Rory McCarthy in Islamabad, Patrick Wintour and Richard Norton-Taylor

Friday October 19, 2001 - The Guardian

Clare Short, the international development secretary, last night

provoked a furious reaction from aid agencies when she

dismissed their calls for a halt to the bombing of Taliban areas of

Afghanistan as unreal and emotional.

Insisting that the only solution to the unfolding humanitarian

crisis was to drive the Taliban from power, Ms Short said that

any pause in the bombing would play straight into the hands of

the hardline Islamist regime and its guest, Osama bin Laden.

"It is not a real alternative, it is emotional. It's emotion among

people in London, in Birmingham, in Islamabad," she told the

Guardian.

Aid agencies operating in Afghanistan, where more than 7m

people face starvation with winter fast approaching, immediately

condemned her comments.

"The fact is that our staff in Afghanistan have not received any

food in the most critical areas. Halting the bombing is the only

way we are going to feed people," said Sam Barrett, a

spokesman for Oxfam in Islamabad.

Ms Short's dismissal of the stop-the-bombing lobby was echoed

by Tony Blair, who made clear that far from being suspended,

the war was about to enter its most intense stage. The prime

minister gave his firmest indication yet that ground operations

were imminent.

"This is a testing time. In fact, I believe that the next few weeks

will be the most testing time but we are on track to achieve the

goals we set out.

"I don't think we have ever contemplated this being done by air

power alone. We have always said there would be different

phases to this operation".

As pressure builds on Washington and London for a halt in the

war, now entering its 13th day, both military planners and

political leaders are aware that they need to shift perceptions

soon or risk losing the backing of the fragile international

coalition backing the campaign.

British government sources warned last night that the US had

just a few weeks - before the onset of winter and the start of

Ramadan on November 17 - to complete the first phase of the

war and set up a robust aid distribution programme.

"We all agree that the shorter the agony lasts, the better it will

be," a minister said.

It is now clear that military and humanitarian objectives are likely

to be umbilically linked in any ground operation. Political and

military strategists, accepting that the Taliban regime is unlikely

to collapse in one fell swoop, is likely to be defeated piecemeal.

Ms Short said the Taliban would not be unseated easily.

Instead, the focus of the next stage of the war would be to build

humanitarian corridors inside Afghanistan which would be

expanded gradually as the regime was pushed back.

"I imagine a set of virtuous dominoes," she said. "Area after area

where it becomes safe to move, international staff return, the

humanitarian operation becomes more successful and then

ideally with a new Afghan government whose authority is

extended bit by bit."



In a compelling warning of the scale of the tragedy that possibly

lies ahead - and of the race against time now facing the US-led

coalition - Christian Aid last night said that at least 600 people

had already died of starvation and malnutrition in one district in

the remote mountains of northern Afghanistan two months ago.

Only a fraction of the food needed inside the country was

arriving, the British aid agency said.

Aid workers have warned that millions of deaths from hunger

this winter are now a virtual certainty.

to stop -- they know how!

But the Taliban has NEVER shown any concern for the welfare of the Afghans.

If you want the bombing to stop, go ask the guy with the eye patch.

(Similarly, if you want the sanctions on Iraq lifted -- talk to the guy in the cool beret and ask him why he won't let the UN weapons inspectors do their jobs!)

action to ameloriate the reported abusive practices back in, oh, say August???

And where was the int'l action to solve the horrendous activity between the Tutsis/Hutus fairly recently????

Hmmmmmmmm.

First off, this whole thing about it being emotional is obviously sexist. It portrays people who oppose the bombing as emotional, generally associated with femininity, and that being emotional is bad. This has been used over and over again to discredit people who actually care about there fellow human beings.

Specifically in response to cu=rt:



First off, leaders are not the same as the people they supposedly represent. Regardless of how fascistic the Taliban is why would you want at minimum thousands of Afghans to die? I'm not even talking about just the people dying right now in the bombing but all the people who will die this winter because of the current bombing. There is plenty of evidence to say that if the bombing doesn't stop millions could starve this winter as a direct result of US bombing. This is genocide and is wrong!



Second, Both the current government of Afghanistan and the current government of Iraq were put there by the US. Or at the very least were strongly supported by the US. the Taliban received millions from the US this year supposedly to help fight the war on drugs. Hussein was supported by the US even when he used chemical weapons against the Kurds in his own country. Not to mention the fact that the reason Iraq stopped allowing the inspectors in was because they said the US and Britain had packed the supposedly neutral inspectors with intelligence agents (later it was admitted that this allegation was true).

This argument would be like if Panama carpet bombed Washington DC in response to the 1989 invasion (done by George Bush SR. and the military) and then said well, Bush could change anytime he wants. The people dying have no control over the government and in fact will most likely be more supportive of the current governement whatever it is while bombing is going on. Because as fascistic as the Taliban is at least they are fighting back against the foreign power bombing the country.

Causing people to starve to death is never justified. Genocide is never justified. Supporting terror is never justified. Have we not learned anything? We supported what became the Taliban against the Soviets, with complete knowledge of how fundamentalist and terroristic they were. We continued to support them despite their brutal treatment of women. Now we are surprised iwth what has happened? The way to fight terror is to never support it and to try those responsible. Which menas not only the convenient non-white terrorists but also terrorists in "friendly" countries such as George Bush, Jr and SR, Bill Clinton, Ariel Sharon, etc. If there's one thing I agree with Bush on its that those who support terror around the world should be held accountable as well not just those who commit the acts. That squarely lays the blame for the largest amount of terror right at the feet of the US.