Burns of the New York Times, Jaradat’s parents "had no indication that their daughter had any contacts with Islamic militants – no sense, they said, that she had any ambition but to establish her career as a lawyer, marry, and have children." But she had motivation: an Israeli crackdown that resulted in the shooting death of her brother, Fadi, 23, and her cousin Saleh, 31. The Jordanian daily al-Arab al-Yum reported that Jaradat vowed revenge standing over her brother’s grave: "Your blood will not have been shed in vain. … The murderer will yet pay the price, and we will not be the only ones who are crying." And after the Haifa bombing, family members said, "She carried out the attack in revenge for the killing of her brother and her cousin by the Israeli security forces."
This potential cycle of violence is not limited to Afghanistan. U.S. military action in Iraq could have the same effect. For example, in mid-November 2003, the U.S. military commenced Operation Iron Hammer against Iraqi insurgents in the Sunni Triangle. According to one U.S. officer: "Part of warfare is coercion and affecting the hearts and minds of the enemy and certainly a show of force is a tool that can be used by a commander." One such "show of force" was U.S. F-16 fighter jets dropping several 500-pound bombs in Fallujah, but it may have had more of an effect on Iraqis previously sympathetic to the United States than on the enemy. According to one resident in the area where the bombs exploded, "We used to have hopes of the Americans after they removed Saddam. We had liked them until this weekend. Why did they drop bombs near us and hurt and terrify my children like this?" Chalk one up in the "L" column in the winning-hearts-and-minds campaign.
An important part of the war on terrorism is to not create new terrorists. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recognized this in his now famous October 2003 leaked memo: "Are we capturing, killing, or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training, and deploying against us?" One of Newton’s laws of physics is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. We need to learn from, not copy, Israeli tactics and recognize that the inevitable unintended consequences of military actions like the air strikes in Azizi can do more to create anti-American sentiment that is the first step toward becoming a terrorist. The Israelis justify their actions because they feel they must confront a direct and imminent mortal threat to the survival of their country. But U.S. actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq are more connected to the survival of U.S.-created governments and not the United States itself. Unfortunately, if the Israeli experience is any indication, the likely result will be a cycle of violence that will play into the hands of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda and create terrorist threats that did not previously exist.
SIDEBAR: IRAN WATCH
On April 18, President Bush was asked by a member of the White House press corps, "Sir, when you talk about Iran, and you talk about how you have diplomatic efforts, you also say all options are on the table. Does that include the possiblity of a nuclear strike?" The president replied, "All options are on the table. We want to solve this issue diplomatically and we’re working hard to do so."
But there is one important option that is apparently not on the table. On May 21, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, "Iran is a troublemaker in the international system, a central banker of terrorism. Security assurances are not on the table."
Incredibly, we are willing to hold open the option of nuking the Iranians to prevent them from having a uranium enrichment capability (even though there is no prohibition on such a capability under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to which Iran is a party) but are completely unwilling to consider the possibility of a security guarantee as an inducement to give up their nuclear program. For diplomacy to work, however, you have to be willing to give the other party something it wants in exchange for getting something you want from them.
It ought to be pretty clear to everyone who can read what the writing on the wall spells.
