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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 20:07:27 PST
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Subject: [R-G] Genocide as collateral damage, but with sincere regrets - Ed
Herman
ZNet Commentary
November 14, 2001
Genocide as collateral damage, but with sincere regrets
By Edward S. Herman
The Bush Afghan war calls up memories of the Vietnam war in both actions and
rhetoric: the massive use of superior arms heavily impacting civilians,
deliberate food
deprivation, wholesale terror allegedly combatting "terrorism," but always
"sincere
regrets" for any "collateral damage."
In the earlier war, although the propaganda claim was that we were saving
South
Vietnam from aggression, the U.S. leadership and military knew very well
that the U.S.
puppet regime in the south had negligible internal support, and in
consequence the
most ferocious forms of U.S. violence were directed at the people in the
south.
Virtually all the napalm and chemicals used during the war struck the
south, which was
also regularly attacked by B-52 bombers, and much of its territory was made
into "free
fire zones." As good propaganda servants of the state, however, the
mainstream
media never noticed the contradiction--virtually unlimited violence against
the people
allegedly being saved from aggression. In the classic military explanation
of the
treatment of Ben Tre: "We had to destroy the town in order to save it."
In South Vietnam, the United States carried out a large-scale program of
attempted
food deprivation to starve out the indigenous National Liberation Front
(NLF) soldiers.
Under this program, charmingly labelled Operation Ranch Hand, millions of
gallons of
Agent Orange and other dangerous chemicals were sprayed repeatedly on
peasant
rice crops, in a policy that U.S. Admiral William Leahy had opposed during
World War II
on the ground that it would "violate every Christian ethic I have ever heard
of and all
known laws of war." (We were already on the road to "humanitarian bombing"
and the
new "ethical foreign policy" when this policy was installed in the Kennedy
years).
This chemical warfare killed many thousands of peasants and their family
members,
and left a memorial in an estimated 500,000 Vietnamese children with serious
birth
deformities (Peter Waldman, "Body Count," Wall Street Journal, Dec. 12,
1997).
At the time, critics of this illegal and vicious policy stressed the fact
that soldiers would
have priority access to the diminished food supply. The distinguished
Harvard
nutritionist Jean Mayer was only one among many who pointed out that this
policy "first
and overwhelmingly affected small children" ("Crop Destruction in Vietnam,"
Science,
April 15, 1966). But this had no effect on policy: food deprivation pushed
ahead with
little opposition from the liberal media or the international community.
So did intensive high level bombing and the use of napalm and fragmentation
bombs.
While it was regularly claimed by the U.S. military that they regretted and
were trying to
avoid civilian casualties, there were also occasional admissions that the
people
supported the NLF and that making this support "costly" and driving them
into the
cities was deliberate policy. The several million dead and severely wounded
and
traumatized Vietnamese civilians were still "collateral damage," as the
policy did not
aim to kill them but merely to induce this stubborn populace to accept a
minority
government acceptable to U.S. officials.
In Iraq, under the UN sanctions regime, also, the 500,000 plus Iraqi
children and
overall million plus dead civilians, whose death was "worth it" for
Madeleine Albright,
and hence for the mainstream media, are, once again "collateral damage." The
stated
aim has been to get rid of Saddam Hussein, not to kill children, so the
deaths of large
numbers of children are regretfully but understandably and acceptably costs
of a policy
with a clearly benevolent end. As in the old saw attributed to the Reds, the
means are
justified by the ends, even if these entail mass deaths of innocent victims.
In the imperial system there is another rationale employed to justify mass
deaths
resulting from policy, even when these approach genocidal levels. That is,
as the
leaders of the victims always have the option of surrender, THEY are
responsible for
any deaths that follow their refusal, not the party actually doing the
killing directly.
The Vietnamese were regularly offered the option of abandoning the struggle
to
overthrow the minority government imposed on the south by the United States;
so that
if they refused, what option had the United States but to kill, to protect
South Vietnam
against "internal aggression" (the phrase was then U.S. Ambassador to the UN
Adlai
Stevenson's Orwellian masterpiece)? How else resolve the choice between
U.S."credibility" and the killing of millions of innocent civilians in a
manner consistent
with "our values"?
Similarly, Saddam Hussein could give up power voluntarily, and although the
UN has
never mandated his removal as the objective of the "sanctions of mass
destruction"
imposed on Iraq by that organization, if the United States adds in this
objective at its
own discretion who can object, except the impotent victims and weaklings of
the left?
In Kosovo we saw the familiar process employed once again: Yugoslavia at
Rambouillet was invited to surrender, not only by agreeing to a NATO
takeover of
Kosovo, but under Appendix B to allow the NATO occupation of all of
Yugoslavia. This
was explicitly designed to "raise the bar" to assure Yugoslav rejection,
because "the
Serbs needed a little bombing," in the words of a State Department official.
(Saddam
also needed a little bombing after he invaded Kuwait in August 1990, so he
was not
allowed to extricate himself there by negotiations.)
The Kosovo solution by NATO bombing and occupation has been applauded by
Western liberals on the ground that the Kosovo Albanians were
repatriated--ignoring
that they only needed repatriation as a consequence of the NATO war
itself--and that
the demon responsible for all the Balkan difficulties, Slobodan Milosevic,
has been
brought to trial--which rests on a comprehensive misreading of recent Balkan
history,
with an especially noteworthy neglect of the crucial role of the NATO powers
in
destabilizing Yugoslavia in a manner that assured ethnic cleansing, and
protecting the
ethnic cleansing, and continuing to protect it today in occupied Kosovo,
when done by
the right people.
Which brings us to the U.S. war against Afghanistan, where we have a rerun
of the
now standard rationales for mass killings as collateral damage. Once again
the enemy
has been invited to surrender, in a manner that assured rejection--demanding
that the
Taliban deliver up Bin Laden, but refusing to provide evidence of his
involvement in
the September 11 terrorist attacks. In the imperial tradition, the refusal
to do as
instructed means that any future deaths from bombs is the fault of the
Taliban
leadership.
A unique feature of the war against Afghanistan is that as it began this
devastated
and poor country was facing the prospect of mass starvation, following
incessant wars
and three years of drought. World humanitarian institutions such as Oxfam,
the WHO,
UNICEF, Conscience International and others were already focused on
Afghanistan as
a desperate case, with 7-8 million people facing starvation.
The U.S. decision to bomb Afghanistan was therefore, in itself, a major act
of terrorism,
as it caused the immediate flight of thousands from Afghan cities, disrupted
food
supply by humanitarian groups, and immediately worsened the crisis. The Bush
administration also forced Pakistan to close its borders, directly impeding
food supply
operations. The bombing itself caused further flight and cutbacks in food
distribution,
along with the familiar "errant bombs" and "tragic errors" striking
civilians directly.
Most notable was the repeated bombing of well-marked Red Cross food supply
facilities in Kabul, and the admission that this was intentional as the
Taliban allegedly
controlled the site. Red Cross officials denied Taliban occupation or
interference, but
whoever is correct on this point, we see the continuity with the spirit of
Operation
Ranch Hand in the intent to deprive the Taliban of food, despite the fact
that a food
deprivation policy will always impact first and foremost children and other
noncombatants.
The multiple attacks on the Red Cross sites also suggests that Bush
administration
officials may not view the effects of the escalating mass starvation as
bad--it will put
pressure on the Taliban food supply, even as it kills large numbers of
noncombatants.
The similarity to the Vietnam War policy of depriving the NLF of food,
whatever the
human cost, is clear.
The U.S. mainstream media are not bothered by this at all, any more than
they have
been bothered by the 5,000 Iraqi children terminated each month as
collateral
damage. Remember how intensely interested the mainstream media were in the
plight
of the Kosovo Albanians expelled and fleeing during the bombing war, and how
indignant they were?
Now, with the already starving Afghan civilians put to flight by U.S.
bombing and
threats, the media focus on the bombing tactics, their effectiveness and
prospects,
and the condition of the fleeing and starving Afghans is barely noticed;
indignation is
entirely absent. What a difference the locus of responsibility for the
plight of refugees
makes for the direction of media attention and moral fervor!
Just as the media essentially suppress the evidence that the U.S. war's
impact on the
Afghan starvation crisis is to exacerbate it, making it a policy of mass
killing, so they
are oblivious to the hypocrisy of the food drop program and its PR
character. I still
have photos of GIs in Vietnam handing lollipops to Vietnamese children
orphaned in
the U.S. destruction of Vietnam in order to save it. The media back then
showed such
photos as evidence of our kindness, without blanching.
Now, we have air drops of food packages that are a miniscule offset to the
war-induced fall in humanitarian aid, and with sublime irony, of the same
yellow color
as the cluster bombs, also dropped in great number, and deadly to anyone
touching
them.
In short, the media are, once again, serving as key instruments in making
national
policy palatable and apologizing for and normalizing their government's mass
killings of
innocent civilians. We offered the enemy the surrender option, our patience
is once
again exhausted, and once again "the United States sincerely regrets this
inadvertent
strike on..." (fill in the blanks), which was clearly unintentional, and
collateral damage.
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