SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, is etched in American minds as a vast tragedy, but it is likely that history may record it as well as the turning point in shaping the international order for the 21st century. Sept. 11 ended some of the smug illusions of the 1990s, among them that international politics has been supplanted by global economics or by the Internet.

The idea that a united Europe should seek its identity in distinction from the United States has been overtaken by European offers to join the American diplomatic and military campaign against terrorism. Russia has become a partner in the anti-terrorism campaign. China has provided intelligence. Relations with India have grown closer despite America’s reliance on Pakistani bases in the war against Afghanistan. The United States has made quiet overtures toward Iran. And the two defeated nations of World War II, Germany and Japan, have abandoned previous domestic constraints, Germany by sending troops beyond NATO’s boundaries, and Japan by deploying ships in the Indian Ocean far from home waters. None of these steps was conceivable six months earlier.

To be sure, the motives are not necessarily congruent with each other. Europe has recognized its vulnerability. President Vladimir Putin perceived (even before Sept. 11) that, to play a major international role, Russia needed to replace confrontation with cooperation with the United States. China has come to similar conclusions: that its overwhelming need for growth and reform was incompatible with avoidable tensions with the United States. And India’s movement away from non-alignment has grown in tandem with its unease about its Muslim minority — the second largest Muslim population in the world. In short, the assault on America has brought home to the major powers how crucial America’s role is for the peace and stability of the world.

As a result, the United States, for the first time in half a century, no longer faces a strategic adversary or any country, alone or in combination, capable of becoming one for at least the next decade. Nor do the other major powers perceive each other as strategic threats. The danger for all of them comes not across frontiers but from terrorist cells implanted inside their countries, or from quarrels between secondary military powers.

Nowhere is that new geopolitical promise more striking than in the relationship between America, Europe and Russia, the centrepiece of American foreign policy since the end of World War II. Before Sept. 11, most European media and many leaders were charging Washington with insensitive unilateralism. America was deemed to be imperilling relations with Russia on missile defence, and not a few European leaders were edging toward questioning the significance of common security in the post-cold war world. A European army was coming into being outside the NATO framework for nebulous missions defined primarily by political dissociation from the United States.

Sept. 11 brought home to our allies that Europe is without means of retaliation against similar attacks, hence that the need for a common transatlantic security relationship remains. And the steadily improving Russo-American relationship obviates the need for the incipient mediating role between Russia and America that some European leaders sought to achieve. For these reasons, within 48 hours of the terrorist attack, the NATO Council, for the first time in NATO existence, invoked Article 5 of the NATO treaty authorizing collective self-defence. The coalition diplomacy that emerged reflected a greater emphasis on bilateral cooperation with Washington on a national basis and within the North Atlantic framework than on the institutions of the European Union. The subtle coalition diplomacy of the Bush administration greatly aided this process.

After the end of the Afghanistan episode, it is possible that perceptions about an appropriate — and necessary — second phase of the anti-terrorism campaign will differ, especially if it involves Iraq. And European integration efforts are going to regain momentum. But all this will take place in a new atmosphere. When Prime Minister Tony Blair took the lead in emphasizing Atlantic cooperation on terrorism, it served both Britain’s interest in the special relationship with America, but he no doubt had Britain’s European objectives in mind as well; having demonstrated a commitment to Atlantic unity, he set the stage for giving a context to European integration other than distinctiveness from America. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder adopted a comparable policy.

In these circumstances, the hitherto divisive issue of missile defence is disappearing, partly because of a new recognition of Europe’s vulnerability and, importantly, because of the emerging new American relationship with Russia. In this context, America’s initial coolness toward a European force can be re-examined as well. Afghanistan has demonstrated America’s preference to act with Allied support but outside the NATO framework; a similar context could be provided for a European military force.

A fresh perception of relations with Russia is the most important single issue. For the greater part of its history, Russia has treated its western neighbours as a threat to its security and has responded by relentless expansion to create buffers, either by military means or by ideological intervention, as in the Holy Alliance or the Brezhnev Doctrine.

Vladimir Putin, graduate of the analytical branch of the KGB, appears to have concluded that imperialism caused more tragedies than triumphs for Russia and is unsustainable by the reduced contemporary Russia, threatening it with isolation. This is why the thrust of Putin’s strategy has been to strive for a kind of partnership with the United States, which is another way of saying that he is pursuing Russia’s objectives by enlisting American power in their support.

President Bush has decisively seized this opening. But it is important to keep in mind that the new Russian policy results not from a personal preference but a cool assessment of Russia’s interest. Putin has left himself other options with China and with Europe, especially Germany, should his emphasis on America founder. Therefore, personal relations between leaders — necessary to create an initial psychological framework — must be translated into agreed permanent common interests. Otherwise, there is the risk of repeating the experience of previous western leaders who relied on their ties to Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin (and before that with Joseph Stalin and his successors). One does Putin no favour by ascribing his policies to his personality — impressive as it is; it is an argument that domestic opponents may well turn against him.

There is hope for improved American and Atlantic relations with Russia precisely because there is an objective new basis for them. It is not only that the current political structure of Europe bars the kind of Napoleonic or Hitlerite invasions that gave rise to Russian security concerns and that wars between nuclear powers inevitably exact costs out of proportion to any rational objective. Above all, the political calculus has changed in regions of historic contention such as the Middle East. The previous conception of a zero sum game between two dominant powers is no longer applicable. During the cold war — and for some period afterward — both Russian and American leaders thought that a political gain for one side was a strategic loss for the other and systematically attempted to reduce each other’s influence in the Middle East. Under post-Sept. 11 conditions, such policies would weaken both countries against Islamic fundamentalism and undermine the stability of the region in which they both have a vital interest.

The challenge is how to create consulting mechanisms capable of dealing jointly with the new common realities without giving Europe the sense that it is facing a Russo-American condominium. An attempt in that direction occurred when NATO secretary- general George Robertson (following the lead of Prime Minister Blair) advanced a scheme to fit Russia into NATO. A new NATO council including Russia is supposed to deal with specifically defined policy areas while the existing NATO council without Russia deals with all other matters. Decisions by the new body would be unanimous, thus giving Russia a veto within NATO. The topics have not yet been selected, but nuclear proliferation, terrorism and refugee displacements have been mentioned by Lord Robertson.

These subjects deserve common exploration with Russia. But Russian membership in NATO — however partial — is not the solution. NATO is, and remains, basically a military alliance, part of whose purpose is the protection of Europe against Russian invasion. Since the end of the cold war and the advent of the common front against terrorism, this danger has disappeared for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, the reason why former members of the Warsaw Pact have joined NATO and others are in the process of seeking to do so is that Central Europeans consider history more relevant to their concerns than personalities. NATO does not protect its members against each other. To couple NATO expansion with even partial Russian membership in NATO is, in a sense, merging two incompatible courses of action.

It will be argued that this problem can be avoided by a careful definition of objectives assigned to the new NATO-Russian council. But that would not solve Russia’s problem nor that of NATO. For if measures designed to protect against a reimperializing Russia — however unlikely that contingency — are handled separately by the same group of ambassadors who, wearing another hat, are practising cooperation, Russia will be inclined to claim discrimination; and if Russia becomes a de facto NATO member, NATO ceases being an alliance or turns into a vague collective security instrument.

Nor is a permanent assembly of NATO ambassadors the best forum for exploring issues such as terrorism, nuclear proliferation and migration or other global issues. For NATO is not now the principal forum for such issues. A new pattern of consultation outside the NATO framework is needed.

The situation is analogous to that posed by the collapse of the Napoleonic empire. The end of Napoleon did not end the fears of a resurgent France. But it was also recognized that permanent peace required the full participation of France in international diplomacy. The solution was the creation of the Quadruple Alliance to guard Europe against a renewal of French expansionism. France was not a member of the security undertaking. But it was invited to join as an equal partner in the so-called Concert of Europe that dealt with political issues affecting the political stability of Europe.

An analogous institutional framework is in order to address the contemporary challenge. Russia should become a full and equal partner in political discussions affecting international order. On matters affecting Atlantic relations, the consultative machinery of the Organization for European Security could be raised to the head-of-state level; for global issues, the G-8 meetings of industrial democracies could be returned to their original emphasis on substance by giving them a political and not simply an economic subject-matter. Or else a new consultative framework should be created. But what will not work is to try to squeeze the new wine of an upheaval of the international system into the old bottles of institutions created half a century ago for quite different purposes.—Los Angeles Times Syndicate

THE religious parties agitation in Pakistan over the situation in Afghanistan has been a tame, lacklustre affair. Short on numbers and long on rhetoric, they have failed to draw the kind of crowds they threatened to. By coming out on the streets these parties attempted to show their strength, but ended up exposing their weaknesses.

It is clear that they neither have the numerical support base nor the general appeal to hold the government hostage to their demands. Against this backdrop, there is no danger of Talibanization of Pakistan.

But there are reasons to worry. A profile of the religious parties protest meetings reveals some disturbing social, economic and political trends. The most notable is age. The average age of those who participated in the recent protest meetings, according to intelligence reports, is 19. The youngest protester carrying the poster of Osama bin Laden, making victory signs for Mullah Umar and hailing the Taliban has been observed to be barely 4. Even smaller sat astride their elders’ shoulders witnessing groups torching flags, burning effigies, and raising vicious slogans. For most of them this is early initiation into the extremist side of life.

The second trend concerns the social base of the protesters. Most of the participants of the protests come from that section of national population that is born under-privileged and dispossessed. This section has got nothing to lose in mounting a challenge to the state for it has no stakes to protect.

While it is hard to establish a direct link between poverty and extremism, religious intolerance has risen sharply in the last decade — the same period in which the country’s poverty profile worsened, unemployment figures rose, and development expenditure in crucial sectors like education and health, either remained frozen. or declined.

The third trend is the institutional network supporting these protests. Their total number is unknown, but rough estimates suggest that these may be well over fifty thousand. (This is a collective figure based on independent assessments of madressahs in all four provinces and some data from the tribal areas. The ministry of education however believes that the number is 15,000).

And since documentation and data collection in Pakistan is inherently suspect, it is safe to assume that there are many, many more madressahs that are functioning in those long stretches of rural areas where normal education system has either fallen apart or has failed to meet the basic material needs of the people.

What goes on inside these madressahs? A general insight can be had about their inner workings by looking at the product they put out, i.e., students who are converted totally to the idea of the final supremacy of their brand of Islam. These madressahs are not geared towards promoting moderate values. More importantly, the education that they impart is not knowledge-based. The syllabus, even if government approved, is subject to the arbitrary interpretation of Islam by the party the madressah belongs to.

The sectarian base of these madressahs is officially sanctioned. The Deobandi madressahs are organized under the rubric of Wafaqul Madaris, whereas the Brailvi madressahs are collectively run under the tile of Nizamul Madaris. For the Ahl-i-Hadith the broad title is Wafaqul Madaris al Salfia. It is evident from the way the madressah system is structured that their students get their first lesson of narrow-mindedness the moment they are registered with the system. That in turn furnishes the very basis of intolerance and inflexibility — the calling card of the Taliban.

The internal administration of these madressahs, especially those with big boarding schools, is so designed that it further solidifies isolationist mindset. Because everything in the madressah is organized in the name of religion, everything is also justified in the name of religion.

The teacher is seen not as a respectable giver of knowledge, but an Allah-mandated sage whose word cannot be questioned, nor his command disobeyed.

Not without reason therefore, religious parties make it a point to, first and foremost, build madressahs in areas where they believe they can spread their influence. They know that madressahs provide them with the means to establish their dominance. Little wonder then that according to intelligence agencies’ assessment, 80 per cent of the participants in the rallies in Islamabad came from madressahs.

It is clear that irrespective of the fact that the religious parties campaign on Afghanistan has fizzled out, the elements that cause the spread of right-wing sentiments are still in place: madressahs, a vast army of poor, un-employed youth and organized religious outfits looking for fresh blood to pump up their campaign to capture the state.

The Musharraf government seems seized of the challenge. Through an ordinance, passed a few months back, it has tried to inject moderation into the madressah culture. The syllabus taught at the madressahs is being reviewed and re-designed to encourage a system of education that promotes logic and tolerance.

Further, model madressahs will be created in the hope that they will eventually become the star attraction for those who, for want of a better alternative, get drafted by sectarian-based religious schools. Three such madressahs will be established in the first phase: one each in Karachi and Sukkur and another one in Islamabad, which will be for females.

Moreover, by banning activities in the name of jihad, and by outlawing militant sectarian organizations, General Pervez Musharraf has sent strong signals of his willingness to come down hard on those who abuse religion for political or personal gains.

But these measures are, at best, fire-fighting exercises, and at worst, an attempt to deal with the symptoms rather than the causes of the problem of extremism in Pakistan. A more determined and sustained effort to build a truly moderate society will have to streamline the madressah system in Pakistan.

For far too long we have sugarcoated the problems created by the madressahs in the nice argument that “they too provide education,” or that “not all of them breed extremism.”

We have to be honest about the fact that a majority of the madressahs have institutionalized extremism and because of their social base, are immersing the grassroots of Pakistan in an ideology that is the very anti-thesis of liberal Islam. The model madressahs that the government is trying to create will not address the issue especially since the new madressahs will not replace the existing ones.

The more long term and durable solution to the problem of extremism will have to integrate the madressahs into the mainstream education system, governed not by separate boards, but the same bodies that regulate the rest of the educational institutions in the country.

This would also require revamping the education system whose syllabus would have to be made flexible enough to cater to the needs of the religiously inclined sections of population. There is no other way to bridge the gap between the extremists and the liberals than to integrate them into one education system.

THE last thing a journalist should do is to make news himself or herself which is what Ms Christina Lamb, currently of the well-known Tory blast machine ‘Sunday Telegraph’ has done.

She and one Mr Sutcliffe from the same stable as hers were deported because while in Quetta they are said to have tried to obtain air tickets in the name of Osama bin Laden. Far be it for me to suggest that Ms Lamb ever bore any resemblance to Mr Osama bin Laden, but even if the tickets had been issued, I would not have been in the least surprised if our ever vigilant airport security had not noticed something odd about the passenger travelling under OBL’s name.

The two crack reporters were in Quetta which is no place to be even for reporters, given the fact that it is within shouting distance of Kandahar that, even the Americans concede, is best avoided.

The problem with the current situation is too many journalists pursuing too few stories. There are said to be 1,300 of them and if you throw in their local handlers who can make anything up to $200 a day for inventing quotes that the Japanese, British, French or American press can use, you could double the number. The only beneficiaries of this war are these handlers and Islamabad, Peshawar and Quetta’s starred and non-starred hotels.

I think the ministry of information and broadcasting, headed by the suave and unruffled Syed Anwar Mahmood, deserves a collective medal for having seen to the well-being of these impatient and aggressive news hordes on the rampage. However, the reptiles — which is how the London magazine ‘Private Eye’ refers to journalists — instead of thanking Mr Mahmood and his people, appear to be doing the contrary. Among them one regrets to list Ms Lamb and her travelling comrade who bears the same name as the gentleman who became famous some years ago as the Yorkshire Ripper.

My good friend Hussain Haqqani who has been publishing one op-ed piece after another in the mainstream American press since the start of the troubles, has circulated a letter from Mr Robin Gedye, foreign editor of the ‘Sunday Telegraph’ to the director-general of external publicity, Government of Pakistan, on the Lamb and Sutcliffe “incident”. The inveterate HH was in the corridors of power, along with Zardari and his polo ponies, when Ms Bhutto was queen of all she surveyed and when this country had its first sighting of the 24-year old Ms Lamb. I may quickly add that she had to leave under unusual circumstances as even such a pliant government as Ms Bhutto’s felt that it could no longer allow Ms Lamb misuse its hospitality and file what it believed were false stories.

But back to Mr Gedye’s letter. Apart from the fact that it does not do to throw sarcasm at your hosts — or former hosts — it is hardly appropriate to demand as a right what is actually a privilege. The fact is that if there are 1,300 plus foreign journalists in Pakistan today, they are there because of the goodwill and hospitality shown to them by the state and government of Pakistan. There is not a word of thanks in Mr Gedye’s long and snooty letter (he badly needs a sub). One wonders if he has ever tried to send his correspondents to Indian-held Kashmir and what sort of letter he would write to the government in New Delhi when told that Kashmir was not open to foreign journalists.

Here is a sampler which should establish that the foreign editor could do with a reading of Miss Manners book on etiquette. He starts off with a reference to “the notoriously inaccurate Pakistani media” and follows it with one brickbat after another. He alleges that “in Pakistan people fly under false names”, attributing the remark to a travel agent in Quetta. He describes the information ministry’s view that Lamb and Sutcliffe violated Pakistan’s laws as “laughable”. He calls the reporting conditions in Pakistan as “restrictive”. He also accuses Pakistani reporters — I thought dog did not bite dog — of not abiding by the “minimum journalistic requirement under the law” of talking to Lamb or Sutcliffe before filing their reports. He asks that Lamb be allowed to return to Pakistan “in the interests of Pakistan” as well as the Telegraph.

According to Mr Gedye, Lamb and Sutcliffe were issued tickets in the wrong names and when they were told that it did not matter, in order to make a point they quipped that if it was indeed so, then they should be issued tickets in Osama bin Laden’s name. Well, if it was a joke, it was a pretty poor joke and hardly appropriate under the circumstances.

The point I want to make is that getting expelled is nothing new to Ms Lamb. She was thrown out by the Benazir government in 1989. This is what happened then. She arrived in Pakistan with no journalistic experience behind her and was soon able to get invited to dinner at every table in Islamabad and Lahore. So much so — and my friend Hussain Haqqani must have fixed it for her — that when Benazir flew to Siachen, she took Lamb with her.

She repaid the hospitality and access given to her by her fawning hosts by filing an inaccurate and most damaging story about this country. If I may be allowed to reproduce a passage from a column I wrote in 1989 on Miss Lamb’s expulsion from Pakistan, this is how it went, “The ease with which Miss Lamb seems to have been able to find entree in practically every high state office in the land, both civil and otherwise, is depressing to contemplate, at least for those who believe in national dignity and self-respect. It would seem that everybody was talking to her, about everything, some more, some less ... Miss Lamb, we are told, will soon be back with a fresh visa.

How nice! Her contempt for the people whose naivety and hospitality she put to such good use will not have lessened. And as for them, they will be waiting for her with open arms to help her file another canard. Pass the sick bag. Bill.”

From Pakistan, she went to India where she was said to have been reunited with her boyfriend. Well that was 12 years ago, but it seems that the intervening years have done nothing to make Ms Lamb more mindful of being on her best behaviour when visiting another country on whose goodwill and hospitality the successful fulfilment of her assignment depends. What makes her think that she can demand to be shown hospitality when she herself is so cavalier about local sensitivities?

The war in Afghanistan, after all, is not being fought for the benefit of Ms Christina Lamb or her ‘Sunday Telegraph’, regardless of what its snooty foreign editor thinks.

“OUR first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival,” said the leaked Pentagon policy-planning document, excerpted in The New York Times, in 1992. “First, the US must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.”

The document, widely believed to have been authored by Dick Cheney, set out a plan to seal Washington’s ascendancy over the globe — a new, bolder, imperialism than was possible before the Soviet Union crumbled. What was necessary was to have a way to deal with anyone who might be foolish or bold enough to contest Washington’s developing suzerainty over the globe.

So what do you do when potential competitors end up aspiring for a greater role and began to pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests? That’s the problem Washington faced, when, last June, Russia and China drew four Central Asian countries — Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — into the Shanghai cooperation organization. Its purpose? “To foster world multi-polarization,” said China’s Jiang Zemin. In other words, to thwart Washington’s imperial ambitions.

Not that this was the first time Washington’s old cold war adversaries had become a little testy about America’s unilateralism. Just before he and his booze-soaked brain shuffled off into retirement, former Russian president Boris Yeltsin lashed out at the then US president Bill Clinton. “It seems he has for a minute, for a second, for half a minute, forgotten that Russia has a full arsenal of nuclear weapons,” he thundered. “A multilateral world, that is the basis for everything. As we have agreed with Jiang Zemin..... we will dictate to the world, not him, not him alone.”

It seemed almost pitiable. The once mighty Russia, now an impoverished, hollowed out shell of its former self, reduced by the IMF, corrupt politicians and gangsters to Third World poverty faster than you can say “the Washington Consensus,” almost pleading to be recognized as one of a triad of countries that dictate to the world. Dealing with Russia, increasingly encircled by an ever expanding NATO, wouldn’t be much of a problem.

But the Shanghai cooperation organization — that was a problem in the making. The four Central Asian republics are key to a region teeming with vast oil and gas reserves, enough to supply America’s voracious appetite for oil for the next 30 years, not to mention the oil industry’s illimitable appetite for profits. This was wealth American oil men, like Cheney, and William Farish, friend of President George W. Bush and US ambassador to the UK, dream of. “I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian,” said Cheney. Certainly not a region it would be advantageous to have under the thumbs of Moscow and Beijing.

Farish agreed. A Bush intimate, and himself scion of a rich Texas oil family, Farish is “fascinated by the ‘black gold’ that lies in large quantities in the countries around the Caspian Sea,” says The London Sunday Times. And, adds the newspaper, Farish says, “US policy advisers are evaluating how best to safeguard American and European” access to “the vast oil and gas reserves of central Asia.” Or, to put it in less high-faulting terms: The US policy advisers are evaluating how best to ensure western firms, and especially American firms, monopolize the action. In December 1997 the National Defence Panel released a report underscoring the importance of access to Middle East and Caspian Basin oil. “We will continue to be involved in regions that control scarce resources, such as the Middle East and the emerging Caspian Sea areas for oil.”

That the Pentagon was promising that it would continue to be involved in the Caspian, as if it were perfectly natural and legitimate for the US military to be involved in someone else’s affairs half away around the globe, raised few eyebrows in Washington. It should have.

Echoing the report, Clinton’s energy secretary Bill Richardson, explained, “We’ve made a substantial political investment in the Caspian, and it’s very important to us that both the pipeline map and the politics come out right.”

Except, curiously, Richardson said this in connection with the US threats to bomb Yugoslavia, just months before the first NATO bombs began to rain down on Belgrade, Novi Sad and Nis.

So, what does the Caspian have to do with the Balkans?

The answer, it seems, is a pipeline, to carry the “black gold” Farish is fascinated by, that comes from a region Cheney says has emerged quickly to become strategically significant. One planned pipeline route would see oil from the Caspian transit the Balkans into Europe, bypassing Russia.

Is that why the US-led NATO coalition spent 78-days bombing Yugoslavia? Richardson’s words certainly point to a connection.

Another pipeline would see oil from the Caspian Basin piped to the coast of Pakistan through Afghanistan. Getting the pipeline map and politics right means ensuring Washington controls the pipelines. And that means controlling the Balkans and Afghanistan. And that’s meant bombing the stuffing out of both countries. Before NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia and the ouster of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic — who’s been knocked off his perch by Osama bin Laden and the Taliban as Washington’s official enemy number one — Washington didn’t control the Balkans. Now it does.

That leaves Afghanistan, key not only to making sure the “pipeline map and politics come out right,” but also key to undermining Moscow’s and Beijing’s Shanghai cooperation organization.

As George Monbiot puts it, “If the US succeeds in overthrowing the Taliban and replacing them with a stable and grateful pro-western government, and if the US then binds the economies of Central Asia to that of its ally Pakistan, it will have crushed not only terrorism, but also the growing ambitions of both Russia and China.”

Except, it’s unlikely that terrorism will be crushed by the overthrow of the Taliban, and it’s not Russia’s and China’s growing ambition that’s at issue — it’s America’s.

It’s curious that there are plenty of silver linings to be found in the dark cloud of Sept. 11’s horrors. Bush’s popularity has soared. Opposition to his legislative agenda has vanished. There’s talk of accelerating tax cuts for the wealthy, raiding social security, new spending for the military, new life for the NMD, scads of new funding for the intelligence apparatus, and a pumped up patriotism that keeps Americans from asking too many questions. And this: Bush issues his “either you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorist” threat, the central Asian republics line up with Washington on pain of being pulverized if they don’t, and before you know it, the Shanghai cooperation organization is in a shambles.

In 1944, John Flynn pointed out we always wage war for some high moral purpose — to uphold international law, to deter aggression, for human rights — but somehow, in doing so, we always seem to capture our enemies’ markets and blunder into their oil wells. And undermine their alliances.

At what price for ordinary people never seems to be much of a consideration for those who order wars, or for those who stay home and eagerly beat the drums of war on the editorial pages of newspapers.

“Living conditions in the country are among the worst in the world,” writes Reuters reporter Jack Redden, referring to Afghanistan. “A quarter of all children die by the age of five. Life expectancy is about 45 years. Literacy, now about 30 per cent of Afghan adults, is likely to drop under the Taliban’s opposition to education of young girls.”

This is the country the Pentagon can’t return to the stone age, but is bombing anyway. Obliterating Red Cross warehouses, levelling hospitals, flattening residential neighbourhoods. A curious turn this “war on terrorism” has taken. Ask an Afghan in one of the refugee columns streaming toward the Pakistan border or up north into Northern Alliance territory who the terrorists are.

“It is a scandal in contemporary international law,” writes political scientist C. Douglas Lummis, “that while the wanton destruction of towns, cities and villages is a war crime of long standing, the bombing of cit