Guess who's back...¹

This week I've been busy doing nothing. I've been investigating a problem with our computer's DVD-ROM drive; tech support suggested that I backup everything and reinstall The OS From Hell². Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Not really something I relish doing. I would get Linux, but it's not my computer, so that's out (until I can get my own machine, that is).

Backing off from technology for a (short) while, I'm now going to divulge some of my recent thoughts on life³. The following is on a more serious note.

Following the attacks on the World Trade Center, I was expecting a wave of patriotism and bloodthirsty cries for war, but the mood seems to have sustained longer that I had anticipated. It seems to me that the vehemently arrogant and racist attitudes of many of those around me are not something spawned in the heat of the moment, but something already inherent, and waiting for an opportunity to be released. The terrorist attacks seem to have given some people the impression that racism is justified in this situation. Well, no. It isn't.

Before everyone starts posting back saying, 'how dare you say that patriotism is racist!' and, 'I lost friends and family in the attacks, can't you understand?', I'd like to make it clear that I think that the attacks were a terrible thing. Evil, if you can still use that word. I know people who've lost family and friends in the attacks. However, it is not justified for the rest of the world (especially here in Britain) to use the attacks as an opportunity to make their racist nature clear. I know perfectly rational people who turned into bloodthirsty preachers at the news. Ridiculous, unsubstantiated claims - such as, 'At least 40,000 people are dead!' and 'It was Israel/Iraq! [delete as appropriate]' - were rife. People I know were calling for the carpet bombing of the entire Middle East. 'We should nuke Iraq!' cropped up a lot. So did 'We should kill all the f***ing Muslims'. All of this came from otherwise seemingly normal people.

When the people started to get their 'facts' straight, the atmosphere died down - though everyone still seemed excited about the 'war on terrorism'. I found few people who thought it was a bad thing. Unfortunately, the so-called 'war' is not a war, and it is not against terrorism. Here's why.

• Many people who thought that they were putting forward a rational argument for the bombing of Afghanistan cited the fascistic actions of the Taliban as a reason. Well, who do they think the Taliban are oppressing? Is it the Americans? No. On the whole, it's the Afghani people. So, the argument seems to run: The Taliban oppresses the Afghans, SO: let's bomb Afghanistan.
  
  Doesn't really work, does it? The bombing may be aimed at military targets, but it's civilians who are suffering.
• People are calling this a war. This is not a war. This is an act of mass destruction. According to my handy OED, a war is 'armed conflict between countries, ethnic groups etc'. Note the plural. If terrorists were responsible for the WTC attacks, why are we attacking Afghanistan? Afghanistan has not attacked us in any way. The Taliban regime may be harbouring terrorists, but Afghanistan, as a country, isn't. This isn't war: this is one country dropping bombs on another. Oh, and by the way, it's illegal.
• This is not direct action against terrorism. The whole reason why I'm opposed to the bombing campaign is the fact that innocent people get killed. In the Gulf War, hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians were killed by bombing campaigns such as these. Don't tell me the bombs always hit the target. That's simply not true.
• One of the first actions taken by the US was to cut off aid supplies going into Afghanistan. Saying that it was to stop 'the terrorists' getting the aid is not a valid excuse. The pitiful aid dropped by the military is not going to help. Projected figures suggest that thousands will die of starvation his winter. Impressive propaganda and blind xenophobia have led to people ignoring facts.

The other thing that many people don't understand is that Osama Bin Laden is not going to get touched by this bombing. Many people seem to think that the bombing is against 'the terrorists'; in fact, much of the bombing may (supposedly) be targeted against military positions, but it's not effective enough to destroy the terrorist training camps. We're already seeing civic buildings, hospitals and the like getting bombed. 'Collateral damage' is just spin-speak for killing innocent people - just like at the WTC. It cannot be justified.

There's hardly anything left to bomb, anyway: most of Afghanistan is rubble, rocks and dust - people are hopelessly poor, and bombing them is simply going to make their situation worse.

And don't let us forget, Osama Bin Laden had an Oxford education, and was funded by the US when fighting against the Russians. He's been helped by the West many times in his life. We shouldn't look at this as being a 'them and us' situation. Terrorism transcends race, religion and nationality.

We (the Western world) have set up a great many dictatorships and regimes that we later denounce as 'evil' and 'despotic'. We helped put the Taliban in power. We helped put Saddam Hussain in power. And now, to get rid of the Taliban, we are funding, training and supporting the Northern Alliance, who may yet, in ten years' time, end up being attacked for 'harbouring terrorists'.

At the start of the conflict, the Taliban offered to extridite Osama Bin Laden to a neutral country. I'm not suggesting for a moment that we should have simply trusted them. But America storming in and trying to capture him for trial in the US was the wrong thing to do. Now America's allies will extridite Bin Laden to the US if they capture him. Any court in America will instantly convict Bin Laden and give him the toughest penalty available. There will be no fair trial. This is just one of the many projected or active contraventions of the International Bill of Human Rights by Western powers.

A few final points: Bombing Afghanistan or attacking Muslims to get revenge on Bin Laden and Al-Quaeda is like bombing all of Ireland to stop the conflict there. It's like killing every Gulf War veteran because of Timothy McVey. It's not an answer. Terrorist probelms should be solved with justice, not vengeance.

The day after we had all seen the pictures, heard the reports, and read the papers, someone told me he thought that the Middle East should be bombed. I replied that I disagreed, as it wouldn't solve anything. He laughed, and said he didn't care: he just wanted 'to see something get flattened'.

I suggested he went and watched a news report.

That's all

I am playing devil's advocate a little here, and maybe my views come across as too biased, but here they are anyway. I'm sure I'll get flamed for writing this, but I'm simply trying to put across a point of view that seems to have been lost by many: war is not the solution.

Peace .

# Lokuz

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