ALTHOUGH the military campaign against terrorism in Afghanistan is now in its ninth month, it cannot be said that peace and stability has been restored in the war-ravaged country. Every now and then there are reports of some remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda being found holding out in some remote parts of Afghanistan and there has to be a fresh air or ground action to eliminate them.

Reports in some Gulf newspapers last week said that nearly one thousand US special force fighters, along with hundreds of British marines, were carrying out search operations in several Afghan provinces close to the Pakistan border. They found several hidden caches of arms but encountered no militants. It is said that the presence of the troops in the area may have prevented Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters from crossing back into their hideouts or operating openly. With the planned pull-out of some British troops, American forces may have to step up their field operations.

Britain is to reduce the size of its contingent in Afghanistan from more than 4,000 to about 1,800. Among the units it plans to withdrew is the 1,700-strong Royal Marine group, regarded as among the best trained fighting force in the British army. The British have also handed over the command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan to a 1,400-strong Turkish contingent.

The hunt for the remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda force will continue. The arms, caches left behind by them suggest that they were planning to regroup and return to Afghanistan to resume their fight against the ISAF. Pakistan has been directly affected by the exodus of the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters from the Afghan territory. A significant number of them may have crossed the border into Pakistan and mingled with the local tribal population.

The commander of the US forces in Afghanistan, Gen Dan McNeil, who took over his responsibilities recently, last week said that it could need “at least one more year” to crush the remnants of Al Qaeda and the Taliban holding out in parts of Afghanistan, especially in the north-east. In an interview, the general said that it was unlikely for the present that the strength of the US forces could be “significantly reduced”. He believed that a partial withdrawal could take place in the beginning of the next summer.

Gen Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, has also expressed similar views. Of particular significant is the statement of Andrew Krepnvich, director of the Washington-based Centre of Strategic and Budget Assessments, who finds the situation in Afghanistan “quite like Vietnam”. This evokes memories of the nightmare that the American forces had to face in that country in the 1960s before being forced to withdraw in 1975. Even short of that denouement, the prolongation of the present situation carries disturbing implications for Pakistan and other countries of the region, since it rules out stability being restored to Afghanistan for quite some time yet.

Quite clearly, the Americans did not quite realize the extent to which they were getting involved in Afghanistan when they launched their military operation against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in October last year. They probably thought that the clean-up operation would not take no more than a few weeks to be completed. The Taliban and Al Qaeda have however given the lie to all such calculations by dodging and deluding their pursuers and showing an extraordinary capacity for survival.

The Americans possibly also believed that once the Taliban regime in Kabul had been overthrown, it would be only a matter of time before Osama bin Laden, who is seen as the mastermind behind the problem of international terrorism, would be trapped or eliminated. This too has not happened now there are reports that he is very much alive and could even appear on television networks one of these days to proclaim his presence. The Americans also did not reckon with the labyrinth of caves in the Tora Bora mountains and their virtual impregnability as hideouts for fugitives and runaways.

For the present, the Americans could not be sure how much longer they would have to remain militarily involved in Afghanistan. Ideally, the international community would want to see a modern, well-trained national army raised in Afghanistan as soon as possible. However, authority in Afghanistan traditionally remains confined to Kabul and a national army, even if it comes into being, would not be able to exercise effective control over the outlying regions of the country. Large tracts of Afghanistan would continue to remain under the control of the warlords.

No doubt, with the repressive Taliban regime driven out of power, together with the return of ex-King Zahir Shah to Kabul after nearly three decades in exile and the Loya Jirga putting a new more representative transitional government under president Hamid Karzai in place for the next 18 months, the situation in Afghanistan has assumed some semblance of normality. However, this could prove to be a surface calm and if stability is not restored the country could start slipping back into the chaos and anarchy that prevailed before the war against Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists was launched.

The presence of the foreign troops during the period of transition in Afghanistan may serve as a stabilizing factor. But time is of the essence, because if tradition is anything to go by, the Afghans would soon want to be left alone to mind their own affairs. They are fiercely independent-minded people and tend to be extremely suspicious of foreigners meddling in their internal affairs.

The Loya Jirga on which the Americans banked a great deal while attempting to restore normality to Afghanistan has produced some positive results. But these are not free of pitfalls, some of which may hinder the working of Hamid Karzai’s transitional government. Even though some foreign observers have described the Jirga as “the closest thing to a democratic process”, many veteran Afghanistan-watchers do not give more than a fifty per cent chance to the Karzai government to achieve its objective of a united, stable country devoting itself to social and economic rehabilitation and upbuilding after about 23 years of unrest, violence and civil war. There are also reports suggesting that the proceedings of the Jirga were marred by allegations of corruption, threats of reprisal and intimidation.

Two eminent expatriate Afghans, Omar Zakhilwal, an economics professor in Ottawa University, and Adeena Niazi, president of the Afghan Women’s Association of Ontario, in a joint comment published by the International Herald Tribune, have been critical of Karzai having inducted into his cabinet three powerful commanders of the Northern Alliance, who, according to them, were “the very forces responsible for countless brutalities under the former Mujahidee government.” They believe that the Karzai cabinet is not only weighted in favour of Tajiks (instead of Pashtuns) but also filled with warlords.

Their most serious allegation is of a “grassroots movement supportive of the former King Zahir Shah” having been marginalized and the ex-king himself (who at the age of 87 came all the way back to his homeland from his long exile in Italy) being “strongarmed into renouncing any meaningful role in the government.” Popular sentiment favoured him as the head of state — the only leader who could stand up against the warlords. Zakhilwal and Niazi also maintain that when the Jirga reassembled after a two-day break it was found “teeming with intelligence agents who openly threatened reform-minded delegates specially women.” However, the two Afghan intellectuals wish to believe that the Loya Jirga has planted the seeds of democracy which would, hopefully, take root and flourish.

Even otherwise, it is widely believed that Karzai had come under pressure to accommodate the warlords and “share the decision-making process with them.” Who exerted pressure has not been spelled out, but it is clear that the Americans, more than any other group, exercised a great deal of influence on the proceedings of the Loya Jirga. This cannot be seen as a happy portent. The Americans cannot be naive enough to believe that they would manage to run Afghanistan through their proxies and secure a foothold there to make a bid for dominating the surrounding region, particularly Central Asia, and even perhaps use Afghanistan as a launching pad for their plans in regard to Iraq and Iran. As it is, the popular Muslim sentiment is strongly anti-American because of Washington’s policy concerning Palestine.

Instead of planning for their long-term strategic gains by means of their involvement in Afghanistan, the Americans should make a positive contribution to the stability of the region by providing Kabul with funds that they have pledged for the rebuilding and reconstruction of the country. So far, only a fraction of the pledged money has reached Afghanistan, apart from the humanitarian aid and food provided by some UN agencies.

When Hamid Karzai was installed as the president of Afghanistan’s transitional government a week ago, he pledged peace and national reconstruction to his people. The international community should ensure that things start moving in that direction without delay.

PRESIDENT Pervez Musharraf, while talking to a delegation of the All parties Hurriyat Conference which called on him recently, assured them about the continued commitment of Pakistan towards a just and negotiated settlement of the Kashmir dispute which was, in fact, root cause of tension in South Asia. For both India and Pakistan Kashmir dispute is a complex issue and has cast key influence over their policies towards each other since partition.

For India, Kashmir is a Muslim majority state whose ruler opted to accede to India. India does not apply the same principle to Junagadh whose ruler opted to accede to Pakistan but India forcibly occupied the state. The current freedom struggle of the Kashmiris is termed as Pakistani inspired movement rather than acknowledging it as a genuine expression of Kashmiris desire for self determination.

India is planning to hold elections in the state of J&K in coming October. Almost all Kashmiris feel that elections under the prevailing conditions would amount to be a futile exercise. With the presence of 600,000 security forces along with their record of brutal repression and India’s strategy to hold the elections along with its current tactics has made the Kashmiris even more suspicious.

For Pakistan Kashmir has become a symbol of Indian highhandedness and broken pledges. All Pakistan wants and insists is that Kashmiris are allowed to exercise their right of self determination under a UN supervised plebiscite in accordance with the resolutions of August 13, 1948 and January 5, 1949. The present uprising is viewed as the expression of extreme discontentment of the Kashmiris and renewed assertion to secure their legitimate right of self determination.

For a very long time the only recognized actors involved in the Kashmir dispute were India and Pakistan. But with the advent of current intensification of liberation struggle, the Kashmiris are increasingly gaining recognition. Initially the Kashmiri freedom fighters were waging their struggle separately. Later more than 30 groups joined to form an All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC). In my own interaction with Kashmiri leaders from both sides of the LOC, the idea that emerged was that Kashmiri leaders be allowed to meet initially in their own region and then be provided an opportunity to meet their counterparts across the LOC. Simultaneously it was also stressed by the Kashmiri leaders that they be considered as participants in all future Indo-Pak negotiations on Kashmir.

The government of Pakistan has frequently expressed its willingness for a dialogue focussed on Kashmir, the Kashmiri umbrella organization APHC has also repeatedly expressed its willingness to talk to the Indian government but India’s negativism has effectively impeded any progress in this direction.

The fact remains that not much progress can be made in terms of improving Indo-Pak relations unless the Kashmir dispute is resolved in some form. If Kashmir situation continues to persist in its present form and no attempts are made to reverse the current trends the chances of further deterioration of their relations are very much strong. While the government of Pakistan is exercising considerable restraint in its Kashmir policy, the hard-liners are gaining grounds rather rapidly. Many groups in Pakistan openly criticise the government for its unwillingness to extend military cooperation to freedom fighters.

Given the existing situation let us examine various options available in resolving the Kashmir problem:

Status Quo Option: This option implies recognizing the existing partition as the permanent solution of the dispute and recognize the LOC as the international border between India and Pakistan. Apart from the Indians, the status quo option is totally unacceptable to both Kashmiri freedom fighters and the Pakistanis. If status quo option was attractive enough, there would not have been a freedom movement. As far as Pakistan is concerned, it has never accepted the status quo . Status quo option is really an India option. No other actor involved has ever been even inclined to consider it seriously even as an option.

Plebiscite Option: Plebiscite option implies that the Kashmiris on both sides of LOC be given an opportunity to exercise their right of self-determination with two choices either to accede to India or to Pakistan as stipulated in the UN resolutions which were accepted by both India and Pakistan. The mechanism of plebiscite can vary, either it could be held on both sides of LOC simultaneously under the auspices of UN or UN plebiscite administrators can hold plebiscite region by region.

Partition Option: The State of Jf J & K is partitioned either on communal lines or geographical line (like Chenab Line). While the status quo also implies partition but this type of partition is not acceptable to both the Kashmiris and the Pakistani. When the current level of intensified freedom struggle surfaced in late ‘80s and early ‘90s, the movement was nationalistic in its general orientation seeking to secure the right of self determination. The brutal policies of Jagmohan with specific concentration of making Muslims the targets and the subsequent repressions perpetrated by security forces against the Muslim population it did manage to inject certain amount of communalism.

Independence Option: This implies that the entire state of J&K should be made an independent entity; an option neither India nor Pakistan nor China supports. It is also not clear whether or nor the majority of struggling Kashmiris support it. It is an option which is supported by a faction of freedom movement known as Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). The accepted UN resolutions do not contain this option.

Autonomy Option: Although it is referred here as autonomy option, but it implies that maximum autonomy be granted to both Indian occupied Kashmir and Azad Kashmir plus Northern areas and both autonomous regions are supposed to opt for close cooperation with a stipulation that the LOC be converted into an international border between India and Pakistan. In view of the past record of India honouring its pledges, it is not too far-fetched to assume that it is another devise to legitimize the status quo. Besides, AJK already enjoys considerable autonomy. The bottom line in this proposal appears to be a move towards the confederal structure more like a condominium which has been discussed, analysed and rejected in 1964.

Trusteeship Option: Another proposal that has been discussed in certain quarters is a combination of partition, independence and regional plebiscite. This option implies that AJK and Northern areas be completely merged into Pakistan, Leh district of Ladakh and Jammu, Odumpur, Kathau to be merged completely into India, the Kashmir valley plus districts of Kargil, Doda, Poonch and Rajauri be given to Trusteeship Council for five years. The Trusteeship Council should appoint a Trust Administrator who should run these territories with the help of local population. Then after the passage of five years, hold a plebiscite with all the known options.

The ultimate goals of both India and Pakistan should be complete normalization of relationship and the peace of the region. Indeed both must realize that their persistent antagonism has cast them massive peace dividends. Instead of engaging in processes of destabilizations both need to learn to cooperate and strengthen the existing regional organization. Judicious approaches towards the outstanding disputes are likely to produce much desired avenues towards peace.

The end objective is to secure a satisfactory resolution of the ongoing Kashmir dispute enabling the two countries to live peacefully. The obvious first step in this direction is to start a political process, a meaningful dialogue. Both India and Pakistan need to develop and demonstrate the requisite level of political will that could initiate a political process.

Both need to take realistic cognizance of Kashmiris feelings. Both need to demonstrate legitimate level of maturity often credited to those who have attained the age of Fifty odd years. Both need to abandon their idealism or at least recognize that it is high time to shed idealistic pursuits and begin to assess and approach the situation with a reasonable level of pragmatism.

The writer is a retired major-general of the Pakistan army.

I HEARD this depressing story from my sister-in-law and her daughter. They were both connected with education, and personally knew the man I am going to write about, and admired him very much.

He was a poet, and while he belonged to an Urdu-speaking family from India, he wrote in English. He suffered from no sense of superiority because of this; only he felt more comfortable in that language and it came easily to him.

Since, in the true poetic spirit of sensitivity, he was genuinely humble and reserved, he thought the best vocation for him was to be a teacher of English. And this he did become. I shall not be telling you his name and location. There are very good reasons for it. The fact is that since he may be alive, and he has a wife and children, I don’t want to hurt anyone.

No one likes to be talked about disparagingly in public, and if I were to write the truth as I have come to know about him and about them, they might not be pleased at this unwelcome publicity and consider it an intrusion in their private affairs. I shall therefore call him X.

Let me tell you at the outset that X disappeared from public life, i.e. his job and his teaching activities, more than ten years ago and has not been heard of since. One fine morning he left home to go to work, but didn’t show up there. It is said that first he went to the bank, left some instructions and then quietly, without a fuss, departed from the life of his family. None of his friends, who loved him dearly, was taken into confidence about his decision, the likes of which were unheard of in that city.

I was reminded of the protagonist of Somerset Maugham’s novel “The Moon & Sixpence,” who, leading an undistinguished career as a moderately successful stockbroker in London, and with a happy family in the suburbs, went away from it all without informing anyone and, after some time, landed in an island in the South Seas to lead a completely different life as a painter. Part of Maugham’s story was based on the life of the French impressionist Gaugin who had done likewise.

X was no painter in secret, nor did he aspire to any other vocation. He was a dedicated teacher of English, loved poetry passionately, was immersed in the literary life of the educational and civic ambience around him from which he drew great happiness and satisfaction. Those who knew him, swear that he was not even remotely connected with anything unsavoury which could have prompted him to run away like this. A good and noble man, but terribly sensitive, and this was undoubtedly the reason for his escape from life.

The cruel fact is that he was extremely unhappy with his home life. He had married for love, but the love soon turned sour when his wife assumed her true character, which was that of a nagging and jealous wife. She tormented him with the lashings of her bitter tongue, dogged his footsteps to make sure he was not “carrying on” with his girl students, had no compunction about creating scenes in public, and made existence hell for a husband who just wanted affection and nothing else. She even turned the children against him so that he couldn’t draw on that fund of filial love that was his by right.

It is narrated by X’s well-wishers that once, incensed by a report that was patently false, she went to the house of a girl student of his and accused her in her parents’ presence of having an affair with her husband. The poor parents were so overwhelmed with shame and grief, that, without a thought to the feelings of their daughter, married her off within a day. To add to the tragedy, the marriage turned out to be a horrible mismatch and they were soon obliged to get her a divorce. But that is another story.

Why am I writing all this? The truth is that I get abnormally distressed whenever I hear of a case in which the life of a married couple becomes an intolerable burden because of the insensitivity and perversity of the wife or the husband. I may be indulging in naivety, but I honestly believe that, apart from what lies in store for us in the hereafter, heaven or hell are attainable in this world depending on what kind of a partner in matrimony one is fortunate or unfortunate enough to get. Some men and women are doomed by fate to blight the lives of their marriage partners. It does not matter that they have no money problems or any other trouble in their day-to-day life. They are just doomed.

He published a small collection of his verses. He was loved and respected by everyone he came into contact with. He was not ambitious, nor did he hanker after material gain. His only bane was a suspicious and jealous wife, and this he tolerated as long as he could. When things became too hard to bear, and nothing that he could do to improve matters seemed to help, he decided to call it a day and disappeared.

One may object to the solution he chose to extricate himself from a hopeless situation. But that was his way, his choice. Probably he couldn’t dream of a divorce, for that would cut him off from his children. His presence in the city, or anywhere else in the country, would have been a constant irritant, a sad reminder of his miserable fate. All that he could think of was to leave everything and go away. Where? That no one knows. Let me give you a few lines from one of his poems. This was written in 1975, long before he went away. “A journeyman who has long dwelt on the paper-thin corpse of time / I toss across deranged voices / the shadow-bound voices of the past / there is nothing for me at last / I am reduced to a frozen body / I try to find my way / the pathless way / I dreamwalk around an old holy shrine / the mutest prayer is mine.”

Was X peeping into his own future? And is he now to be found somewhere dreamwalking around an old holy shrine with a mute prayer on his lips? What could that prayer be? Who knows?

MINORITY Report is the title of a column that the volatile British journalist, Christopher Hitchens — famous for laying into Mother Teresa, Bill Clinton and Henry Kissinger but, in a surprising lapse, a vehement supporter of the so-called war against terrorism — contributes to a venerable left-wing American journal called The Nation. Presumably quite coincidentally, it also happens to be the name of Steven Spielberg’s latest science-fiction extravaganza.

To interpret it benignly, it is somewhat serendipitous that Minority Report has hit western screens just as the significance of George W. Bush’s notorious West Point speech is beginning to sink in. The US president told cadets at the military academy that their nation would henceforth strike first whenever and wherever it perceives a threat. This translates effectively into an international licence to kill.

Which provides cause for alarm, even though it could hardly be described as a new policy. After all, some 50 years ago the United States went to war in Korea, under a more or less make-believe United Nations umbrella, to thwart the perceived threat of a communist peninsula. Minus the umbrella, it repeated the criminal folly in Vietnam a decade later.

By the time the last of the humiliated US forces retreated from Saigon ten years on, the intervention had cost the lives of about 50,000 Americans. And more than three million Vietnamese. What’s more, the US military had freely used chemical weapons in Vietnam, the results of which are still apparent more than 30 years on. And president Richard Nixon had seriously contemplated levelling the country with nuclear bombs.

The “threat” at the time was not that the humble Ho Chi Minh’s soldiers would try to avenge the bombardment of Hanoi and the destruction of their homeland by flying a passenger aeroplane into the Empire State Building. Rather, the US purportedly feared that if the whole of Vietnam came under communist rule, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia wouldn’t be far behind.

The domino theory has since been thoroughly discredited. And it has been replaced, in the interim, by scores of other equally preposterous bugbears. The threat from American-manufactured fanatics of the Osama bin Laden variety is indeed real, but it is far from clear how it can be combated through the use of massive force against impoverished nations.

After thousands of civilian deaths — as well as massacres of prisoners of war — a US-approved regime has replaced the Taliban in Kabul. But Al Qaeda, recent reports in the western press suggest, remains active, and Osama bin Laden is probably alive and possibly still in Afghanistan.

Now the US has arrogated the right to attack any nation that in its view may be producing weapons of mass destruction or collaborating with terrorists in any way. Which means that Washington can wage war against any country it wishes to. No proof of malicious intent on the part of the victim is required.

This policy is particularly dangerous in view of the demonstrated incompetence of American intelligence agencies. They apparently ignored a plethora of warning signs about Al Qaeda’s atrocious fireworks display on September 11, including a couple of crucial intercepted messages from Afghanistan on September 10, which weren’t translated until a day after the Twin Towers had been reduced to rubble. If they couldn’t see a menace where one clearly existed, they are also perfectly capable, particularly in the charged current atmosphere, of perceiving threats where there are none.

Which brings us back to Spielberg’s ‘Minority Report’. Set in 2055, the Tom Cruise vehicle is based on the premise of a crime-fighting unit called the Department of Pre-crime, which relies on the services of three Precogs - psychics who have the power to preview murders. Their visions are transmitted to a screen, and Pre-crime investigators then face the task of finding out where the crimes are to be committed, and to thwart them by capturing the would-be killers. The potential murderers are put in the Hall of Containment and remain in a permanent state of suspension.

Which is reminiscent of purgatory. And of Guantanamo Bay. It’s a pity, though, that the Bush administration lacks access to reliable clairvoyants. It has to make do with the likes of Donald Rumsfeld, who sees Al Qaeda operating on the Line of Control while in India, but by the time he gets to Pakistan, it’s gone. That’s spooky. It’s also extremely frightening as an illustration of what Bush’s ideologues are willing to accept without proof.

And one person who can be relied upon to never get the benefit of the doubt is Saddam Hussein. Baghdad has been on notice since last September. Although no credible evidence has emerged in the interim of Iraqi involvement with Al Qaeda — or any other — terrorists (who appear to be regrouping in countries that are allied to the US and therefore temporarily immune from attack, such as Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Pakistan) and reports about Baghdad’s renewed efforts to develop nuclear or chemical/biological weapons appear to be based on hearsay, that Arab nation remains at the top of the Bush administration’s hit-list. What’s more, it has recently been confirmed that Bush has okayed covert CIA action against Iraq, including the assassination of Saddam. The forces sneaked into the country will have the right, under Bush’s diktat, to use “lethal force” in “self-defence”. This should, of course, not be assumed to mean that Saddam won’t be shot in the back. What it does mean is that the most powerful nation in the world has replaced international law with a custom-made version of international lawlessness.

After all, if the US wishes to reappropriate the right to eliminate foreign heads of state or government, other nations may be encouraged to assume they can behave in the same way. If Saddam has a track record as a war criminal and a tyrant, the Bushes, Dick Cheneys, Rumsfelds and Paul Wolfowitzes of this lop-sided world surely aren’t far behind. And it is hardly surprising that the US (just like Israel) wishes to have nothing to do with the International Criminal Court being set up at The Hague; in fact, its adamance on this score is open to interpretation as an intention to commit war crimes in the future, and a reasonably solid case could probably be made for pre-emptive deterrence.

The court comes into existence next month, and its effectiveness will depend, of course, on a large number of indeterminate factors. But in principle it is a worthy endeavour, potentially providing an arena where the likes of Saddam could be called to account for their misdeeds. The US evidently prefers the Wild West brand of justice: shoot first and ask questions later. Better still, don’t ask any questions at all, lest the answers lay bare American duplicity and complicity.

Like Osama bin Laden, Saddam was very much an instrument of US foreign policy through the 1980s. His decision to invade Kuwait proved to have dire consequences — but only for the people of Iraq, not its ruling elite. The US-led Gulf War cost hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. Saddam remained untouchable, by American design as much as by his own paranoid resourcefulness.

It was largely a fear of the unknown: the US had no idea what would ensue were he to be eliminated. Were Iraq’s Shia majority to gain ascendancy, it may make common cause with Iran; were the Kurds able to gain autonomy within a democratic context, Turkey would be none too pleased. Both the Shias and the Kurds were encouraged at various times by the US to revolt. And then they were both betrayed. Small wonder, then, that they have long since stopped looking to the US for deliverance. “The Iraqi issue won’t be solved by military action or covert action,” says Kurdish Democratic Party leader Massoud Barzani. “We cannot stop the US [from taking covert action], but we would like there to be transparency and clarity, and for there to be no covers or curtains to hide behind.”

Transparency is clearly not what the US has in mind. That would entail admitting that the decade-long sanctions against Iraq have not worked. The allegations that the regime in Baghdad has been working on weapons of mass destruction are obviously incompatible with suggestions that the sanctions have served their purpose.

What the sanctions unquestionably have succeeded in doing is facilitating the deaths of well over a million Iraqis, half of them children under five. Former senior UN officials who were associated with “humanitarian” operations but resigned out of disgust with the Anglo-American approach, have described the effect of the sanctions as genocide.

In his latest collection of reportage and essays, ‘The New Rulers Of The World’ (Verso, 2002), the indefatigable Australian journalist John Pilger begins his chapter on Iraq by quoting the aptly monikered Brigadier-General William Looney, director of the open-ended Anglo-American bombing campaign that has continued since 1991: “They know we own their country ... we dictate the way they live and talk. And that’s what’s great about America right now. It’s a good thing, especially when there’s a lot of oil out there we need.”

That comes close to transparency, although he ought to have added: We also dictate the way they die.

Would a direct hit against Saddam in 1990-91, or thereafter, have been preferable to the mass torture and execution of Iraqis that has effectively been conducted ever since? Undoubtedly. But it would have been wrong then and it would be wrong now — at least as wrong as any attempt by Iraq to snuff out any American leader.

Saddam’s fate ought to be determined by the people of Iraq. And it probably would have been by now, but for the fact that they have inconscionably been burdened with sanctions.

Is anyone going to stand up and just say no to the Bush coterie, the Pentagon and the CIA? Not bloody likely. Unless the people of the United States wake up and take matters into their own hands.