military? The best, the most charitable, thing that can be said is that they simply dont care. They want to bomb and destroy for certain political ends and they dont particularly care if the civilian population suffers grievously.

In Afghanistan, when, on successive days in October, US gun-ships machine-gunned and cannoned the remote farming village of Chowkar-Karez, killing as many as 93 civilians, a Pentagon official was moved to respond at one point: the people there are dead because we wanted them dead , while US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld commented: I cannot deal with that particular village. 8

Often, the United States actually does want to cause the suffering, hoping that it will lead people to turn against the government. This was a recurrent feature of the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. As will be seen in the War Criminals chapter in the present volume, US/NATO officials-in their consummate arrogance-freely admitted this again and again.

And in Afghanistan we have the example of the chief of the British Defense Staff, Adm. Sir Michael Boyce, declaring that the bombing will continue until the people of the country themselves recognize that this is going to go on until they get the leadership changed. 9

Such a policy fits very well into the FBI definition of international terrorism, which speaks of the use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.

Speak no evil, so Americans will see no evil

In reaction to a number of gruesome images of Afghan bombing victims, and expressed European and Middle Eastern concern about civilian casualties, the American media strove to downplay the significance of such deaths. The chairman of Cable News Network (CNN) advised the news staff that it seems perverse to focus too much on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan. 10 A Fox Network report on the war wondered why journalists should bother covering civilian deaths at all. The question I have, said the host, is civilian casualties are historically, by definition, a part of war, really. Should they be as big news as theyve been? His guest from National Public Radio replied: No. Look, war is about killing people. Civilian casualties are unavoidable. Another guest, a columnist from the national magazine U.S. News & World Report, concurred: Civilian casualties are not...news. The fact is that they accompany wars. 11

But if in fact the September 11 attacks were an act of war, as the world has been told repeatedly by George W. Bush and his minions, then the casualties of the World Trade Center were clearly civilian war casualties. Why then have the media devoted so much time to their deaths?

These were of course the only kind of deaths Americans wanted to hear about, and they could actually become furious when told of Afghan deaths. A memo circulated at the Panama City, Florida News Herald warned editors: DO NOT USE photos on Page 1A showing civilian casualties from the U.S. war on Afghanistan. Our sister paper in Fort Walton Beach has done so and received hundreds and hundreds of threatening e-mails and the like. 12

The American powers-that-be can indeed count on support for their wars from the American people and the corporate media. It would take an exemplary research effort to uncover a single American daily newspaper that unequivocally opposed the US bombing of Afghanistan.

Or a single American daily newspaper that unequivocally opposed the US-NATO bombing of Yugoslavia two years earlier.

Or a single American daily newspaper that unequivocally opposed the US bombing of

Iraq in 1991.

Is this not remarkable? In a supposedly free society, with a suppos-edly free press, and almost 1,500 daily newspapers, the odds should be decidedly against this being the case. But thats the way it is.

The Mecca of hypocrisy

After the terrorist attacks in the United States, Secretary of State Colin Powell condemned people who believe with the destruction of buildings, with the murder of people, they can somehow achieve a political purpose. 13

Does that not precisely describe what the United States did in 1999 when it bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days and nights? And is this not the same Colin Powell who directed the horrific bombings of Panama and Iraq? Do American leaders think that no one has any memory? Or do they simply not care what people think?

More hypocrisy of a breathtaking kind: President Bush and other officials have routinely and angrily declared that its not only terrorists that the US is going to be waging war against, its any nation which harbors terrorists. However, in the chapter Haven for Terrorists , the reader will see that there are few, if any, nations that harbor more terrorists than the United States.

Winning Afghan hearts and minds

Bombs were not all that fell from the sky from American airplanes. There were also food packages. Was it not something inordinately strange for the United States to be dropping both bombs and food on the people of Afghanistan at the same time?

If the Japanese had dropped some nice packages of teriyaki along with the bombs at Pearl Harbor, would Americans and the world have looked more kindly on the Japanese?

Perhaps if the September 11 terrorists had dropped some hot pastrami sandwiches on downtown Manhattan before their hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center...

But these things work, of course. Millions of Americans felt a rush of pride about their countrys magnanimity. The United States, the inventor and perfecter of modern advertising and public relations, had done it again.

And in the same vein, there were the many flyers dropped on the people of Afghanistan. Heres one dropped around October 20:

Do you enjoy being ruled by the Taliban? Are you proud to live a life of fear? Are you happy to see the place your family has owned for generations a terrorist training site? Do you want a regime that is turning Afghanistan into the Stone Age and giving Islam a bad name? Are you proud to live under a government that harbors terrorists? Are you proud to live in a nation ruled by extreme fundamentalists? The Taliban have robbed your country of your culture and heritage. They have destroyed your national monuments, and cultural artifacts. They rule by force, violence, and fear based on the advice of foreigners. They insist that their form of Islam is the one and only form, the true form, the divine form. They see themselves as religious experts, even though they are ignorant. They kill, commit injustice, keep you in poverty and claim it is in the name of God.

In the same spirit, the following flyer might be dropped over the United States:

Do you enjoy being ruled by the Republican-Democratic Party? Are you proud to live a life of fear, insecurity and panic? Are you happy to see the place your family has owned for generations taken away by a bank? Do you want a regime that is turning the United States into a police state and giving Christianity a bad name? Are you proud to live under a government that harbors hundreds of terrorists in Miami.?

Are you proud to live in a nation ruled by extreme capitalists and religious conservatives? The capitalists have robbed your country of your equality and justice. They have destroyed your national parks and rivers and corrupted your media, your elections and your personal relations. They rule by threat of unemployment, hunger, and homelessness based on the advice of a god called the market. They insist that their form of organizing a society and remaking the world is the one and only form, the true form, the divine form. They see themselves as morality experts, even though they are ignorant. They bomb, invade, assassinate, torture, overthrow, commit injustice, keep you and the world in poverty and claim it is in the name of God.

Rebuilding Afghanistan?