War plans must refer to UN

War plans must refer to UN

By Meidyatama Suryodiningrat

JAKARTA (JP): With the U.S. strike force ready to launch and
the American public hungry for revenge, Washington looks set to
escalate their war on terrorism into a war on Afghanistan.

Supported by global grief from the attack on the World Trade
Center and backed by UN Security Council Resolutions 1267 (1999)
and 1368 (2001), Washington may contend to have the moral right
to launch such a massive attack.

While it has yet to publicly expose the evidence linking Osama
bin Laden to the latest attacks, the connection between the
Taliban in Afghanistan and the alleged terrorist is widely known.

The UNSC in 1999 had already condemned the use of Taliban
territory "for the sheltering and training of terrorists."

It specifically deplored Taliban providing a safe haven for
Bin Laden and his associates to operate a network of terrorist
camps.

The 1999 Resolution called on states to freeze financial
resources owned or bound for the Taliban. A ban on Taliban
aircraft was also imposed.

While these stringent measures presume Taliban's guilt, no
where does it endorse military attacks.

Keep in mind that the 1999 Resolution also specifically noted
the United States' indictment of bin Laden in the 1998 bombings
of U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

It is thus not surprising that some may consider whether an
attack would constitute a violation of international law, which
only condones military force for self-defense, not retaliation.

The wisdom of a possible wide-scale offensive needs to be
questioned.

Terrorist networks such as bin Laden's do not depend on
established state infrastructure.

What could the U.S. tangibly strike to cripple the terrorist's
capability? There are few, if any, clear fixed targets such as
landmark terrorist headquarters.

Albeit seeking refuge in Afghanistan's hills, past
intelligence reports indicate that Bin Laden is a sovereign
operator due to his huge inheritance and not dependent on direct
government financial or logistical support found in common state-
backed terrorism models.

Thus massive air strikes, so popular since the Gulf War, will
only victimize the people of Afghanistan, whose regime seems
willing to put innocent lives in peril.

The United States has already tried bombing Bin Laden before,
with little success.

A land invasion would be catastrophic, would fail to learn the
lessons of history. Napoleon, the British and the Soviet Union
include the illustrious list of failures.

An invasion would lead to a drawn-out counterinsurgent war.

In this age of instant news and fickle public opinion the tide
of public opinion can easily change when images of hungry
children are contrasted to multi-million dollar war machines.

Even moderate Muslim nations like Indonesia cannot tolerate
futile civilian deaths.

By overreacting Washington will only turn public opinion,
particularly those in Muslim states, against them.

President George W. Bush charging that you're either "with us
or against us" does not help. The world is not black or white,
there are too many gray areas.

Washington's reticence of Israel's aggression toward the
Palestine population is a case in point.

What then are the options?

Whatever steps are taken must be in accordance with
international law and the support of the United Nations.

The first step of establishing an international front against
terrorism is commendable, but such a coalition must be under the
aegis of the UN even if the U.S. is the predominant component of
such an alliance.

Washington must avoid the impression of acting unilaterally if
it wants a true coalition to be more than rhetoric.

Tightly applied UN imposed economic and political sanctions,
if necessary isolation, should be considered first. The U.S.
could use its military might to make sure that nothing gets in or
out by tightly monitoring Afghanistan's borders.

If such measures were still considered wanting, limited
military action should take the form of surgical strikes.

Ground operations could be launched involving special forces
to capture internationally indicted individuals such as the
experience in Serbia and Bosnia.

These actions could also engage in pare-emotive strikes at
terrorists to disable identifiable terrorist cells.

Everyone sympathizes and feels sorrow for the victims of the
horrific attacks that occurred on Sept. 11.

But such a tragedy does not license states to disregard
international norms in vengeance, or even allow them to create
new parameters, which could excuse wanton reprisal.

The state use of indiscriminate force on civilians is still
terrorism by other means.

The author is a staff writer of The Jakarta Post.