They opted to bomb, it had better work
The Prophet of the Digital Millenium
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 10 2001
They opted to bomb, it had better work
SIMON JENKINS
So it must be done the old way after all.
The faces of Britain’s rulers on Monday night said it all. They had
lost the argument. Sitting in Parliament they looked haggard and
wretched. Tony Blair thumped on yet again about Osama bin Laden being
a fiend and a monster. Everyone chanted that bombing should be
“proportionate, measured, targeted”, knowing that this was beyond
their control. Clare Short’s face was a picture of misery. She must
now excuse the civilian deaths, the laying of cluster mines, the
airborne terror for which she is responsible as a War Cabinet member.
How skin-deep is humanity when the guns begin to fire. Whenever
Americans start bombing, Britons dive under a blanket of Churchillian
waffle.
Britain is not at war at present, any more than it was at war during
the IRA bombing of London or after bin Laden’s previous attack on New
York’s World Trade Centre. To describe what should be a relentless
campaign against criminal terror as war is metaphor abuse. By hurling
resources and media attention at some distant theatre, it deflects
effort from the domestic front. It also insults those who fought and
died in real wars, when territory was threatened and states were at
risk.
For the past three weeks, the case against bombing was marshalled in
every capital in the world. It was advanced in Washington itself by
Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. Tony Blair’s every waking hour was
devoted to it. His round-the-clock diplomacy was to build up the case
for “cunning not killing”, not in the Middle East but in Washington.
He was sincere but eventually he lost.
We need hardly repeat the argument. For the West to extract bin Laden
from his lair before winter is near impossible. While his networks and
cash could and should be choked, regional diplomacy should use every
conceivable means to get others to extract him. The heat should be put
on every ally. All back-channels and bribes should be activated.
September 11 had yielded an unprecedented “coalition of the willing”
across the Middle East. Give it time to work, not just three weeks. Do
not give up when the Taleban are showing some sign of wobbling if not
collapsing.
Above all, the argument said, do not bomb. Do not raise expectations
of military success. Bombing would not deter a new atrocity, only make
it more likely. Bombing would achieve little in a land of hand-to-hand
combat. It would kill civilians and risk the security of cross-border
platforms for special forces. It would turn hesitant new friends into
sullen old enemies.
Round every table the argument raged, with Britain on the side of
common sense. But once the bombers were in place, there was a dreadful
inevitability to the outcome. As in Iraq, air forces can play all the
best overtures to war. They promise to kick butt and whup ass. They
would avenge America for the World Trade Centre. They would have the
tabloids purring, speech-writers drooling and liberals trapped by
their vitals. As for consequence, that was for politicians and wimps.
There is a fond belief in Downing Street that Britain has “influence”
in Washington. It does not. Britain has the leverage of a comfort
blanket. Now that sophistication has lost out in Washington, Britain
must toe the line like an obedient junior. Indeed to prove its
loyalty, it must bomb first. So much for influence.
In his desperate speech on Monday, Mr Blair played a cheap card. He
depicted opponents of the bombing as being soft on bin Laden and the
Taleban. Was he not an opponent himself just a week ago? Like the
tongue-tied, fencesitting religious leaders who met him that day in
Downing Street, he merely demonstrates Britain’s subservience to
America. How can Britain ever hope to join a panEuropean foreign
policy on this performance? Those who disagree with Mr Blair are not
on the side of bin Laden and the Taleban. They disagree over means,
not ends. Britain is now committed to bombing Afghanistan to the next
stage of the war, an obscure destination. In comparison, the bombing
of Beirut, Tripoli, Baghdad, Mogadishu and Belgrade seem shrewd and
calculated. Some pundits are explaining that the bombs will enable a
special forces base to be set up to capture bin Laden. How rearranging
the rubble of suburban Kabul achieves this is a mystery.
If I were special forces, I would be far more worried if the bombing
led to a withdrawal of logistical support by neighbouring states. I
would be alarmed at the mission creep which already has the Americans
requesting an extended war against other states in the region. I would
want no return of the old CNN ritual of whooshing rockets, screaming
rioters and wailing women. I would be appalled at Donald Rumsfeld
mimicking Moscow’s boast, that we can “forget about exit strategies;
we are looking at a sustained engagement”. When American Defence
Secretaries ignore exit strategies we can bet the exit will be fast.
The bombing is not military but political. It is revenge, no less
ferocious for being postponed. It will probably freeze the Taleban in
their hold on power as long as it lasts, as is usual with bombed
regimes. Nor is global terror deterred by such onslaughts, least of
all the new suicidal terror. Bruce Hoffman of St Andrews University,
in his recent and prescient Inside Terrorism, cites the conclusion of
a 1996 US government paper, that neither sanctions nor military action
had ever had an effect against state-sponsored terrorism, except to be
counter-productive. The growth of religious fanaticism and chemical
weapons, he said, renders this policy failure extremely dangerous.
In retrospect, the lack of follow-up to the 1993 New York bombing,
given the evidence revealed at the trial, was criminal negligence on
the part of Western Intelligence. So too was the refusal of later
Sudanese help against bin Laden. Yet somehow a thundering blitz of
Kabul atones for these mistakes.
For a moment this past month, we saw a new wisdom. Washington seemed
to realise that the Muslim world resented its decades of mistreatment.
A moment for possible rapprochement was at hand. The horror of
September 11 meant that East might join West in one humanitarian
cause. When Mr Blair has not been on helium, he too seemed to glimpse
that new dawn. He surely cannot see it now.
The past fortnight has been a battle of new guard against old. Those
who wanted to concentrate on counter-terrorism, covert operations and
“coercive diplomacy” and who protested that bombing would endanger
their work, have lost. Those who wanted a reprise of Baghdad and
Belgrade, who wanted to play to the gallery with things that go bang
on television, have won. The old guard have triumphed. They must now
deliver, as must those who kowtowed to them.
The Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, must show how his Tomahawks will
really help to find bin Laden. He must bond with the bandits of the
Northern Alliance as his predecessor, George Robertson, bonded with
the Kosovo Liberation Army. Mr Blair must explain how firing missiles
at empty hillsides will enhance his world congregation of virtue. Jack
Straw must construct a puppet regime in Kabul more secure than that
left by the Soviet Union. They must all explain how they will prop up
a new regime indefinitely, or risk losing the “war” all over again.
From these people we want no nonsense about precision weapons and
surgical strikes. Bombs miss targets. Only infantry can shoot
straight. We want no weasel words about “no quarrel with the Afghans”.
We want no fake dismay at a surge of anti-American riots, at British
contracts cancelled, hostages taken and lives put at risk. This is the
course on which the Government is set. When it bombs people, the
innocent get hurt and the rest get angry.
Aerial bombardment is never proportionate, measured or targeted. It
evolves a logic of its own, an escalation of horror similar to that
unleashed by the terrorist. Like all distant and indiscriminate
violence, it breeds a violent response. It is the dumbest weapon of
war.
At present the bombing is likely to increase anti-Western hysteria in
the Middle East and dissolve Mr Blair’s coalition. We can only hope
that it at least installs “our” villains in Kabul, and one day
captures bin Laden. It had better.