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ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

By stephenplowden at hotmail.com

THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN DO NOT WORK

1. The war will not bring justice but will create new injustices

It is very important for the people who planned the atrocities of 11
September to be brought to justice. No adequate proof that bin Laden did so
has been made public, but assuming that he did:

1.1 The war is unlikely to achieve the aim of apprehending bin Laden and
taking him to the US for trial. It is more likely that he will be killed in
Afghanistan or will commit suicide rather than fall into American hands.
That might be regarded as justice in some primitive sense, but not in the
legal sense on which international order has to be founded.

1.2 Even if bin Laden could be brought to the US, it is very unlikely that
he would receive a fair trial there, given (among other things) what
President Bush said when refusing to discuss with the Taliban the
possibility of handing him over to a third country: "We know he’s guilty.
Turn him over. There’s no need to discuss innocence or guilt." (Source: The
Independent, 15 October).

1.3 The war will create huge new injustices through the deaths and suffering
of large numbers of innocent people. That is too high a price to pay for
bringing bin Laden to justice, even if there were no other way of doing so.

2. The war will not make the world safer from terrorism

2.1 Action in Afghanistan is irrelevant to any immediate threat. It may well
be that further terrorist attacks are in the pipeline, but even if they were
planned in Afghanistan, they cannot be launched from there.

2.2 Even if the war succeeded in eliminating bin Laden and his camps and
destroying the Taliban regime, that would not necessarily be the end of the
al-Qaeda network. It might well be able to continue in another country, or
countries, with a new leadership.

2.3 Even if the al-Qaeda network were entirely and permanently destroyed,
the war will create a much larger number of terrorists. The reports from
Pakistan and other Muslim countries suggest that the bombing may already be
having that effect, even though the number of innocent people killed so far
is small relative to the number that will die, both from bombs and other
arms and from hunger, disease and cold, if the war continues. If, in
addition, bin Laden were killed or committed suicide in Afghanistan, or if
he were captured and then tried and imprisoned or executed in the United
States, the boost given to terrorism would be incalculable.

3. There is an alternative

3.1 Stop the war before more harm is done, and amplify the aid programme
immediately.

3.2 The alternative to military means of bringing bin Laden to justice is
diplomatic and legal means. The alternative to trying him in the United
States is to try him in an international court. It is true that it is normal
for suspected criminals to be tried in and by the country where the offence
was committed, but the rule is not inviolable and should not be followed in
a case like this when (a) the trial is unlikely to be fair and (b) its
repercussions would be catastrophic. An international court might in any
case be more suitable if, as we are told, this crime should be regarded as
an offence against civilisation generally and not just as an attack on one
country. (For the discussion of this point in Parliament by Jack Straw,
Robert Marshall-Andrews and Francis Maude, see House of Commons Hansard for
16 October, columns 1055- 1058 and 1079. This can be viewed on
www.parliament.uk)

3.3 Responsibility for bringing bin Laden to justice should be transferred
from the United States to the United Nations. Legal and diplomatic action
may take a long time, and people understandably want the perpetrators to be
called to account immediately. But to be guided by that wish, when there is
no way of fulfilling it without causing more innocent victims, is to act in
a spirit of reckless vengeance, not justice. Arraigning bin Laden and his
accomplices IS VERY IMPORTANT BUT IS NOT URGENT. A crucial mistake from the
outset was the failure to distinguish action to punish the perpetrators,
which is important but not urgent, from action to prevent further
atrocities, which is both important and urgent.

3.4 In any case, LEGAL ACTION THROUGH THE UN MIGHT BE MUCH QUICKER THAN
MILITARY ACTION AND COULD EVEN BE VERY QUICK INDEED. If the Taliban were
prepared to negotiate with the US for bin Laden’s extradition, provided that
evidence was provided and the extradition was to a third country, they might
well be prepared to negotiate with the UN for his extradition and trial in
an international court.

3.5 The only way to prevent any attacks that are already in the pipeline is
through police action in the countries where the potential perpetrators are
now living or which they are planning to attack. This action, which is
already taking place, apparently with some success, includes monitoring and,
where appropriate, interning suspects, and freezing or taking control of
their assets. If some attacks are now ready to go, it may not be possible to
stop them all, but there is no other way to go about it. New legislation and
new forms of international cooperation, including measures against money
laundering and doubtful practices in offshore financial centres, should be
introduced to make police containing action of this kind more effective in
the future.

3.6 Containment of al-Qaeda’s agents in the countries where they are now
living and operating should be supplemented by isolation of the network’s HQ
in Afghanistan, assuming that that is where the network’s HQ still is, by
disrupting its communications, making it harder for its agents to travel
into and out of Afghanistan and hitting its finances and sources of supply.
Of course, if steps short of war can be taken to close down the network and
the camps in Afghanistan, so much the better, but since, as already
mentioned, the network could probably then continue from another country
under new leadership, that would probably only be of limited value.

3.7 In the longer term, but starting straight away, we need to control and
limit the arms trade. We also need to reform the drug laws, both so as to
destroy the huge international criminal gangs that run the trade and finance
the terrorists, and to cut the ground from beneath the feet of the pushers
who now find it profitable to boost demand by creating more addicts.

3.8 As everyone recognizes, the fight against terrorism has to be coupled
with action, especially in the Middle East, to remove the injustices and
misery that breed terrorism.

THE DEFINITION OF A JUST WAR AND ITS APPLICATION TO THE PRESENT CONFLICT

A just cause is a necessary but not a sufficient condition of a just war.
Two other conditions must also be met. The war must be necessary: means
short of war must have been tried and exhausted or shown to be unavailable
or insufficient. The war must be winnable by proportionate means: the harm
done in prosecuting the war must not exceed the good from achieving the just
end.

The proportionality test obviously leaves great room for individual
judgment. But the fact that a war is waged by means that minimize the harm
needed to win it is not enough to satisfy this test. It is quite possible
that even the minimum harm involved in waging the war would outweigh the
good that would come from winning it. (It can be argued that that was what
was wrong with the war in Vietnam. The objective, to prevent the north from
conquering the south, was just. It is unlikely that diplomacy, economic
sanctions or whatever could have attained it. But the war could not be won
without causing more suffering to innocent people and more injustice than
was caused by the north’s conquest of the south.)

The Government has said many times that war in Afghanistan is necessary:
i.e. that the objectives cannot be accomplished by other means.  From the
debates in Hansard of 14 September, 8 October and 14 October it seems that
this claim is based on three misconceptions, which have already been
discussed:

1. the belief that bringing bin Laden to justice is a task that has to be
accomplished (as distinct from set in hand) urgently and that military
action was essential for that;

2. the belief that preventing more attacks by bin Laden or his network would
be accomplished by military action against their base in Afghanistan and
could not be accomplished in any other way;

3. the failure to see that even the complete elimination of bin Laden and
al-Qaeda would not be an effective move in the "war against terrorism" if
accomplished by means that created more bitterness and anger and, as a
consequence, more terrorism.

It is again clear from Hansard that the Government also believes that by
taking all possible care to avoid civilian casualties (assuming that that
has or could be done) it has satisfied the proportionality requirement. Thus
in his opening statement to the House of Commons on 8 October, the Prime
Minister said, as part of the explanation why action after 11 September had
taken almost four weeks:

But thirdly, we wanted time to make sure that the targets for any action
minimised the risk of civilian casualties . . . We are doing all we can to
limit the effect of our action on ordinary Afghans.

And later, in answer to a question, he said:

First, in relation to any military action, I think that we have shown, both
by the time we have taken and by the targets we have chosen, that we are
well aware of the need to do everything we humanly can to avoid civilian
casualties, and that has been clear from the very outset. Of course,
conflict is conflict, and it is never easy to do it or to ensure that any
potential civilian casualties are minimised, but we are doing all we
possibly can to do that.

The Americans and British may be doing "everything [they] humanly can" to
minimise innocent suffering consistent with the pursuit of their aims. But
the aim of bringing bin Laden to justice quickly justifies the creation of
few, if any, more innocent victims, and every innocent victim makes the
fight against terrorism harder to win

This document summarizes some important arguments against this war. It is
intended primarily for the use of people who are already opposed to the war
and would like some material to draw on in presenting the arguments against
it. I hope it will also be of use to people who are uneasy but not fully
convinced one way or the other.

The arguments included here are not comprehensive; there may well be better
ways of expressing those that are included; some may be contentious. Even
so, I believe that the case against the war remains overwhelmingly strong. I
hope that everyone who shares that belief will do what they can to protest,
since we will be failing in our duty as citizens of a democracy if we do not
try to stop our country waging a war that we believe to be wrong.

A note on the definition of a just war is included as a supplement. The
conditions that have to be met before a war can be called just are much more
stringent than is often realised. I believe that if people did realise them,
the uneasiness that many people feel about this war would be turned into
outright opposition.

THE IDEA OF THIS EMAIL IS TO START A SNOWBALL. IF YOU FIND IT USEFUL, PLEASE
PASS IT ON TO ANYONE ELSE WHO MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED AND ASK THEM TO DO
THE SAME.

At the very least, I hope that everyone opposed to the war will write to his
or her MP. If you do not get a satisfactory reply, then, if you have time,
please form a deputation to go to see them. Make them engage with the
arguments, and if they start to make comparisons with WW2, Bosnia or Kosovo,
don’t be drawn but insist on talking about Afghanistan. It is also important
to keep up pressure in the press. Even if a letter is not published, it
serves a useful purpose, since the more anti-war letters a newspaper
receives, the more likely it is to publish some of them.

I would be very interested to receive copies of replies from MPs, either
photocopies by post or emails if they send emails. But if emails, please
incorporate the MPs’ replies in the body of an email message to me, as I
have doubts about my anti-virus check and I don’t open attachments. A Labour
Against the War group has just been formed within the Labour Party and would
like to hear from you on 0208 985 6597, or email (pro tem)
grahambash at gn.apc.org . If you are a member of some other political party
and are interested in forming a similar group within that party, please send
me your name and email address. I will make a list of the names I receive
for each party and send the list to everyone on it, so you can communicate
with each other. But the above tasks are all that I can undertake to do, so
please do not swamp me with correspondence.

The website for ARROW, which is www.justicenotvengeance.org, gives
information on marches and other anti-war activities as well as arguments.
Information on anti-war activities in the US, or some of them, is available
on www.9-11peace.org