USA DOUBLE CROSSING THE WORLD:
THE AMERICAN SECRET
Research and Analysis By
Shafqat Nazir
If I was to say that the U.S. was behind many horrors that have been committed
in recent years, a normal person would refute my claims because it would
automatically be branded as a conspiracy theory. However when the U.S. and its
close allies propagate against other countries and organisations for their own
hidden agendas, without sufficient proof or evidence then it is not labelled as
a conspiracy theory. It seems as though they have control of this so called
‘stamp’ to label something as a conspiracy theory. The BBC recently aired a two
part programme called ‘Secret Pakistan: Double cross which attacked the
Pakistani intelligence agency the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) by claiming
that they double crossed the U.S. even though during ‘The War On Terror’ the ISI
captured hundreds of Al-Qaeda and Taliban Members and during this period
Pakistan, remained in a state of unrest even to this very day. Up to 35,000
civilians have died due to terrorist attacks and also new figures now show that
investment in Pakistan has decreased by 83%. If the ISI and the Pakistani
Government is helping the Taliban and Al-Qaeda as the documentary claims, then
questions must be raised such as to who is carrying out all of these suicide
attacks in Pakistan . To find this out you would have to go back in time to the
root of the problem.
The Pakistani military regime in the late 1970s played a key role in the U.S.
sponsored military and intelligence operations in Afghanistan. In the post-Cold
war era, this central role of Pakistan in U.S. intelligence operations was
extended to the broader Central Asia- Middle East region. From the outset of the
Soviet Afghan war in 1979, Pakistan under military rule actively supported the
Islamic brigades. America's covert war in Afghanistan, using Pakistan as a
launch pad, was initiated during the Carter administration prior to the Soviet
"invasion":
According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahideen began
during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec
1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise; it
was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid
to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.
The world may have forgotten but In 1979 Osama Bin Laden the biggest villain of
America was recruited by the CIA during the US sponsored jihad. He was 22 years
old and was trained in a CIA sponsored Guerrilla training camp to fight in the
Afghan/Soviet war. During the Reagan administration, Osama, who belonged to the
wealthy Saudi Bin Laden family, was put in charge of raising money for the
Islamic brigades. Numerous charities and foundations were created. The operation
was coordinated by Saudi intelligence, headed by Prince Turki al-Faisal, in
close liaison with the CIA. The money derived from the various charities was
used to finance the recruitment of Mujahideen volunteers.
"Bin Laden recruited 4,000 volunteers from his own country and developed close
relations with the most radical Mujahideen leaders. He also worked closely with
the CIA ... Since September 11, [2001] CIA officials have been claiming they had
no direct link to bin Laden." (Phil Gasper, International Socialist Review,
November-December 2001).
The US foreign policy evolved during the new Ronald Reagan administration,
towards support for Islamic freedom fighters which in today’s world are called
Islamic Terrorists. The architects of the covert operation in support of
"Islamic fundamentalism" launched during the Reagan presidency, played a key
role in launching the "Global War on Terrorism" in the wake of 9/11.
It is also of importance to mention that education in Afghanistan in the years
preceding the Soviet-Afghan war was largely secular. The U.S. covert education
destroyed secular education. The number of CIA sponsored religious schools (madrasas)
increased from 2,500 in 1980 to over 39,000.
"The United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren
with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings....The
primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns,
bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school
system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books,..",
(Washington Post, 23 March 2002)
In December 1984, the Sharia Law (Islamic jurisprudence) was established in
Pakistan following a rigged referendum launched by President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq.
Barely a few months later, in March 1985, President Ronald Reagan issued
National Security Decision Directive 166 (NSDD 166), which authorized
"stepped-up covert military aid to the Mujahideen" as well a support to
religious indoctrination.
The Canadian based economist Michel Chossudovsky has said in his book: America's
"War on Terrorism" The imposition of The Sharia in Pakistan and the promotion of
"radical Islam" was a deliberate U.S. policy serving American geopolitical
interests in South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. Many present-day
Islamic fundamentalist organizations in the Middle East and Central Asia were
directly or indirectly the product of US covert support and financing, often
channelled through foundations from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.
Under NSDD 166, a series of covert CIA-ISI operations were launched. The U.S.
supplied weapons to the Islamic brigades through the ISI. CIA and ISI officials
would meet at ISI headquarters in Rawalpindi to coordinate US support to the
Mujahideen. Under NSDD 166, the procurement of US weapons to the Islamic
insurgents increased from 10,000 tons of arms and ammunition in 1983 to 65,000
tons annually by 1987. "In addition to arms, training, extensive military
equipment including military satellite maps and state-of-the-art communications
equipment" (University Wire, 7 May 2002).
The world today assumes that the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was a
response to 9/11 but the facts say otherwise. One of the major objectives of the
2001 invasion of Afghanistan was to restore the drug trade. The history of the
drug trade in Central Asia is intimately related to the CIA's covert operations.
Prior to the Soviet-Afghan war, opium production in Afghanistan and Pakistan was
directed to small regional markets. There was no local production of heroin.
(Alfred McCoy, Drug Fallout: the CIA's Forty Year Complicity in the Narcotics
Trade. The Progressive, 1 August 1997).
The Taliban government which came to power in 1996 with Washington's support
implemented in 2000-2001 a far-reaching opium eradication program with the
support of the United Nations which served to undermine a multibillion dollar
trade. (For further details see, Michel Chossudovsky, America's War on
Terrorism, Global Research, 2005) In 2001 prior to the US-led invasion, opium
production under the Taliban eradication program declined by more than 90
percent, however In the immediate wake of the US led invasion, the Bush
administration ordered that the opium harvest not be destroyed on the fabricated
pretext that this would undermine the military government of Pervez Musharraf.
Alfred McCoy's study confirms that within two years of the onslaught of the CIA
operation in Afghanistan, "the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the
world's top heroin producer." Various Islamic paramilitary groups and
organizations were created. The proceeds of the Afghan drug trade, which was
protected by the CIA, were used to finance the various insurgencies.
Once the heroin left these labs in Pakistan's northwest frontier, the Sicilian
Mafia imported the drugs into the U.S., where they soon captured sixty percent
of the U.S. heroin market. That is to say, sixty percent of the U.S. heroin
supply came indirectly from a CIA operation.
In 2007, Afghanistan supplied approximately 93% of the global supply of heroin.
The proceeds of the Afghanistan drug trade are estimated (2006) to be in excess
of 190 billion dollars a year, representing a significant fraction of the global
trade in narcotics. (Alfred McCoy, Testimony before the Special Seminar focusing
on allegations linking CIA secret operations and drug trafficking-convened
February 13, 1997, by Rep. John Conyers, Dean of the Congressional Black
Caucus).
The proceeds of this lucrative multibillion dollar contraband are deposited in
Western banks. Almost the totality of the revenues accrues to corporate
interests and criminal syndicates outside Afghanistan. The laundering of drug
money constitutes a multibillion dollar activity, which continues to be
protected by the CIA and despite his commitment to eradicating the drug trade,
opium production under the regime of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has
skyrocketed.
Now let’s look back at the first question, why would the Taliban and Al-Qaeda
commit suicide bombings and kill thousands of Pakistanis if the ISI and the
Pakistani Government is secretly helping them. These various "terrorist"
organizations were created as a result of CIA support.
Michel Chossudovsky says in his book: “The Global War on Terrorism is a complex
and intricate intelligence construct. The covert support provided to "Islamic
extremist groups" is part of an imperial agenda. It purports to weaken and
eventually destroy secular and civilian governmental institutions, while also
contributing to vilifying Islam. It is an instrument of colonization which seeks
to undermine sovereign nation-states and transform countries into territories.”
An example of this can also be seen during the Iraq/Iran war (Iran contra
operation) and also when the U.S. supported the Nicaraguan Contras.
For the intelligence operation to be successful, however, the various Islamic
organizations created and trained by the CIA must remain unaware of the role
they are performing on the geopolitical chessboard. These various "terrorist"
organizations were created as a result of CIA support. They are not the product
of religion. The project to establish "a pan-Islamic Caliphate" is part of a
carefully devised intelligence operation.
Over the years, these organizations have indeed acquired a certain degree of
autonomy and independence, in relation to their US-Pakistani sponsors. That
appearance of "independence", however, is crucial; it is an integral part of the
covert intelligence operation. According to former CIA agent Milton Beardman the
Mujahideen were invariably unaware of the role they were performing on behalf of
Washington. In the words of bin Laden (quoted by Beardman): "neither I, nor my
brothers saw evidence of American help". (Weekend Sunday (NPR); Eric Weiner, Ted
Clark; 16 August 1998).
The fabrication of "terrorism" including covert support to terrorists is
required to provide legitimacy to the "war on terrorism". The various
fundamentalist and paramilitary groups involved in US sponsored "terrorist"
activities are "intelligence assets". In the wake of 9/11, their designated
function as "intelligence assets" is to perform their role as credible "enemies
of America". The Islamic groups created by the CIA are also intended to rally
public support in Muslim countries. The underlying objective is to create
divisions within national societies throughout the Middle East and Central Asia,
while also triggering sectarian strife within Islam, ultimately with a view to
curbing the development of a broad based secular mass resistance, which would
challenge US imperial ambitions.
This function of an outside enemy is also an essential part of war propaganda
required to galvanize Western public opinion. Without an enemy, a war cannot be
fought. US foreign policy needs to fabricate an enemy, to its various
military interventions in the Middle East and Central Asia. An enemy is required
to a military agenda, which consists in "going after Al Qaeda". The
fabrication and vilification of the enemy are required to military
action. The existence of an outside enemy sustains the illusion that the "war on
terrorism" is real. It justifies and presents military intervention as a
humanitarian operation based on the right to self-defence. It upholds the
illusion of a "conflict of civilizations". The underlying purpose ultimately is
to conceal the real economic and strategic objectives behind the broader Middle
East Central Asian war.
In conclusion it can be seen that the U.S. helped and used the Mujahideen and
Al-Qaeda just as they helped and used Iraq by funding them and then by claiming
they had weapons of mass destruction (which was not proven.) They (The U.S) use
propaganda to invade a country and then try to wipe the record clean completely.
In the case of Pakistan and the ISI it is pretty obvious as to what they’re
trying to achieve, they will spread propaganda and have no proof or evidence of
it.
(Shafqat Nazir - Correspondent The Daily Jang London)