Thinking the Unthinkable
Jon Carroll Thursday, September 13, 2001
WE ARE NOW pledged to destroy those responsible for Tuesday's terrorist
attacks and those who "harbor" them. It is probable that the "harboring"
refers to a government that has, by active support or merely by failure to
act, allowed these thugs to operate unmolested within its borders.
So we begin the scenarios. We say, "What if . . ." and move from there. Many
are already doing it, because they are trained to do it or because they find
it a useful distraction from grief.
So suppose the culprit is Osama bin Laden. Suppose the nation in question is
Afghanistan. What precisely have we have committed ourselves to do? Surely
not merely more air strikes -- the Gulf War made us feel good for a while,
and then it made us feel bad about feeling good, and still the same guy is
in power and, as always, ordinary citizens are the ones suffering.
That is partly Saddam's fault, but it is partly our fault too, because we
wanted to have a war without having a war. I do not think, morally or
strategically, that a warless war would work in Afghanistan. Even if we
managed to hit bin Laden's SUV as it zigzagged from Kandahar to Gardez, the
Taliban would remain in place. If we allowed the Taliban to remain in place,
we would be breaking our own promise.
Getting rid of the blight of the Taliban would be a service to the world.
Its perversion of the ancient and noble religion of Islam, its attacks on
personal freedoms, its indifference to suffering make it a coven of tin-pot
Pol Pots. Good riddance; hard riddance.
THAT MEANS A land war in Asia. History suggests that this is not a wise
idea, because Asia usually wins a land war in Asia. Ask the Russians about
Afghanistan; they had a common border and still managed to make a botch of it.
We have no such border. Where would our staging areas be? Russia,
remarkably, is perhaps our strongest friend in this particular fight;
Putin's tearful message of support indicates precisely how weird the world
has become.
The common border is no more -- Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are
there now. These are not exactly nations that scream "appropriate
infrastructure." Also bordering Afghanistan are Iran and Pakistan, who are,
well, not our little buddies.
Indeed, the whole question of allies is a little dodgy. We've been in a
yearlong Father-knows-best mode with the world community, trashing the ABM
treaty, ignoring the Kyoto accord, boycotting the Durban conference. Our
arrogance is much noted in Europe. How many British or French or German
soldiers might be available to help us on our quest against harborers?
People who feel suddenly vulnerable always wish they'd been a little nicer
to their neighbors.
BUT SUPPOSE THIS: Osama bin Laden moves his traveling bad-medicine show to
Pakistan. Who, then, becomes the harboring nation? If it's Pakistan, then
our friend India would be more than happy to get involved in toppling the
regime.
But if India got involved, then China would get involved, because China is
certainly not interested in having the balance of terror between India and
Pakistan resolved in either direction. Of course, before that there would be
a flurry of conversations and a cascade of ever-more-difficult decisions.
But if diplomatic solutions were not found, we'd have something like a world
war. Our skills at diplomacy have faltered as our skills at intelligence
have decayed. The virtues of speaking the language and understanding the
culture have been replaced by the virtues of working the bureaucracy and
telling Washington what it wants to hear.
This is not a partisan issue; the Foreign Service corps has been on the
decline for two decades under five administrations. It didn't seem to
matter, because we were so strong we didn't need to be smart.
Looking at the scenarios, I hope we can find some smart pills real darn quick.
Take a giant step outside jcarroll@sfchronicle.com
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