THE ALGEBRA OF INFINITE JUSTICE BY ARUNDHATI ROY

In the aftermath of the unconscionable September 11 do they hate us?" he said. "They hate our freedoms—
suicide attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our
Center, an American newscaster said: "Good and freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each
Evil rarely manifest themselves as clearly as they did other." People are being asked to make two leaps of
last Tuesday. People who we don't know, massacred faith here. First, to assume that The Enemy is who
people who we do. And they did so with the US government says it is, even though it has no
contemptuous glee." Then he broke down and wept. substantial evidence to support that claim. And
Here's the rub: America is at war against people it second, to assume that The Enemy's motives are
doesn't know (because they don't appear much on what the US government says they are, and there's
TV). Before it has properly identified or even begun nothing to support that either.
to comprehend the nature of its enemy, the US
government has, in a rush of publicity and For strategic, military and economic reasons, it is
embarrassing rhetoric, cobbled together an vital for the US government to persuade the
"International Coalition Against Terror", mobilised American public that America's commitment to
its army, its airforce, its navy and its media, and freedom and democracy and the American Way of
committed them to battle. Life is under attack. In the current atmosphere of
grief, outrage and anger, it's an easy notion to peddle.
The trouble is that once America goes off to war, it However, if that were true, it's reasonable to wonder
can't very well return without having fought one. If it why the symbols of America's economic and military
doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged dominance—the World Trade Center and the
folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Pentagon—were chosen as the targets of the attacks.
Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a Why not the Statue of Liberty? Could it be that the
logic and a justification of its own, and we'll lose stygian anger that led to the attacks has its taproot not
sight of why it's being fought in the first place. in American freedom and democracy, but in the US
government's record of commitment and support to
What we're witnessing here is the spectacle of the exactly the opposite things—to military and
world's most powerful country, reaching reflexively, economic terrorism, insurgency, military
angrily, for an old instinct to fight a new kind of war. dictatorship, religious bigotry and unimaginable
Suddenly, when it comes to defending itself, genocide (outside America)?
America's streamlined warships, its Cruise missiles
and F-16 jets look like obsolete, lumbering things. It must be hard for ordinary Americans so recently
As deterrence, its arsenal of nuclear bombs is no bereaved to look up at the world with their eyes full
longer worth its weight in scrap. Box-cutters, of tears and encounter what might appear to them to
penknives, and cold anger are the weapons with be indifference. It isn't indifference. It's just augury.
which the wars of the new century will be waged. An absence of surprise. The tired wisdom of
Anger is the lock pick. It slips through customs knowing that what goes around, eventually comes
unnoticed. Doesn't show up in baggage checks. around. American people ought to know that it is not
them, but their government's policies that are so
Who is America fighting? On September 20, the FBI hated. They can't possibly doubt that they
said that it had doubts about the identities of some of themselves, their extraordinary musicians, their
the hijackers. On the same day, President George W. writers, their actors, their spectacular sportsmen and
Bush said: "We know exactly who these people are their cinema, are universally welcomed. All of us
and which governments are supporting them." It have been moved by the courage and grace shown by
sounds as though the President knows something that firefighters, rescue workers and ordinary office-
the FBI and the American public don't. goers in the days and weeks that followed the attacks.

In his September 20 address to the US Congress, America's grief at what happened has been immense
President Bush called the enemies of America and immensely public. It would be grotesque to
"Enemies of Freedom". "Americans are asking why expect it to calibrate or modulate its anguish.
However, it will be a pity if, instead of using this as She continued to travel the world representing the
an opportunity to try and understand why September views and aspirations of the US government. More
11 happened, Americans use it as an opportunity to pertinently, the sanctions against Iraq remain in
usurp the whole world's sorrow to mourn and avenge place. Children continue to die.
only their own. Because then it falls to the rest of us
to ask the hard questions and say the harsh things. So here we have it. The equivocating distinction
And for our pains, for our bad timing, we will be between civilisation and savagery, between the
disliked, ignored and perhaps eventually silenced. 'massacre of innocent people' or, if you like, 'a clash
of civilisations' and 'collateral damage'. The
The world will probably never know what motivated sophistry and fastidious algebra of Infinite Justice.
those particular hijackers who flew planes into those How many dead Iraqis will it take to make the world
particular American buildings. They were not glory a better place? How many dead Afghans for every
boys. They left no suicide notes, no political dead American? How many dead women and
messages, no organisation has claimed credit for the children for every dead man? How many dead
attacks. All we know is that their belief in what they mujahideen for each dead investment banker?
were doing outstripped the natural human instinct for
survival or any desire to be remembered. It's almost As we watch mesmerised, Operation Infinite Justice
as though they could not scale down the enormity of unfolds on TV monitors across the world. A coalition
their rage to anything smaller than their deeds. And of the world's superpowers is closing in on
what they did has blown a hole in the world as we Afghanistan, one of the poorest, most ravaged, war-
know it. In the absence of information, politicians, torn countries in the world, whose ruling Taliban
political commentators, writers (like myself) will government is sheltering Osama bin Laden, the man
invest the act with their own politics, with their own being held responsible for the September 11 attacks.
interpretations. This speculation, this analysis of the
political climate in which the attacks took place, can The only thing in Afghanistan that could possibly
only be a good thing. count as collateral value is its citizenry. (Among
them, half a million maimed orphans. There are
But war is looming large. Whatever remains to be accounts of hobbling stampedes that occur when
said, must be said quickly. artificial limbs are airdropped into remote,
Before America places itself at the helm of the inaccessible villages.) Afghanistan's economy is in a
"international coalition against terror", before it shambles. In fact, the problem for an invading army
invites (and coerces) countries to actively participate is that Afghanistan has no conventional coordinates
in its almost godlike mission—Operation Infinite or signposts to plot on a military map—no big cities,
Justice—it would help if some small clarifications no highways, no industrial complexes, no water
are made. For example, Infinite Justice for whom? Is treatment plants. Farms have been turned into mass
this America's War against Terror in America or graves. The countryside is littered with landmines—
against Terror in general? What exactly is being 10 million is the most recent estimate. The American
avenged here? Is it the tragic loss of almost 7,000 army would first have to clear the mines and build
lives, the gutting of 5 million square feet of office roads in order to take its soldiers in.
space in Manhattan, the destruction of a section of
the Pentagon, the loss of several hundreds of Fearing an attack from America, one million citizens
thousands of jobs, the bankruptcy of some airline have fled from their homes and arrived at the border
companies and the dip in the New York Stock between Pakistan and Afghanistan. As supplies run
Exchange? Or is it more than that? out—food and aid agencies have been asked to
leave—the BBC reports that one of the worst
In 1996, Madeleine Albright, then US Secretary of humanitarian disasters of recent times has begun to
State, was asked on national television what she felt unfold. Witness the Infinite Justice of the new
about the fact that 5,00,000 Iraqi children had died as century. Civilians starving to death, while they're
a result of US economic sanctions. She replied that it waiting to be killed.
was "a very hard choice", but that all things
considered, "we think the price is worth it." By contributing to the killing of Afghan civilians, the
Madeleine Albright never lost her job for saying this. US government will only end up helping the Taliban
cause. political parties in Pakistan. The Taliban unleashed a
regime of terror. Its first victims were its own people,
In America there has been rough talk of "bombing particularly women. It closed down girls' schools,
Afghanistan back to the stone age". Someone please dismissed women from government jobs, enforced
break the news that Afghanistan is already there. And Sharia laws in which women deemed to be 'immoral'
if it's any consolation, America played no small part are stoned to death, and widows guilty of being
in helping it on its way. The American people may adulterous are buried alive. Given the Taliban
be a little fuzzy about where exactly Afghanistan is government's human rights track record, it seems
(we hear reports that there's a run on maps of unlikely that it will in any way be intimidated or
Afghanistan), but the US government and swerved from its purpose by the prospect of war, or
Afghanistan are old friends. In 1979, after the Soviet the threat to the lives of its civilians.
invasion of Afghanistan, the CIA and Pakistan's ISI
(Inter-Services Intelligence) launched the largest After all that has happened, can there be anything
covert operation in the history of the CIA. Their more ironic than Russia and America joining hands
purpose was to harness the energy of Afghan to re-destroy Afghanistan? The question is, can you
resistance to the Soviets and expand it into a holy destroy destruction? Dropping more bombs on
war, an Islamic jehad, which would turn Muslim Afghanistan will only shuffle the rubble, scramble
countries within the Soviet Union against the some old graves and disturb the dead.
Communist regime and eventually destabilise it.
When it began, it was meant to be the Soviet Union's The desolate landscape of Afghanistan was the burial
Vietnam. It turned out to be much more than that. ground of Soviet Communism and the springboard
Over the years, the CIA funded and recruited almost of a unipolar world dominated by America. It made
1,00,000 radical mujahideen from 40 Islamic the space for neo-capitalism and corporate
countries as soldiers for America's proxy war. The globalisation, again dominated by America. And
rank and file of the mujahideen were unaware that now Afghanistan is poised to be the graveyard for the
their jehad was actually being fought on behalf of unlikely soldiers who fought and won this war for
Uncle Sam.(The irony is that America was equally America.
unaware that it was financing a future war against
itself). And what of America's trusted ally? Pakistan too has
suffered enormously. The US government has not
By 1989, after being bloodied by 10 years of been shy of supporting military dictators who have
relentless conflict, the Russians withdrew, leaving blocked the idea of democracy from taking root in
behind a civilisation reduced to rubble. Civil war in the country. Before the CIA arrived, there was a
Afghanistan raged on. The jehad spread to small rural market for opium in Pakistan. Between
Chechnya, Kosovo and eventually to Kashmir. The 1979 and 1985, the number of heroin addicts grew
CIA continued to pour in money and military from zero to one and a half million. There are three
equipment, but the overheads had become immense, million Afghan refugees living in tented camps along
and more money was needed. The mujahideen the border. Pakistan's economy is crumbling.
ordered farmers to plant opium as 'revolutionary tax'. Sectarian violence, globalisation's Structural
The ISI set up hundreds of heroin laboratories across Adjustment programmes and drug lords are tearing
Afghanistan. Within two years of the CIA's arrival, the country to pieces. Set up to fight the Soviets, the
the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland had become the terrorist training centres and madrassas, sown like
biggest producer of heroin in the world, and the dragon's teeth across the country, produced
single biggest source on American streets. The fundamentalists with tremendous popular appeal
annual profits, said to be between 100 and 200 billion within Pakistan itself. The Taliban, who the Pakistan
dollars, were ploughed back into training and arming government has supported, funded and propped up
militants. for years, has material and strategic alliances with
Pakistan's own political parties. Now the US
In 1995, the Taliban—then a marginal sect of government is asking (asking?) Pakistan to garrot the
dangerous, hardline fundamentalists—fought its way pet it has hand-reared in its backyard for so many
to power in Afghanistan. It was funded by the ISI, years. President Musharraf, having pledged his
that old cohort of the CIA, and supported by many support to the US, could well find he has something
resembling civil war on his hands. of money to the defence industry.

India, thanks in part to its geography, and in part to To what purpose? President George Bush can no
the vision of its former leaders, has so far been more "rid the world of evil-doers" than he can stock
fortunate enough to be left out of this Great Game. it with saints. It's absurd for the US government to
Had it been drawn in, it's more than likely that our even toy with the notion that it can stamp out
democracy, such as it is, would not have survived. terrorism with more violence and oppression.
Today, as some of us watch in horror, the Indian Terrorism is the symptom, not the disease. Terrorism
government is furiously gyrating its hips, begging has no country. It's transnational, as global an
the US to set up its base in India rather than Pakistan. enterprise as Coke or Pepsi or Nike. At the first sign
Having had this ringside view of Pakistan's sordid of trouble, terrorists can pull up stakes and move
fate, it isn't just odd, it's unthinkable that India should their 'factories' from country to country in search of
want to do this. Any Third World country with a a better deal. Just like the multinationals.
fragile economy and a complex social base should
know by now that to invite a superpower like Terrorism as a phenomenon may never go away. But
America in (whether it says it's staying or just if it is to be contained, the first step is for America to
passing through) would be like inviting a brick to at least acknowledge that it shares the planet with
drop through your windscreen. other nations, with other human beings, who, even if
they are not on TV, have loves and griefs and stories
In the media blitz that followed the September 11 and songs and sorrows and, for heaven's sake, rights.
events, no mainstream TV station thought it fit to tell Instead, when Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence
the story of America's involvement with Secretary, was asked what he would call a victory in
Afghanistan. So, to those unfamiliar with the story, America's New War, he said that if he could convince
the coverage of the attacks could have been moving, the world that Americans must be allowed to
disturbing and perhaps to cynics, self-indulgent. continue with their way of life, he would consider it
However, to those of us who are familiar with a victory.
Afghanistan's recent history, American television
coverage and the rhetoric of the "International
Coalition Against Terror" is just plain insulting.
America's 'free press' like its 'free market' has a lot to
account for.

Operation Infinite Justice is ostensibly being fought

to uphold the American Way of Life. It'll probably
end up undermining it completely. It will spawn
more anger and more terror across the world. For
ordinary people in America, it will mean lives lived
in a climate of sickening uncertainty: will my child
be safe in school? Will there be nerve gas in the
subway? A bomb in the cinema hall? Will my love
come home tonight? Already CNN is warning people
against the possibility of biological warfare—small
pox, bubonic plague, anthrax—being waged by
innocuous crop duster aircraft. Being picked off a
few at a time may end up being worse than being
annihilated all at once by a nuclear bomb.

The US government, and no doubt governments all

over the world, will use the climate of war as an
excuse to curtail civil liberties, deny free speech, lay
off workers, harass ethnic and religious minorities,
cut back on public spending and divert huge amounts