JOHN QUIGLEY
Professor of international law at Ohio State University, Quigley said today: “We don’t seem to be doing anything to keep the Northern Alliance within the bounds of international conventions regarding warfare and the treatment of POWs. Since we are helping them achieve their goals, we are ultimately responsible for their conduct. Given the past record of human rights abuses and atrocities by the Northern Alliance, our vigilance on this issue is of utmost importance.” Quigley can also discuss the proposed use of military courts.
MARJORIE COHN
An associate professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, Cohn said today: “The bombing of Afghanistan is not legitimate self-defense under the U.N. Charter, since the Sept. 11 attacks were criminal attacks, not armed attacks by another nation. Moreover, taking control of Afghanistan provides the U.S. government with the opportunity to set up a permanent military presence there … in order to increase U.S. access to attractive routes for transporting Caspian Sea oil.”
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DAVID GIBBS
Gibbs is an associate professor of political science at the University of Arizona, and his recent articles on Afghanistan have appeared in numerous publications including the Christian Science Monitor and the Sacramento Bee. Gibbs said today: “The military intervention in Afghanistan must be judged according to whether or not it makes us safer from terrorism in the long run. Even if bin Laden were captured, it would be relatively easy to reconstruct the terrorist organization; the events of the last few months have demonstrated that the main requirement is people willing to die for the cause. The bombing of Afghanistan may well serve as a recruiting poster for the next generation of terrorists and make us less safe in the long run.”
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AS’AD ABUKHALIL
Author of the forthcoming book Bin Laden and Taliban: The New American War Against Terrorism, associate professor of political science at California State University at Stanislaus and a fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, AbuKhalil said today: “Powell … did not consider the killing of the Palestinian people as terrorism. Here we have the primary victims of the one-year-old revolt — the ratio of death between the Palestinians and Israelis is something like 7 to 1 — being asked to ‘end terrorism.’ Do not the Palestinians deserve security too? Yes, the use of the word ‘Palestine’ and the word ‘occupation’ are new: but they are mere words, and European countries have uttered both decades ago. If this is an attempt to manipulate Arab public opinion as part of the war propaganda campaign, it is destined to fail, and to fail miserably. If anything, it will be viewed as an insult to the intelligence of the Arab peoples.”
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
