In the first three months of 2002 the US government proposed a record military budget of $2.1 trillion over the next five years, declared that Iran, Iraq and North Korea constitute an ‘axis of evil’ and lowered the threshold for using its nuclear weapons. On 18 March Labour defence secretary Geoff Hoon announced the biggest British combat troop deployment since the 1991 Gulf War with 1,700 soldiers being sent to fight al-Qaida and Taliban forces in Afghanistan. Britain will have 6,100 soldiers in Afghanistan, more than the US deployment. The air is thick with threats and talk of wars. An atmosphere of tension and menace emanating from Washington and London spreads fear around the globe, Trevor Rayne reports.
Not so fast in Afghanistan
Three months after congratulating themselves on routing the Taliban and al-Qaida, US and allied troops found themselves in the biggest battle of the Afghan war so far, at Shah-i-Kot, near to Gardez. Operation Anaconda, launched on 2 March, was intended to last three days while ‘pockets of terrorists’ were ‘mopped up’. The operation ended 17 days later with eight US soldiers dead and 50 wounded, seven Afghan allies dead and 30 injured. Three villages were bombed to smithereens. Most of the Taliban and al-Qaida targeted were unaccounted for, presumably dispersed to fight another day; fewer than 20 bodies were found. US officers were unsure who they were fighting or how many: Taliban, al-Qaida or both together? General Tommy Franks commander of US forces in Afghanistan, said: ‘First let me say that our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and the friends of the service members who have lost their lives in our ongoing operations in Vietnam.’ That is not a misprint! There will soon be 12,000 allied troops in Afghanistan; the risks to them are mounting. The day after Operation Anaconda ended US soldiers were attacked in their base near Khost, close to the Pakistan border.
The US depended on local Afghan forces to do most of the fighting for them at Shah-i-Kot. Some of these local forces proved unreliable and seem to have led the US soldiers into a trap. US command was misinformed about the size of the opposition they were facing. Tajik troops from the Northern Alliance were called in to help out. Local Pashtun commanders demanded the Tajiks be removed. ‘If the US continues to fight in this way, they will lose,’ remarked a former Northern Alliance defence minister. US commanders, for all their spy satellites and unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, do not know what to believe and who to rely on. Britain’s Royal Marines 45 Commando have been called in as trustworthy allies – and to take the flak.
Last September President Bush said he wanted Bin Laden ‘dead or alive’. By March he was ‘not that concerned about him’. Bin Laden and Mullah Omar remain ‘whereabouts unknown’. Meanwhile by mid-February the US Human Rights Watch had recorded 333 separate incidents in Afghanistan involving civilian casualties. Medicins sans Frontières urged the US to spare Afghan civilians after transporting over 80 dead and 50 wounded (many women and children) in four days from the Tora Bora region. Estimates of civilian casualties ran at an average of 60 a day from the commencement of bombing on 7 October to mid-February. Isabel Hilton in The Guardian 21 March says of the war this ‘is one of the least reported of modern times.’ Correspondents are routinely denied access by US commanders to areas where fighting takes place.
Far from liberating Afghanistan, the US and its allies have helped to restore opium production and deadly clan feuds. British intelligence and customs officials predict a bumper opium harvest before June. Ninety- five per cent of the heroin entering Europe has its origins in Afghanistan. Tony Blair justified RAF participation in bombing Afghanistan on grounds of seizing the opportunity to eradicate opium production.
Fifty people were killed during factional fights between Tajiks and Uzbeks, former Northern Alliance allies, around Mazar-i-Sharif. US commandos killed 21 soldiers loyal to the interim government after they were tricked into believing they were al-Qaida. Rival groups petition the US to bomb their enemy saying they are al-Qaida. Two British paratroops had to be removed from Kabul after they fired on a car carrying a pregnant woman to hospital on 16 February. The woman was injured and her brother-in-law killed. The paratroops said they had been shot at.
All is not going well for the allies in Afghanistan. The head of the interim government, Hamid Karzai, has his basis of support in London, Tokyo and Washington. He was previously employed as a consultant to the US oil firm Unocal. Karzai and his administration are powerless to prevent the resurgence of fighting between rival Afghan groups. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which Britain currently heads, does not operate beyond Kabul. Both Britain and France have said they want to reduce their contingents. Turkey is due to take over the leadership of ISAF in April but is wrangling with the USA and Britain over the payment for doing so. Germany has offered to take over ‘tactical leadership’ of part of ISAF. The US government has pledged $297 million for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, a little more than half of Iran’s offer and the equivalent of about seven hours’ worth of US military spending. Not much of an investment in the country’s future.
US officials responding to European and UN criticism of their treatment of the captives at Guantanamo’s Camp X-Ray at first said they wanted the prisoners tried in their countries of origin, on the understanding that they would be prosecuted after deportation. They then said that the prisoners would be tried at US military tribunals with no right of appeal to civilian courts. Prisoners will face the death penalty. There are reports that the US is removing prisoners taken in Afghanistan to countries that routinely practice torture, for example, Egypt and Jordan. US intelligence officers are present at the interrogations.
US Colossus
What Rome took three centuries to build, the USA has surpassed in six decades. It has unrivalled military power and outposts standing guard over the peoples of all parts of the globe. A bid for world domination was underway well before 11 September, but now we see it more starkly than ever.
The US government has announced a 15% increase in its military budget for the coming year. This will add $48 billion, bringing the total to $396 billion. $48 billion is more than the total military budget of any other country. The US accounts for about 40% of the world’s total arms expenditure. $396 billion is more than the combined military spending of the next 14 biggest arms spenders and is ten times that of the second biggest NATO arms spender, Britain. The increase in the US arms budget is paid for at the expense of almost every other federal programme including Medicare, social security and urban renewal.
This enormous military build-up is intended to subdue the world by force and the threat of force. The 1991 Gulf War, the Balkan wars and the war on Afghanistan are as significant for their demonstration effect to the world as they are exercises in the ability of the US to reach anywhere and wage war. However, spectacular displays also need troops on the ground to reinforce the message and intervene where it is not appreciated. One fifth of US military personnel is based overseas. The US government now has agreements to operate military facilities in 93 countries – half the countries of the world! There are 70,000 US troops in Germany, 40,000 in Japan, 38,000 in South Korea and 15,000 in Britain.
Since the US launched the ‘war on terrorism’ it has added bases in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. It is arranging ‘military support’ for Kazakhstan. It has entered the Caucasus with 200 US special forces to be deployed in Georgia along with helicopter-gunships. One hundred US ‘special advisers’ are going to Yemen to help fight ‘local leaders considered to be sympathetic to al-Qaida’. Algeria has asked for US equipment and help to fight Islamic groups.
India and the US military have agreed that India will protect US shipping through its territorial waters and up to the Malacca Straits. In return the US will resume weapons sales to India, suspended after India exploded a nuclear weapon in 1998. The two countries will conduct joint military exercises. The Philippines government refused to renew US leases on military bases in the early 1990s and the US left in 1992. Now they are back with 700 US troops in the islands of Mindanao, fighting guerrilla forces said to be linked to al-Qaida.
The Wall Street Journal has noted the economic benefits that some of these new assignments bring, ‘Georgia is a key route for pipelines bringing Caspian Sea oil and gas to Turkey and Mediterranean ports… [Yemen and Aden] control access to the Red Sea and hence the Suez Canal. If the US builds a solid relationship with Yemen it could have the use of a valuable naval base.’
While US military deployments undoubtedly bring economic rewards, their purpose is strategic: the enforcement of US domination, the suppression of any challenge to the US ruling class. In the recent period the US has established new military bases in Ecuador, Curacao off the coast of Venezuela and in El Salvador. These are nothing to do with fighting al-Qaida but are directed at growing anti-imperialist, anti-US movements in Colombia, Venezuela and across Latin America. The US government intends to extend the terms under which it aids the Colombian government, from restricting supplies to the so-called fight against narcotics to protecting oil pipelines. Otto Reich, US secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs speaks the post-11 September vocabulary, ‘There is no insurgency in Colombia. What you have is three terrorist groups.’
Axis of evil
‘North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens. Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom. Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror… States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.’ President George W Bush, State of the Union address.
Bush explained that ‘terrorist organisations hook up with nations that develop weapons of mass destruction.’ The CIA and others then said they had evidence of such collaboration. At the beginning of March the new US Nuclear Posture Review was revealed. The new policy reverses the position held since 1978 whereby the USA would not use nuclear weapons against a country that did not have them. Targeted for US nuclear weapons are Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Libya. None of North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Syria or Libya has nuclear weapons. The Review calls for cruise missiles to be modified to carry nuclear weapons and for similar modifications to be made to the F-35 fighter, being jointly produced with Britain. It also proposes research on smaller, more accurate nuclear weapons to be produced. The North Korean government said that Bush’s speech was a ‘declaration of war’.
Syria is described by the US government as a ‘state sponsor of terrorism’. North Korea is accused of developing long-range missiles that could reach the USA, and selling military technology to Iran and Syria. Iran is accused of letting al-Qaida escape from Afghanistan through its territory. It has bought nuclear power technology from Russia…and so on. But top of the list of targets for the US arsenal is Iraq.
The US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime would be a supreme demonstration of US power; failure to overthrow it, a blow to US credibility. The European Union foreign policy commissioner Javier Solana and Russia have insisted that any attack on Iraq must first be sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council. The German and French governments both oppose an attack. Chris Patten, former Conservative Party chair and current EU commissioner for external affairs, described the ‘axis of evil’ speech as ‘absolutist and simplistic’. He proposed getting the UN weapons’ inspectors back into Iraq (they left in 1998 after being exposed identifying military targets and tracking Saddam Hussein’s movements for the CIA). Patten also called for encouragement of reform in Iran and continued dialogue between South and North Korea and for talks between Israel and Palestine. These are positions shared by most of the political leaders in the EU. The exception is Tony Blair.
The Labour government has refused to state that any military intervention in Iraq must be endorsed by the UN Security Council. This is consistent with the British government’s policy towards Iraq which has been continuous war since 1991 with the US Air Force and RAF maintaining their daily flights over Iraq, bombing as and when they choose and enforcing sanctions which have killed half a million Iraqi children. The British government is crucial in preventing any united European opposition to US military adventures. What Labour Party opposition there is to war on Iraq is exemplified by Clare Short who argues that such an attack has not been properly prepared either in the UN or among allies in the Middle East. Presumably, if Iraq does not give UN inspectors all they want and more, the conditions for war will be met. Spain and Italy, with the most reactionary governments in Europe, welcomed the ‘axis of evil’ speech. They are the Labour government’s allies in Europe.
British Army generals are alarmed that their forces are being overstretched by the government’s growing list of overseas deployments as Blair and Labour seek to demonstrate British military prowess and ability to ‘punch above our weight’. 31,000 British forces out of 205,000 are operating overseas, including in the North of Ireland. They will not have enthused over Foreign Affairs under secretary Ben Bradshaw’s attempt to echo the post-11 September stance, ‘There must be a firm response to terrorism,’ he said, offering Nepal’s government funding and training for counter-insurgency against the communist-led people’s war.
US bellicosity is provoking divisions not only in the EU but in Russia. President Putin has sought to ally with the US. Putin offered the US use of Russian-controlled air space and intelligence. He made no objections to US bases in Central Asia and announced that the former Soviet bases in Vietnam and Cuba would be closed. Russia’s foreign minister, senior military and parliamentary figures have strongly denounced the bases and any continued US presence in Afghanistan and Central Asia.
China’s response has been unambiguous. The Chinese government condemned the ‘axis of evil speech’ and repeated that it had friendly relations with Iran, Iraq and North Korea. It announced that in its next five year plan the military budget would increase at an annual rate of 15-20%, compared to the previous plan’s 12-13%. On Bush’s February visit to Beijing, China and the USA failed to reach an agreement on China’s exports of missile technology. Bush noticeably modified his rhetoric on North Korea.
With its vast armoury the US ruling class is deliberating whether it can dispense with the UN, NATO, European allies, anyone who does not bow down before it – if they oppose us so what, what can they do? The threat of war on Iraq has pushed the price of oil up to $25 a barrel, a third higher than last November. In March the US government imposed up to 30% tariffs on steel imports. Particularly affected will be Britain and the EU, Japan, Russia, China and South Korea. US militarism and imperial arrogance are worsening the international economic crisis. What the US ruling class should remember is that what Rome built in three centuries it lost in but a fraction of that time.
FRFI 166 April / May 2002
