War Without Borders
(Middle East Report 222, Spring 2002)

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For immediate release
March 11, 2002

Middle East Report 222 Spring 2002

WAR WITHOUT BORDERS

Even as winter snows hinder the suddenly hotter war in Afghanistan, the season of speculation about the next target in George W. Bush’s “war on terrorism” continues apace. Media cheerleading for the war, while largely missing the worrisome implications of the empowerment of the Pentagon, has also marketed misleading images of easy victory abroad. The spring 2002 issue of Middle East Report, “War Without Borders,” examines under-reported results of Operation Enduring Freedom to date. Whatever the war has done to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, it has done little or nothing to boost chances for peace and security in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Pentagon spokespeople insist that civilian casualties from the US bombing of Afghanistan have been lower than in any previous campaign. But the evidence on the ground belies these claims, as Anthony Shadid of the Boston Globe reports. The return of warlord politics to Afghanistan is reminding observers of the Afghanistan of old. Scholar Saba Gul Khattak argues that -- contrary to triumphal talk of discarded burqas -- the fall of the Taliban has hardly liberated Afghan women. Indeed, with the erstwhile Northern Alliance in control of large swathes of the country, women may be just as insecure as they were under the Taliban.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s military government finds itself caught between an unstable Afghanistan and an ambitious India. The country’s homegrown radical Islamism may remain the justification for stalling political reform. Both internally and externally, as Pakistani sociologist Hamza Alavi writes, “Secularism and democracy are at odds with one another.” Has al-Qaeda’s ability to fund future operations been broken? Researcher John Sfakianakis finds discomfiting answers in the opaque and barely documented financial systems of the Middle East. Graft, smuggling and kickbacks generate huge sums of money requiring concealment. Regime and elite corruption, not pervasive regional sympathy with Osama bin Laden, are the main factors inhibiting the cooperation of banks in the Middle East with Bush’s “war on terrorist finances.”

Also featured: Sari Hanafi reflects on new Palestinian debates about the right of return; Maggy Zanger files from Iraqi Kurdistan on the regime’s “Arabization” policies; Mervat Hatem analyzes how women are using Islamic texts to tackle issues of gender justice; and more.

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