Republican News · Thursday 22 November 2001

Ó Caoláin critical of Afghan war in Dáil debate

The basis on which the war in Afghanistan has been fought was challenged by Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD in a special Dáil debate last week. The Cavan/Monaghan deputy said that peace in that country can onlybe based on "self-determination and respect for human rights".

Ó Caoláin said in the Dáil on Thursday, 15 November:

"We do not yet know how many innocent civilians have been killed in the bombardment of that impoverished country but it must run into thousands, yet the civilians killed in Afghanistan are regarded as of less account than those killed in the US. We hear little or nothing of their families and the devastation left behind by sudden and violent bereavement. Instead we have this war portrayed in the media in the most jingoistic manner.

"We have witnessed the obscenity of food and cluster bombs being dropped at the same time. One of the most land-mined countries in the world has had vast stretches of its lands rendered even more deadly with the dropping of millions of cluster bombs and other ordnance which leaves a horrific legacy to Afghan children. Now that the war has reached a decisive phase, we must ask again what are the war aims of the US and Britain and their allies in Afghanistan. Is it to capture or kill Osama bin Laden? Is it to put him on trial? Is it to install the Northern Alliance? Is it to occupy the country as the British Empire, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union tried and failed to do in the past? We do not know.

"We have not been told and it seems the Taoiseach and Minister for Foreign Affairs have not asked these critical questions. They certainly did not ask them before they gave a carte blanche for the use of our airports when we did not even know the nature of the proposed attacks. Why has the Government not questioned the very shaky premise on which the war has been based? The premise is that by hunting down Osama bin Laden the allies will be able to quell his network of active supporters both in Afghanistan and throughout the world.

"Anyone who knows anything about the history of conflicts knows that this approach is doomed to failure. They cannot hope to suppress violent fundamentalism by military means. Everything reasonable and consistent with human rights should be done to defend people against it but its origins and the conditions which sustain it are far too complex for a quick fix military solution.

"It is clear that what is needed now in Afghanistan is the immediate intervention of the United Nations, including peacekeeping forces, to ensure that a truly representative interim government can be established and can function. The downtrodden women of Afghanistan should be given their rightful place in that new dispensation. The brutal civil wars which have wrecked Afghanistan throughout the 80s and 90s were fought by those forces originally armed and backed by the Western powers when they were trying to drive out the Soviet Union.

"Peace in Afghanistan cannot be based on foreign arms of whatever origin. There as elsewhere, peace can only be based on national self-determination, respect for human rights and democratic government."