Do not escalate the 'smart' war

THE MILITARY OFFENSIVE that the United States and Britain have launched against Afghanistan is presumably the first overt aspect of a smart war against the terrorists with a global reach and also their hosts. For the larger international community, a sensible course at this early stage of this conflict in Afghanistan is to impress upon the American-British coalition and its military allies in the wings to recognise and avert the geopolitical risks as also the human costs of a wider conflagration. This will be a difficult but humane choice. And, if the U.S.-U.K. brains-trust is indeed capable of sustaining its own agenda of a smart war, it should take the initiative to scale down the losses of human lives and of civilian assets to truly negligible proportions. The latest war against the devilish Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden, the suspected don of international terrorism, had become inevitable in the context of a chain reaction of events involving them and the U.S. since September 11. After a band of barbaric conspirators struck horrendously against some high profile targets in the U.S. on that day, taking a heavy human and material toll, Washington began sensitising the international community to a discourse about an entirely new kind of war against terrorism. It has been said that the promised battle against the terrorist-fugitives and their patrons will be fought on several different fronts. The array of means outlined is impressive - patient diplomacy and the intelligence war of secrecy, besides a new practice of forays across the cyberspace to squeeze the finances of the terror- mongers and, if necessary, open military conflicts with them.

However, as the U.S. and the U.K. started pounding targets in Afghanistan on Sunday night, the stark horrors of a prospective war triggered some equally predictable international concerns about the likely humanitarian fallout. The Anglo-American attacks have already entailed the use of the utmost state-of-the-art cruise missiles and a range of stealth bombers for aerial sorties to deliver ``smart'' but ferocious weapons. Arguably, these devices will help target Osama's terrorist camps as also the military machinery of the Taliban with a high degree of unprecedented precision that might curtail or rule out civilian casualties in significant numbers. Yet, the first waves of the Anglo-American military intrusions across the sky over Afghanistan have already forced its hapless inhabitants out of their miserable homes. So, the global community cannot simply ignore the conspicuous signs of a humanitarian catastrophe. A fresh exodus of Afghan refugees, perhaps numbering over a million, may have already been caused by the terrifying impact or images of the American-British military might.

Among the states that have variously facilitated the latest war on some suspected sources of terrorism, whatever be the different political compulsions of these countries, Pakistan may be the first to feel the shockwaves of a new humanitarian crisis. Already hosting countless refugees of the past conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan is obviously wary of a new influx into its territory. On a different plane, the U.S. also seems aware of the bad name that a humanitarian disaster could bring to the global anti-terror `campaign' itself. The U.S. is, therefore, air- dropping food and medical supplies over Afghanistan in a follow- up effort to ease the aftershocks of the aerial and missile raids over the Taliban-Osama positions. Yet, with Osama and the Taliban leaders said to have survived the initial blitzkrieg by the U.S. and the U.K., the battle for the hearts of the traumatised Afghan people is becoming equally complicated. While the politics of a possible post-Taliban dispensation cannot be the prime concern of the Afghan people at this particular moment, the international community must brace itself for the humanitarian tragedy in Afghanistan and act quickly.

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Section  : Opinion
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