Cant Win in Afhganistan, Blame Pakistan
Soon after the US invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban government in 2001, I predicted that Taliban resistance would resume in four years.
My fellow pundits, who were ****-a-hoop over the US military victory over a bunch of lightly-armed medieval tribesmen, became drunk on old-fashioned imperial triumphalism, and denounced me as crazy, or worse. But most of them had never been to Afghanistan and knew nothing about the Pashtun tribal people. I had covered the struggle against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s and was well aware of the leisurely pace of warfare favored by Pashtun warriors.
Do not stay in Afghanistan, I warned in a 2001 article in the Los Angeles Times. The longer foreign forces remained in Afghanistan, the more the tribes would fight against their continued presence. Taliban resumed fighting in 2005.
Now, as resistance to the US-led occupation of Afghanistan has intensified, the increasingly frustrated Bush administration is venting its anger against Pakistan and its military intelligence agency, Inter-Service Intelligence, better known as ISI.
The White House just leaked claims ISI is in cahoots with pro-Taliban groups in Pakistans tribal agency along the Afghan border and warns them of impending US attacks. The New York Times, which allowed the Bush administration to use it as a mouthpiece for Iraq War propaganda, dutifully featured the leaks about ISI on front page. Other administration officials have been claiming that ISI may even be hiding Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaida leaders.
The Bush administration claims that CIA had electronic intercepts proving ISI was behind the bombing of Indias embassy in Kabul. India and Afghanistan echoed this charge. No hard evidence though was ever produced, but the US media has been lustily condemning Pakistan for pretending to be an ally of the US while acting like an enemy.
During a visit to the US by Pakistans newly elected Prime Minister, President George Bush angrily asked, Yousuf Gilani, whos in charge of ISI? An interesting question, since all recent ISI director generals have been vetted and pre-approved by Washington.
I was one of the first western journalists invited into ISI HQ in 1986. ISIs then director general, the fierce Lt. General Akhtar Abdul Rahman, personally briefed me on Pakistans secret role in fighting Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. ISIs boys provided communications, logistics, training, heavy weapons, and direction in the Afghan War. I kept ISIs role in Afghanistan a secret until the war ended in 1989.
ISI was primarily responsible for the victory over the Soviets, which hastened the collapse of the USSR. At wars end, Gen. Akhtar and Pakistans leader, Zia ul Haq, both died in a sabotaged C-130 transport aircraft. Unfortunately, most Pakistanis blame the United States for this assassination, though the real malefactors have never been identified and the investigation long ago shelved.
On my subsequent trips to Pakistan I was routinely briefed by succeeding ISI chiefs, and joined ISI officers in the field, sometimes under fire.
ISI, which reports to Pakistans military and the prime minister, is accused of meddling in Pakistani politics. The late Benazir Bhutto, who often was thwarted and vexed by Pakistans spooks, always playfully scolded me, you and your beloved generals at ISI.
But before Gen. Pervez Musharraf took over as military dictator, ISI was the third worlds most efficient, professional intelligence agency. It still defends Pakistan against internal and external subversion by Indias powerful spy agency, RAW, and by Iran. ISI works closely with CIA and the Pentagon and was primarily responsible for the rapid ouster of Taliban from power in 2001. But ISI also must serve Pakistans interests which are often not identical to Washingtons, and sometimes in conflict.
ISI was long and deeply involved in supporting the uprising by Kashmiri Muslims against Indian rule, and has been accused by India of abetting groups that have committed bombings and aircraft hijackings inside India, including a wave of terrorist bombings against civilians in Bangalore and Gujarat over recently weeks. For its part, Indias powerful intelligence service, RAW, has mounted bombing and shooting attacks inside Pakistan.
The reason it is often difficult to tell whether Pakistan is friend or foe is because Washington has been forcing Pakistans government, military and intelligence services into supporting the US-led war in Afghanistan and in the past, in rounding up and torturing opponents of Pakistans military dictatorship. Pakistan was forced to bend to Washingtons will through a combination of over $11 billion in payments and threats of war if Pakistan did not comply. The ongoing prosecution of the US-led war in Afghanistan depends entirely on Pakistans provision of bases and troops.
While Pakistans government, military and intelligence services were forced to follow Washingtons strategic plans, 90% of Pakistans people bitterly oppose these policies. President-dictator Musharraf was caught between the anger of Washington and his own angry people who branded him an American stooge.
Small wonder Pakistans leadership is so often accused of playing a double game.
The last ISI Director General I knew was the tough, highly capable Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmad. He was purged by Musharraf because Washington felt Mahmood was insufficiently responsive to US interests. Ever since 2001, ensuing ISI directors were all pre-approved by Washington. All senior ISI veterans deemed Islamist or too nationalistic by Washington were purged at Washingtons demand, leaving ISIs upper ranks top-heavy with too many yes-men and paper-passers.
Even so, there is strong opposition inside ISI and the military to Washingtons bribing and arm-twisting the subservient Musharraf dictatorship into waging war against fellow Pakistanis and gravely damaging Pakistans national interests. After coming of the new civilian set up under Mr. Zardari as the new President, and Mr. Gilani, the prime minister, for most of the Pakistanis Pakistani people, there seems to be hardly any change in this policy.
ISIs primary duty is defending Pakistan, not promote US interests. Pashtun tribesmen on the border sympathizing with their fellow Taliban Pashtun in Afghanistan are Pakistanis. Many, like the legendary Jalaluddin Haqqani, are old US allies and freedom fighters from the 1980s. When the US and its western allies finally abandon Afghanistan, as they will inevitably do one day, Pakistan must go on living with its rambunctious tribals.
Violence and uprisings in these tribal areas are not caused by terrorism, as Washington and Musharraf falsely claimed. They directly result from the US-led occupation of Afghanistan and Washingtons forcing the regimes to attack theirown people.
ISI is trying to restrain pro-Taliban Pashtun tribesmen while dealing with growing US attacks into Pakistan that threaten a wider war. India, Pakistans bitter foe, has an army of agents in Afghanistan and is arming, backing and financing the Karzai puppet regime in Kabul in hopes of turning Afghanistan into a protectorate. Pakistans historic strategic interests in Afghanistan have been undermined by the US occupation. Now, the US and India are trying to eliminate Pakistani influence in Afghanistan.
ISI, many of whose officers are Pashtun, has every right to warn Pakistani citizens of impending US air attacks that kill large numbers of civilians. But ISI also has another vital mission. Preventing Pakistans Pashtun, 15-20% of the population of 165 million, from rekindling the old Greater Pashtunistan movement calling for union of the Pashtun tribes of Pakistan and Afghanistan into a new Pashtun nation. The Pashtun have never recognized the Durand Line (todays Pakistan-Afghan border) drawn by British imperialists to sunder the worlds largest tribal people. Greater Pashtunistan would tear apart Pakistan and invite Indian military intervention.
Washingtons bull-in-a-china shop behavior pays no heeds to these realities. Instead, Washington demonizes faithful old allies ISI and Pakistan while supporting Afghanistans Communists and drug dealers, and allowing India to stir the Afghan pot - all for the sake of new energy pipelines.
As Henry Kissinger cynically noted, being Americas ally is more dangerous than being its enemy.
Eric Margolis, contributing foreign editor for Sun National Media Canada, is the author of War at the Top of the World..
Copyright © 2008 Eric Margolis
Can’t Win in Afhganistan, Blame Pakistan Wonders of Pakistan
If US has been forced to run away from Iraq with its tail between the legs, it wont be much difficult to make her run from our tribal areas.
