See [url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25195-2001Nov27.html[/url] for Michael Kelly's takedown of Carroll.
"...James Carroll, a writer with a long pedigree as an anti-warrior, argued in the Boston Globe yesterday that it remains the case that, as the headline put it, "This War Is Not Just." He makes three main points.
The first point is that we (although not Carroll) are too "ignorant" to pronounce on this war: "The United States government has revealed very little of what has happened in the war zone. Journalists impeded by restricted access and blind patriotism have uncovered even less." But a glance at the Globe's news section on any given day proves this false. Afghanistan is swarming with reporters who are working independently and free of any U.S. restraints. These journalists have been, and are, reporting daily from every liberated area of Afghanistan and frequently from areas where fighting continues. Six, so far, have been killed on the job.
The "massive bombardment" of Afghanistan, writes Carroll, has been "to what effect?" We just don't know, he suggests. Yes, we do. Again, reporters have filed stories on the bombing effects from all over Afghanistan, including almost every bombed city. Leaving aside the gross libel in the suggestion that American reporters' "blind patriotism" has kept them from fully revealing the truth, what about the many foreign reporters covering the conflict? Has their blind love for America also led them to hide awful realities?
The second point is that "the celebrated results" of the war -- "collapse of the Taliban, liberation of women -- are welcome," but "are relatively peripheral outcomes, unrelated to the stated American war aim of defeating terrorism." But this is also manifestly not true. The collapse of the Taliban is not a "peripheral outcome." It is in fact one of the two "stated American war aims" of the war in Afghanistan (the other is the collapse of the Taliban's partner, al Qaeda, which is being effectively pursued). And, it would seem evident, the collapse of the government that provides state-sanctioned support for the world's largest and most dangerous terror network is indeed integral to "the stated American war aim of defeating terrorism."
The third point is the Old Original Canard that this all should have been handled by "police action, not war. The criminals, not an impoverished nation, should be on the receiving end of the punishment." But the criminals -- the murderous fascists of al Qaeda and the Taliban -- are the ones being punished. "The impoverished nation" is composed of the Afghan people, who have been for weeks thanking us for rescuing them from the tyranny of the criminals.
Carroll bemoans the criticism his camp has come in for. "Next, we will be called 'kooks,' " he writes. No, no, not at all."