June 16, 2008 -- SPECIAL REPORT. Another 9/11 waiting to happen
Roland "Tony" Carnaby, the one-time CIA station chief for the Southeast Region slain by Houston police on April 29, was an advocate of increasing "HUMINT" resources in and around the sprawling Houston port complex, from Houston to Galveston. Houston is the largest port in the United States for foreign tonnage.
Carnaby had in his possession the morning of April 29 information that someone wanted and wanted badly enough to order the Houston police to treat the well-known former CIA clandestine agent and president of the local chapter of the Association for Intelligence Officers (AFIO) as a dangerous armed criminal. After an extensive investigation, WMR has learned that those who ordered the "hit" on Carnaby were part of a team, including smugglers tied to the Russian-Israeli mob, who were involved in terrorist planning activities in the greater Houston area.
Carnaby and his intelligence and federal and county law enforcement associates were concerned about the potential for a "9/11-like" false flag attack on either Houston's port facility, airports, or all of them in and around the Memorial Day and Independence Day weekends.
WMR has learned that at a meeting of tugboat captains last week in Houston, the possibility of an imminent terrorist attack on the Houston port was discussed.
Carnaby's belief in HUMINT as a determinant of terrorist plans likely caused him to believe that Houston was in imminent danger for an attack. WMR spoke to Carnaby's intelligence and law enforcement colleagues who share his concerns.
Suspiciously, the Houston police, in violation of US Judge Keith Ellison's order to preserve all evidence related to Carnaby's shooting by the Houston police, admitted that it disposed of the evidence. Moreover, after having secured Carnaby's Blackberry, which is known to contain contact numbers for CIA and other federal agents, as well as their informants, was returned to the custody of the Houston police by Secret Service Special Agent R. Jennings, the reported SAC (Special Agent in Charge) of the Houston office.
Jennings has been accused by Carnaby's colleagues of cooperating with the very same elements, including individuals connected to Israeli intelligence activities in the Houston area and their well-placed moles inside the Houston Police Department, who wanted access to Carnaby's contacts and other information. The compromise of Carnaby's information represents a potentially devastating compromise of national security and are in direct violation of the National Security Act of 1947, according to Carnaby's colleagues.
It still remains unknown what happened to Carnaby's Mac laptop computer as well as a number of other cell phones, including an I-Phone and a Bang and Olufsen mobile phone in Carnaby's possession at the time of his shooting. Carnaby's colleagues revealed that Carnaby possessed a number of cell phones because some were dedicated to activating video and camera systems placed in strategic locations in and around Houston's ports and airports and downloading images to his phones and eventually to his laptop. At least three phones in Carnaby's possession on the morning of April 29 were used to activate cameras and download photos and videos from sites in and around Houston. One mobile phone number was reportedly used for this surveillance activity -- 713 208-0000.
The spot on Houston's West Loop where CIA agent Roland "Tony" Carnaby was gunned down by Houston police in a pre-planned "hit" on April 29. The shooting of Carnaby took place close to former President George H. W. Bush's Tanglewood residence.
On May 16, 2008, WMR reported: "The CIA was concerned that details of Carnaby's classified and covert work for the CIA in the Port of Houston, as well as his non-official cover Carnaby Shipping Company Ltd. and American Global Enterprise contacts in the United States and Lebanon may have been compromised to Israeli Mossad agents who have infiltrated the Houston Police Department primarily through blackmail techniques. The Israeli Consulate General in Houston is reportedly at the center of the Israeli influence and intelligence ring in the fourth largest city in America and the home to the largest port for imports in the United States."
The evening before Carnaby was shot, a man approached Carnaby and two friends at Houston's Capital Grille, a favorite meeting spot for Houston's business elite. A man, pretending to be inebriated, went up to Carnaby and acted as though he was an old friend. He was carrying an open bag, the type in which "to go" food orders are usually placed. Carnaby reportedly reached for his concealed handgun and told the man he had never seen him or met him before. The man apologized, quickly left the restaurant, and drove off in a car with diplomatic license plates. Carnaby's associates now believe the man was assigned to the Israeli Consulate General in Houston.
The I-Phone and Mac in Carnaby's possession were officially owned by American Global Enterprise. Carnaby's American Global cover firm operated a warehouse in the Houston port area, a reported center from which traffic from the port into Mexico and outbound via the ship channel was monitored. The actual security for the Port of Houston is maintained not by the Houston Police Department but by the Harris County Sheriff. The jurisdictional problems affected Carnaby's relationship with both agencies. Whereas the Harris County Sheriff's office was usually cooperative, the Houston Police was generally not as willing to work on increasing the security of the port.
Pasadena, Texas liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal along the Houston ship channel, where LNG tankers are loaded and off-loaded. This area is one of the most vulnerable targets in the Houston port complex and is located next to San Jacinto Battlefield Monument and Park, also the location of the battleship USS Texas.
Carnaby's fear about lax port security was borne out when this editor easily gained access through the main gate into the Port of Houston in a rental car. Although containers in bound and out bound from the port are x-rayed and checked for radioactive materials, the overall security is poor and that prompted Carnaby into calling for a better HUMINT program. However, better HUMINT would also result in the arms, drugs, and auto theft activities of the Russian-Israeli mob, Israeli intelligence assets, and their allies in the pro-Mojahedin e Khalq (MEK) Iranian expatriate community in Houston being identified by federal authorities.
For example, WMR learned from US intelligence and customs agents that the 1998 terrorist bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania had a Houston connections. The terrorist attacks were blamed on Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. The two trucks used in the two East Africa bombings were stolen vehicles that were shipped from Houston via Guatemala. In addition, the bombs used passed though the same Guatemalan smuggling route. In 1998, Israel's Mossad and Guatemala's intelligence services continued to enjoy a close relationship and the Central American nation's successive military juntas could count on the support of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other Israeli lobbying organizations in Washington.
Carnaby also had under surveillance a widespread vehicle smuggling ring that operated out of Houston, location of one of the largest vehicle import port facilities in the United States. One of Carnaby's law enforcement colleagues revealed that a network of body shops in Houston have been used to strip and smuggle stolen vehicles out of the United States, mostly to Mexico. Some of the theft operations operate under cover of "import-export" businesses and one operation has laundered $250 million in proceeds from the vehicle thefts. These illegal enterprises have been linked to Middle East expatriates linked to Israeli intelligence operations, including the Iranian MEK terrorist group and far right Lebanese Phalangists allied with Israel who are supported by the Israeli Lobby in Washington.
Houston's vulnerable ship channel. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is opposed to increasing HUMINT collection in this area lest the operations of his Israeli friends become exposed. In one Emergency Rapid Deployment exercise carried out by the US Coast Guard, an unmarked Zodiac raft with an outmoded machine gun with two US Coast Guardsmen on board, sailed up the ship channel from Galveston to Houston without anyone challenging them. Chertoff wold prefer to keep "security" for Houston this way, but for what purpose?
One of WMR's colleagues, German journalist Jurgen Cain Kulbel, has been imprisoned in Berlin for reporting that the UN chief investigator of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Detlev Mehlis, was once employed by the Israeli intelligence front organization, Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). Mehlis steered UN investigators away from the real assassins of Hariri, Israeli intelligence who hired a number of rogue agents from Syrian intelligence, Lebanon's Druze and Christian Phalangist communities, and Palestinian refugees. Kulbel's imprisonment is a direct result of pressure from Washington and Jerusalem on the German government.
Some of Carnaby's associates were also critical of the security contract for the Houston that involved ex-British commando Tim Spicer, whose Aegis Defense Services, the recipient of a number of private military contracts from the Defense Department and the former U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Spicer, in 2002, managed to convince Per Christiansen, a retired Norwegian naval officer whose Hudson Maritime won a Homeland Security Department to secure various American ports, including Houston, to bring him on as a partner. Thus was born Hudson Trident (the Trident being Spicer's interest in the firm). However, Spicer's work on Houston's port security was soon criticized by the government, including Carnaby and his associates. Spicer, who had previously received a port security contract in Haiti around the time of the U.S.-sponsored coup against democratically-elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a coup that saw a number of weapons enter Haiti's ports illegally. Spicer's lack of performance on the Houston port security contract soon saw him lose out on similar port contracts for Morocco and Chittagong, Bangladesh, according to sources with whom WMR spoke in Houston. A U.S. intelligence source in Houston said, "Spicer fucked up the ship channel contract," adding, "this guy merely did plausible deniability work for MI6 and MI5," Britain's foreign and domestic intelligence services, respectively.
A closer view of Pasadena's LNG terminal. An attack here would have devastating and deadly results and bottle up the ship channel, affecting the entire United States.
It is clear that a number of Carnaby and his intelligence colleagues are skeptical about the "official version" of 9/11 and fear another such attack, possibly during the upcoming Fourth of July holiday. WMR can also report that a close friend of former President George H. W. Bush has taken a keen and supportive interest in our reports on the Carnaby shooting. Bush is the honorary president of the Houston William Buckley Chapter of AFIO, for which Carnaby served as president at the time of his death. Carnaby was also close to the former President, who has reportedly been outraged at the wanton killing of his friend. Carnaby was also reportedly close to Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who has made no public comment on the death of Carnaby.
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Note: It is clear that WMR's reporting on the Carnaby shooting is irritating certain "quarters," also known as the "usual suspects" and the "amen corner." WMR's contacts with Carnaby's friends has resulted in a number of other doors on "cold cases" being opened. They extend from Dallas in November 1963, to the fate of the US merchant vessel "SS Poet" in 1980, Mena, Arkansas and Nicaraguan contra drug smuggling in the 1980s, and the back doors used to corrupt the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and North American Defense Command (NORAD) computers and networks on the morning of 9/11. WMR will continue to report on these and other stories regardless of the pressure that is being exerted, mostly not from the right-wing but from the usual "left-wing" gatekeepers and their dubious web sites. The very same gatekeepers who have been keeping the wool over the eyes of the American people, most notably, since the events of 9/11....
Related Articles:
***********************************************************************************'''Elie Hobeika''' ,(1956–24 Jan 2002)(Arabic:وعــــد: إيلي حبيقة) is a Phalangist and Lebanese Forces militia commander during the [[Lebanese Civil War]] trained and supplied by USA and Israel. He turned later to a popular politician and government minister in the post-war period, best known for creating a political party called "Wa3ad", meaning : Nationalism, Laic, Democtratic. وعــــد , bent on a complete overhaul of the confessional Republic, in order to build a modern, laic and effective civil form of government and constitutional reforms.
== The Tripartite Agreement ==
http://ddc.aub.edu.lb/projects/pspa/conflict-resolution.html
The Syrians still interfered in the parliamentary elections of 2000 in order to defeat Mr. Elie Hobeika. As a result, many of their traditional allies, including Prime Minister Salim Al-Hoss and Maronite MP and ex-minister Mr. Elie Hobeika, were defeated at the polls.
He has been mentioned by the CIA2 KILLERS, for an alleged role in the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982 and for allegations that the atrocities were committed in collusion with Para-military authorities occupying west Beirut in September of 1982. "The 760 civilians were murdered by a combination of IDF Sayyeret Metkals, SLA militias of SAAD Haddad, brought on the scene by IAF C130 Hercules to BIA, and some LF militias]. Before his assassination Mr. Hobeika called a press conference. "I am in possession of evidence of my innocence concerning Sabra and Shatila. And I have evidence of what actually happened at Sabra and Shatila which will throw a completely new light on the Kahan commission report." [http://univercia.blogspot.com/]
(For the full text of the agreement see Toksoz 1986, 82-83; see also Sirhal 1990, 131-148.)1985/86: " وعــــد ".
Most of the points agreed upon in these talks found their way into the Taif Agreement of 1989 (Salem 1992a).
== Lebanese Civil War ==
Over the next few years as support for the Lebanese Forces declined, and in 1984, Samir Geagea, Karim Pakradouni, and Elie Hobeika forced the resignation of the then commander of the Lebanese Forces, Fuad Abu Nader. Fouad Abu Nader was considered too close to Amine Gemayel (he was Gemayel's nephew). Amine, unlike his brother Bachir was disliked by all the LF leaders. Elie Hobeika was named head of the LF after Abou Nader's removal.[http://univercia.blogspot.com/]
On January 15, 1986, Oliver North led a coup, from the American Embassy in Beirut that removed Elie Hobeika from Lebanese Forces command, mainly due to Hobeika signing the Tripartite Accord(For the full text of the agreement see Toksoz 1986, 82-83; see also Sirhal 1990, 131-148.) with Nabih Berri and Walid Jumblat in full coordination with all forces in Lebanon, active politically, including the Maronite Patriarch. Hobeika was besieged in his Qarantina headquarters by Geagea's men (Elias el Murr was trapped with Hobeika in the same building) and was evacuated by Michel Aoun after strong American pressures. He and his supporters fled to Paris. They returned to Lebanon as a pro-Laic LF faction and were stationed in Zahle. In 1990 Hobeika supported the parliamentary faction against Syria in the war initiated by Michel Aoun.
After the civil war ended in 1990 Hobeika became Minister for the Displaced. In October 1992 he was appointed Minister for Social Affairs and the Handicapped. He was reassigned to the Ministry of Electricity and Water in 1996, a period which saw massive power projects in Baddawi and Zahrani, Zouk And Baalbeck, and massive electrical grid installation and distribution throughout Lebanon, including the outlying areas still in turmoil with Israeli Forces in the south, hence the progress was too slow compared to the massive increase in the Megawatts needed, since little electricity projects were accomplished over 18 years of civil unrest, mainly because of the Israeli operation Grapes of Wrath. In 1998, General Emile Lahoud became president of Lebanon and appointed Selim Hoss Prime Minister.In 2000 Hobeika lost his parliament seat, due to Syrian active interference in the Polls against Hobeika . In June 2001, Chebli Mallat, a left-wing Maronite lawyer, filed a case against Ariel Sharon in Belgium under a law that permitted to sue foreigners for crimes against humanity.Just before his death, Elie Hobeika publicly declared his intention to testify against Ariel Sharon about his involvement in the Sabra and Shatila massacre in a Belgian court's trial for crimes against humanity. A Belgian senator, Josy Dubie, was quoted as saying that Hobeika had told him several days before his death that he had "revelations" to disclose about the massacres and felt "threatened". When Dubie had asked him why he did not reveal all the facts he knew immediately, Hobeika is reported to have said: "I am saving them for the trial".
== Assassination January 24th 2002 ==
The role of Assef Shawqat's covert operatives has been evident since the January 24, 2002 car bombing in Beirut of Lebanese Member of Parliament, ex-Minister and Popular Christian political leader Mr. Elie Hobeika. The car bombings by Shawkat's operatives gave critical plausible deniability to the CIA and Mossad. Hobeika was, according to our intelligence sources, aware of the links between Shawqat, Iran, the United States, and Israel. That knowledge, and the fact mentioned in earlier intelligence reports, that he adamantly refused offers, inducing him to join this covert US strategy , since the latter part of the 1990s, and because it is a given, for people "in the know", that had he been alive today, he would be able to decipher with great ease, all these covert links, was considered dangerous in some circles in Damascus, Jerusalem, and Washington... [http://univercia.blogspot.com/]
== Eulogy ==
Nurturing, compassionate, generous, noble,courageous, heroic, unparalleled,
Mr. Elie Hobeika.
With tears in their eyes and flowers in their hands people paid tribute to
their national hero. Sad at the loss, which can not be compensated yet pride
was all over their faces,sacrificed their son of the soil. His was a death
for a noble cause of dying for one's own country. Such men are not born
everyday, they belong to the rare class of humanity, who are an example in
themselves, and they are the ones who set precedents. And they themselves
are unprecedented... [http://univercia.blogspot.com/]
Since January 24th 2002, I have only awakened to a nightmare--the nightmare
of life without you Elie, and this I cannot bear. The memories showing your
pictures non stop... in my mind; you are so alive and tangible that I can
almost touch you, but it is only "almost" because already I cannot.
Elie Hobeika, you were the pillar of fire before the camp and now we are
left as only the camp, alone, in the dark, and it is so cold and sad for us
all. I know we are talking in terms of a national tragedy, but how can you
try to comfort an entire people or include them in your personal pain, when
many do not stop crying, and we are mute, feeling the enormous void that is
left only by your absence?
Few truly knew you. They can still talk a lot about you, but I feel that
they know nothing about the depth of the pain, the disaster and, yes, this
terrible void, for us, the family and the friends, who are left only as the
camp, without you, our pillar of fire.
Elie, you were, and still are, our hero. I want you know that in all I have
ever done, I have always seen you before my eyes. Your esteem and love
accompanied us in every step and on every path, and we lived in the light of
your values. You never abandoned us, and now "they" have abandoned you, my
eternal hero--cold and lonely--and I can do nothing to save you, you who are
so wonderful.
People greater than I have already eulogized you, but none of them was
fortunate like myself [to feel] the caress of your warm, soft hands and the
warm embrace that was just for us, or your smiles which will always say so
much, the same smile that is no more, and froze with you. I have no feelings
of revenge because my pain and loss are so big, too big. The ground has
slipped away from under our feet, and we are trying, somehow, to sit in this
empty space that has been left behind, in the meantime, without any
particular success. I am incapable of finishing, but it appears that a
strange Cabal..., a miserable person, has already finished for me. Having no
choice, I part from you, a hero, and ask that you rest in peace, that you
think about us and miss us, because we here, down below, love you so much...
our only consolation is our complete faith in our God's special place for
you, up there with him for ever, and that he will know how to take care of
the "assassins" in time...
To the angels of heaven that are accompanying you now, I ask that they watch
over you, that they guard you well, because you deserve such a guard. We
will love you Elie Hobeika, always, till the end of Time.
The secret of selling yourself is to have a product you truly believe in.
Elie Hobeika is the perfect embodiment of these words. He is a kind,
nurturing, compassionate, generous, noble,courageous, heroic, unparalleled,
unmatched, dependable, supportive, humorous, intelligent, clever, sometimes
hilarious, talented, amazing, entertaining, proud, disciplined, profoundly
interesting man. He gave me my deeply appreciated "knowledge...," and along
with tons of documents and more... . The world was my oyster as we traveled
from town to town, city to city, country to country, with the greatest man
ever, Elie Hobeika. [http://univercia.blogspot.com/]
Karl Rove's White House "Murder Inc."
By Wayne Madsen.
Online Journal Contributing Writer.
SEP, ......- On September 15, 2001, just four days after the 9-11 attacks, CIA Director George Tenet provided President [sic] Bush with a Top Secret "Worldwide Attack Matrix"-a virtual license to kill targets deemed to be a threat to the United States in some 80 countries around the world. The Tenet plan, which was subsequently approved by Bush, essentially reversed the executive orders of four previous U.S. administrations that expressly prohibited political assassinations.
According to high level European intelligence officials, Bush's counselor, Karl Rove, used the new presidential authority to silence a popular Lebanese Christian politician who was planning to offer irrefutable evidence that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon authorized the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian men, women, and children in the Beirut refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla in 1982. In addition, Sharon provided the Lebanese forces who carried out the grisly task. At the time of the massacres, Elie Hobeika was intelligence chief of Lebanese Christian forces in Lebanon who were battling Palestinians and other Muslim groups in a bloody civil war. He was also the chief liaison to Israeli Defense Force (IDF) personnel in Lebanon. An official Israeli inquiry into the massacre at the camps, the Kahan Commission, merely found Sharon "indirectly" responsible for the slaughter and fingered Hobeika as the chief instigator.
The Kahan Commission never called on Hobeika to offer testimony in his defense. However, in response to charges brought against Sharon before a special war crimes court in Belgium, Hobeika was urged to testify against Sharon, according to well-informed Lebanese sources. Hobeika was prepared to offer a different version of events than what was contained in the Kahan report. A 1993 Belgian law permitting human rights prosecutions was unusual in that non-Belgians could be tried for violations against other non-Belgians in a Belgian court. Under pressure from the Bush administration, the law was severely amended and the extra territoriality provisions were curtailed.
Hobeika headed the Lebanese forces intelligence agency since the mid- 1970s and he soon developed close ties to the CIA. He was a frequent visitor to the CIA's headquarters at Langley, Virginia. After the Syrian invasion of Lebanon in 1990, Hobeika held a number of cabinet positions in the Lebanese government, a proxy for the Syrian occupation authorities. He also served in the parliament. In July 2001, Hobeika called a press conference and announced he was prepared to testify against Sharon in Belgium and revealed that he had evidence of what actually occurred in Sabra and Shatilla. Hobeika also indicated that Israel had flown members of the South Lebanon Army (SLA) into Beirut International Airport in an Israeli Air Force C130 transport plane. In full view of dozens of witnesses, including members of the Lebanese army and others, SLA troops under the command of Major Saad Haddad were slipped into the camps to commit the massacres. The SLA troops were under the direct command of Ariel Sharon and an Israeli Mossad agent provocateur named Rafi Eitan. Hobeika offered evidence that a former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon was aware of the Israeli plot. In addition, the IDF had placed a camera in a strategic position to film the Sabra and Shatilla massacres. Hobeika was going to ask that the footage be released as part of the investigation of Sharon.
After announcing he was willing to testify against Sharon, Hobeika became fearful for his safety and began moves to leave Lebanon. Hobeika was not aware that his threats to testify against Sharon had triggered a series of fateful events that reached well into the White House and Sharon's office.
On January 24, 2002, Hobeika's car was blown up by a remote controlled bomb placed in a parked Mercedes along a street in the Hazmieh section of Beirut. The bomb exploded when Hobeika and his three associates, Fares Souweidan, Mitri Ajram, and Waleed Zein, were driving their Range Rover past the TNT-laden Mercedes at 9:40 am Beirut time. The Range Rover's four passengers were killed in the explosion. In case Hobeika's car had taken another route through the neighborhood, two additional parked cars, located at two other choke points, were also rigged with TNT. The powerful bomb wounded a number of other people on the street. Other parked cars were destroyed and buildings and homes were damaged. The Lebanese president, prime minister, and interior minister all claimed that Israeli agents were behind the attack.
It is noteworthy that the State Department's list of global terrorist incidents for 2002 worldwide failed to list the car bombing attack on Hobeika and his party. The White House wanted to ensure the attack was censored from the report. The reason was simple: the attack ultimately had Washington's fingerprints on it.
High level European intelligence sources now report that Karl Rove personally coordinated Hobeika's assassination. The hit on Hobeika employed Syrian intelligence agents. Syrian President Bashar Assad was trying to curry favor with the Bush administration in the aftermath of 9-11 and was more than willing to help the White House. In addition, Assad's father, Hafez Assad, had been an ally of Bush's father during Desert Storm, a period that saw Washington give a "wink and a nod" to Syria's occupation of Lebanon. Rove wanted to help Sharon avoid any political embarrassment from an in absentia trial in Brussels where Hobeika would be a star witness. Rove and Sharon agreed on the plan to use Syrian Military Intelligence agents to assassinate Hobeika. Rove saw Sharon as an indispensable ally of Bush in ensuring the loyalty of the Christian evangelical and Jewish voting blocs in the United States. Sharon saw the plan to have the United States coordinate the hit as a way to mask all connections to Jerusalem.
The Syrian hit team was ordered by Assef Shawkat, the number two man in Syrian military intelligence and a good friend and brother in law of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Assad's intelligence services had already cooperated with U.S. intelligence in resorting to unconventional methods to extract information from al Qaeda detainees deported to Syria from the United States and other countries in the wake of 9-11. The order to take out Hobeika was transmitted by Shawkat to Roustom Ghazali, the head of Syrian military intelligence in Beirut. Ghazali arranged for the three remote controlled cars to be parked along Hobeika's route in Hazmieh; only few hundred yards from the Barracks of Syrian Special Forces which are stationed in the area near the Presidential palace , the ministry of Defense and various Government and officers quarters . This particular area is covered 24/7 by a very sophisticated USA multi-agency surveillance system to monitor Syrian and Lebanese security activities and is a " Choice " area to live in for its perceived high security .... [Courtesy of the Special Collections Service.]
SCS... ; CIA & NSA & DIA....
The plan to kill Hobeika had all the necessary caveats and built-in denial mechanisms. If the Syrians were discovered beforehand or afterwards, Karl Rove and his associates in the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans would be ensured plausible deniability.
Hobeika's CIA intermediary in Beirut, a man only referred to as "Jason" by Hobeika, was a frequent companion of the Lebanese politician during official and off-duty hours. During Hobeika's election campaigns for his parliamentary seat, Jason was often in Hobeika's office offering support and advice. After Hobeika's assassination, Jason became despondent over the death of his colleague. Eventually, Jason disappeared abruptly from Lebanon and reportedly later emerged in Pakistan.
Karl Rove's involvement in the assassination of Hobeika may not have been the last "hit" he ordered to help out Sharon. In March 2002, a few months after Hobeika's assassination, another Lebanese Christian with knowledge of Sharon's involvement in the Sabra and Shatilla massacres was gunned down along with his wife in Sao Paulo, Brazil. A bullet fired at Michael Nassar's car flattened one of his tires. Nassar pulled into a gasoline station for repairs. A professional assassin, firing a gun with a silencer, shot Nassar and his wife in the head, killing them both instantly. The assailant fled and was never captured. Nassar was also involved with the Phalange militia at Sabra and Shatilla. Nassar was also reportedly willing to testify against Sharon in Belgium and, as a nephew of SLA Commander General Antoine Lahd, may have had important evidence to bolster Hobeika's charge that Sharon ordered SLA forces into the camps to wipe out the Palestinians.
Based on what European intelligence claims is concrete intelligence on Rove's involvement in the assassination of Hobeika, the Bush administration can now add political assassination to its laundry list of other misdeeds, from lying about the reasons to go to war to the torture tactics in violation of the Geneva Conventions that have been employed by the Pentagon and "third country" nationals at prisons in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist. He served in the National Security Agency (NSA) during the Reagan administration and wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth. He is the co-author, with John Stanton, of "America's Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II." His forthcoming book is titled: "Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops, and Brass Plates."Ever since this story came Online, there was a tremendous interest in
reading this Blog, by very noteworthy INTELLIGENCE agencies....,
as outlined below:
This is some of the evidence for you and for the World...article&sid=1052
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~encrypted/logs/access ====>> INTELLIGENCE Agencies Servers footprints.
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Not to mention hundreds of private companies and governments........!
See Below : INTELLIGENCE Agencies , INTELLIGENCE. :
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Lines 10-36 of my logfiles show a lot of interest in this article: =1052
# grep sid=1052 /encrypted/logs/access_logawk '{print$1,$7}'sed-n'10,36p'.
spb-213-33-248-190.sovintel.ru /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
Soviet/Russian Intelligence services...
ext1.shape.nato.int /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
NATO Intel.
server1.namsa.nato.int /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
Nato Intel.
ns1.saclantc.nato.int /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
Strategic Air Command US Intel.
bxlproxyb.europarl.eu.int /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
European Parliament Intel. Unit
wdcsun18.usdoj.gov /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
USA Department of Justice...
wdcsun21.usdoj.gov /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
USA Department of Justice...
tcs-gateway11.treas.gov /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
USA Treasury Department
tcs-gateway13.treas.gov /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
USA Treasury Department
relay1.ucia.gov /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
CIA2 Langley
relay2.cia.gov /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
CIA2 Langley
relay2.ucia.gov /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
CIA Langley
n021.dhs.gov /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
USA Department of Homeland security Intel.
legion.dera.gov.uk /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
British Intel.
gateway-fincen.uscg.mil /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
Pentagon US.
crawler2.googlebot.com /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
Intel....
crawler1.googlebot.com /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
Intel.....
gateway101.gsi.gov.uk /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
British Intel.
gate11-quantico.nmci.usmc.mil /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
USA Marine Corps Quantico Virginia Intel.
gate13-quantico.nmci.usmc.mil /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
USA Marine Corps Quantico Virginia Intel.
fw1-a.osis.gov /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
US Intel SIS.
crawler13.googlebot.com /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
Intel....
fw1-b.osis.gov /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
US Intel. OSIS.
bouncer.nics.gov.uk /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
British Intel.
beluha.ssu.gov.ua /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052
Ukrainian Intelligence.
zukprxpro02.zreo.compaq.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1052....
Intel....
== Links ==
1|[1] [http://globalfire.tv/nj/04en/politics/rove.htm] http://globalfire.tv/nj/04en/politics/rove.htm |National Journal]]
* [http://univercia.blogspot.com/] | [ univercia; [http://univercia.blogspot.com/] ]
2|http://anaconda-manifesto.blogspot.com/]|Special Report]]
3|http://phoeniciaphoenix.blogspot.com/]|Special Investigation]]
4|http://lebaneseresistance.blogspot.com/]|Special Digest]]
5|http://echkelon.blogspot.com/]|Special Analysis]]
6[1]http://hobeika.blogspot.com/ | [ Life] |
7[http://americanassassination.blogspot.com/] [ Special White Paper ]
8[http://newhk.blogspot.com/][ Legacy] |
9[http://wiredlebanon.blogspot.com/][ http://wiredlebanon.blogspot.com/ ] HK.|
10 [http://elie-hobeika.blogspot.com/] [ elie-hobeika ] |
11 [http://hk-elie-hobeika.blogspot.com/] [ elie-hobeika/ Heroes' Hero ] |
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- أنا كاهن للأبد ولا يستطيع أحد أن ينزع هذه الصفة عنّي.
- إعادة التوازن ضرورة في الكيان اللبناني في السلطة والإدارة والجيش.
- لا مانع لدينا من اجراء احصاء سكاني، وبعض المأجورين يريدون كسر ارادة المسيحيين.
- تراجع النفوذ المسيحي مرده اتفاق الطائف لأنّه وثيقة النفاق الوطني.
إنّه الأب كميل مبارك، هكذا عرفه المؤمنون من ابناء رعيته، وهكذا يعرفه الطلبة المتشوقون لسماع حديثه، بعضهم يقول عنه "صوت صارخ في البريّة اللبنانية" وبعض آخر يقول عنه "صوت صارخ في الكنسية". لا محرمات على الإطلاق في حديثه الاّ الإلتزام بالحقيقة.
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"بين الإحصاء السياسي والإحصاء العددي من قال انّ المسيحيين أقلية"، قول شهير لحضرتكم، الى ما يستند قولكم هذا؟
الواقع العددي للديمغرافيا اللبنانية ليس واضحاً ولا ثابتاً، ومع كثرة المقالات أيام الإحتلال السوري وقبله وبعده، ونتيجة الضغوطات السورية والعربية خصوصاً السعودية منها، هناك محاولات حثيثة لإقناع المسيحيين أنّهم أقلية، ومع كثرة دفع المال من بعض الجهات لبعض الصحفيين إمتلأت صفحات الجرائد بالتنظير غير الواقعي عن الموضوع. "حاولت التدقيق في الموضوع علنّي أصل الى الحقيقة، وبعد التدقيق بسجلات النفوس منذ عام 1992 وتمحيص احصاءات القطاع الخاص كالمدارس والجامعات وما شابه وبعض إحصاءات القطاع العام في مجالات القطاع الوظيفي كالجيش وقوى الأمن... وجدت أنّ الأرقام التي تعطى للصحف وتقال في الوسائل الإعلام المختلفة هي أرقام خيالية ومبتكرة غايتها سياسية وليس إحصائية، بغية كسر ارادة المسيحيين وإخضاعهم للأمر الواقع، وبالتالي يتسنّى اخذ كلّ المواقع الاساسية في السلطة من يد المسيحيين واعطائها للطوائف الإسلامية الأخرى".
يفهم من كلامكم أنّ لا خوف على المسيحيين لا عددياً ولا وجودياً؟
لا خوف على الإطلاق على المسيحيين، نحن اليوم أفضل من البارحة، الإحصاء الذي قمت به تناول القطاعين العام والخاص وقد شمل اللبنانيين المغتربين منذ ثلاثين عاماً، فالمسيحيون هم أكثر من نصف سكان لبنان، ومن يدّعي غير ذلك إمّا جاهل أو متواطئ، وهنا يجب القول: "إن كان الإحصاء مبنياً على تكهنات سياسية بامكاننا وضع الأرقام التي نريد، امّا إذا أردنا إحصاءً علمياً صحيحاً فعلينا المباشرة به، وطالما هذا الأمر غير متوفر لا يمكننا الركون الى أي شيء. إنّ السبب في عدم إجراء إحصاء علمي يعود الى ثلاثة أمور: الأول، التستّر على عدد المجنسين الذين اكتسبوا الجنسية زوراً في عصر القحط السياسي، قد نسمع أحياناً أنّ هذا العدد يراوح بين 160 و350 ألفاً والفرق شاسع بينهما. وهذه الجنسيات أعطيت لأرباب العائلات وليس للأفراد. الثاني، عدم وجود احصاء دقيق هدفه التستّر على القطاع الوظيفي داخل الدولة، "إتفاق الطائف الأسود الذكر والسيء الطالع أطاح بمنطق "ستة وستة مكررّ" ومنطق المناصفة بين المسيحيين والمسلمين، ففي زمن الطائف والعهد السوري الحقت معظم الوظائف المسيحية بالمسلمين، لتبقى في حينها المقاومة المسيحية السياسية تطالب بالعدالة داخل المجتمع والمناصفة انطلاقاً من التعددية الطائفية والميثاقية، لكن وللأسف وقع المحظور والخلل لحق مؤسسات الجيش والقوى الأمنية والقضاء والإدارة وغيرها. اليوم إن كنّا صادقين مع انفسنا علينا اعادة التوازن الى هذه المؤسسات ولأننا مسيحيون بالفعل لا نبغي ابعاد أي شخص من أيّ طائفة إنتمى، لكن وفق منطق العدالة يجب تصحيح الأمور بتكملة العدد من خلال توظيف المسيحيين، حتى يتمّ ضرب المشروع الإسلامي الذي يريد قضم لبنان المتعدد والمتنوع.
الثالث، هو الحلم الذي يراود بعض المسلمين كما بعض المسيحيين انطلاقاً من المثل الشائع "لغاية في نفس يعقوب": منطق القبول بالآخر وتلاقي الحضارات يقابله منطق رفض للآخر وتناحر الحضارات، هاذان التياران يتصارعان في لبنان، وللأسف بعض الساسة المسيحيين يريدون تنفيذ مشاريعهم الخاصة كما بعض الساسة المسلمين يريدون الإيحاء والقول أنّ الديمغرافيا العددية هي لصالح المسلمين اللذين يقولون "نحن الأكثرية" وبالتالي الحكم يجب أن يكون بيدنا، وهذا ما فعله الطائف فعلياً، لأنه نقل السلطة من يد رئيس الجمهورية الى مجلس الوزراء بشخص رئيسه، والوزراء المسيحيون وللأسف يخضعون له إمّا عن ترهيب وإمّا عن ترغيب. "سبب رئيسي لتراجع النفوذ المسيحي هو اتفاق الطائف وما يسمّونّه وثيقة وفاق وطني هي اشبه بوثيقة نفاق وطني".
لماذا الكنيسة طيلة هذه الفترة لم تحرّك ساكناً؟
يبدو أنّ الكنيسة كان مغلوباً على أمرها، فالقرار لم يكن لديها، وهذا الأمر آتى من قوى محلية أو خارجية، في ذلك الوقت لم يكن بمقدورها مقاومة الواقع، فاكتفت بالإعتراض وإداء الرأي والمطالبة بتصحسح الوضع، وبالفعل هذا الأمر غير كافٍ لأنّه يجب أن يتبع الإعتراض الكلامي بتدابير واقعية وعملية مع الوزارات المعنية.
كيف تقيمون وثيقة الطروحات المسيحية التي أقامها العماد عون مع المرجعيات السياسية المسيحية في الرابية، خصوصاً لجهة التفاعل بين الأكثرية والأقلية داخل النطام أو إحترام حقوق المسيحيين داخل النظام من خلال التوازن والمشاركة؟
الأمر الحسن الذي ظهر في هذه الوثيقة أولاً انّه آتٍ من سلطة مدنية ومن مجموعة من المتنفذّين من اهل الوطن والمفكرين الواعين لمستقبل هذا البلد وهم بأكملهم من العلمانيين، وعندما يأتي العلماني بوجهة نظر مسيحية صحيحة يعني أنّ العماد عون والتيار الوطني الحرّ وأثمثالهم في بعض المواقع، هم من الجماعات المؤمنة في هذا البلد، فهم لا ينظرون الى مستقبلهم الشخصي بل الى مستقبل وطنهم، وهذه الثوابت نحن نباركها كلّ يوم، وخلافاً لما يعتقده كثيرون، أقرَّت الوثيقة بمرجعية بكركي الوطنية والدينية، وعلى الجميع الإقرار بفضلهم في هذا الأمر سواء أحبّوا الجماعة أم لا. أمّا في ما يتعلّق بعلاقة الأكثرية والأقلية ضمن المسيحيين فانّ الوثيقة أخذت بمبدأ التنوّع داخل الطائفة واحترمت منطق الديمقراطية، وهي بذلك فتحت باب الحوار في العقل والمنطق والحجّة وليس بالشارع او البندقية.
إعتبرتم في مناسبات عديدة أنّ الخطر الأول على لبنان ينتج عن الخطر الفلسطيني المسلّح، الا ترى بعد معركة نهر البارد أنّ هذا الخطر تحوّل الى الأصولية السنية المتمثلة بالقاعدة ومتفرعاتها؟
إنّ الأصوليات الدينية من ايّ جهة أتت هي مصدر قلق للمجتمعات السليمة، لكن الوجود الفلسطيني هو الخطر الأول على لبنان فهو يعرّض الكيان اللبناني للخطر خصوصاً مع بعض الأحلام التي تراود بعض السياسيين اللبنانيين من قادة مسلمين سنة أو قادة مسيحيين قلّة بهدف توطينهم في لبنان، "وهذا الأمر إن حصل سيكون مقبرة للبنانيين لأنّ التوطين يخلّ في الديمغرافيا اللبنانية ويقطع العلاقة بين الوطن وأبنائه، فاي توطين للفلسطينيين يعني بما يعنيه القضاء على المجتمع اللبناني بجناحيه المسلم والمسيحي".
تتهمّون بعض الجهات الداخلية بالسعي لتمرير التوطين، لكنّ الجميع ينكر ذلك علناً بماذا تردّون؟
طبعاً اتهم بعض من في الداخل بسعيه لتوطين الفلسطينيين، والكذب الكبير يظهر في نكرانه، لأنّه كما يقول المثل الشعبي "العشّي الماهر لا يجعلك تشتمّ رائحة طبخه قبل ان ينضج"، وهذا المثل ينطبق على بعض الساسة المسيحيين والمسلمين، وللأسف الشديد، المسيحيون منهم قد يكونون على ضلال لعدم معرفتهم بخطورة الموضوع، أو هم فريسة سهلة لسلاح المال.
لكن الأميركيين طمأنوا رئيس الهيئة التنفيذية د. سمير جعجع من عدم التوطين، الا يطمئنكم هذا القول؟
إنّ الأميركيين طمأنوا المسيحيين في العراق وطمأنوا الرئيس كميل شمعون عام 1958 أنّهم سيساندونه، وطمأنوا الملك حسين كما طمأنوا شاه إيران، أين نصرف هذه التطمينات، إن لم يقتنع هؤلاء المطمئنين من السياسة الأميركية أنّه لا يمكن الركون لتقلبات السياسة الأميركية لأنها تسعى لتحقيق مصالحها وليس مصالح الشعوب وهذا أمر واقعي. عندما يكون هناك تشويشفي تفكير بعض الساسة، عليهم ان يتعظوا من المقولة القديمة على الصغار عدم اللعب مع الكبار.
لكن هل يمكن للقوات اللبنانية التي ناضلت تاريخياً للدفاع عن الوجود اللبناني الحرّ أن تتخلى عن قضيتها المحورية الدفاع عن لبنان، وتقبل بتوطين الفلسطينيين؟
جميعنا ناضل في ذلك الوقت، ولا يجوز التنكر لما قامت به القوى المسيحية التي قدمت الشهداء بالآلاف دفاعاً عن لبنان. حالياًن ما نأسف له هو استرخاص دم الشهداء الذين سقطوا، بدأت الحرب في لبنان بين المسيحيين والفلسطينيين ليليها فيما بعد سقوط كلّ اللبنانيين في آتون الحرب العبثية، واخطرها كان من بعض المسلمين الذين وللأسف اعتبروا انّ جيشهم هو السلاح الفلسطيني.
بعد انتهاء معركة نهر البارد وانتصار الجيش اللبناني فيها، هل إنتهت محاولات ضرب الجيش البناني؟
لا نستطيع التكهّن بخفايا الأمور، لكن ما نلاحظه في الواقع أنّ كلّ الدول التي تدّعي صداقتها للبنان أغدقت علينا بالوعود منذ عشرات السنين بتقوية الجيش وبتسليحه، لكن ما نراه ليس الاّ بعض المساعدات البسيطة، الجيش سلاحه ليس "جيباً ولا كميوناً بل طائرات وآليات وذخائر". وطالما تسليح الجيش مقتصر على هذا المستوى فسياسة إضعافه مستمرّة.
البعض يقول "الأب كميل مبارك" صوت صارخ في البرية السياسية اللبنانية، وبعض آخر يقول صوت صارخ في الكنيسة؟ أيهما صحيح.
أنا مع الحقيقة، وكلامي التزام بها، منذ بداية نشاطاتي الرعوية والتوجيهية وقفت وسأبقى الى جانب الحقيقة، وإن خرج عنها البعض لا يكون الأب كميل مبارك ضدّهم، بل هم ضدّ الحقيقة.
تهاجمون السلطة الفاسدة، وتعتبرون حق مواجهتها حق مقدّس، لا بل واجب على المواطنين. هذا القول الا يتعارض مع مساندة الكنيسة للسلطة؟
قولي هذا يستند الى الكتاب المقدّس، فالرسول بولس قال: "أيها الناس أطيعوا رؤساءكم ومدبريكم لأنّ السلطة هي من عند الله، وهي تسهر على الخير العام، لكن إذا جحدت هذه السلطة وابتعدت عن إرادة الله وفعل الخير العام ألزمنا بمقاومتها، وهذا الكلام للقديس بولس وليس كلام الأب كميل مبارك. أمّا حول علاقة بكركي بالسلطة المدنية فلا يمكنني التكهّن بها، ولا أعرفها، فكما يقول المثل الشائع، روما من فوق ليست كما هي من تحت، فكلامي أضمّنه التوجّه المبدئي فقط، مبدئي هو رفض للطغيان وهذا ما كرّسه البابا يوحنا بولس الثاني في غدانسك في بولونيا عندما أسقط النظام السوفياتي قبل آوانه بالسلم، وبالإعتصام.
كيف تقيمون السنوات الثلاث الأخيرة في لبنان؟
لا يوجد سلطة في لبنان، ونحن كنّا ندعو الى اسقاط هذه السلطة المترهّلة دائماً.
لكم سؤال وجهتموه الى السلطة، ماذا فعلتم بالإتفاقات اللبنانية السورية من أجل تصحيحها؟ الامَ تلمّحون؟
نعم من يهاجم سوريا من لبنان يبدو أنّه مع سوريا عبد الحليم خدام ويريد إعادة ربط لبنان بالقاطرة السورية، العلم السياسي الواقعي يفرض ابطال كلّ المعاهدة السابقة والقائمة على الإكراه. نسأل الحكومة اللبنانية التي تجاهر بعدائيتها لسوريا علناًً لماذا لم تسقط هذه الإتفاقيات؟ يبدو أنّهم لا يجرؤون على فعل ذلك، لأنّ داعميهم من التيارات السورية المناهضة للنظام الحاكم هم أيضاً مع هذه الإتفاقيات، وهم يريدون ربط لبنان بالنظام السوري الجديد في حال وصوله الى الحكم.
انتقدتم إتفاق الطائف الذي جرى أيام الإحتلال السوري، لكن هذا الإتفاق نال مباركة بكركي؟ هل أنتم مع تعديل أو تطوير إتفاق الطائف؟
لقد رأت بكركي في الطائف مخرجاً نحو السلام دون أن تراه مثالياً، وهي تعرف أنه لم يطبق بكامله ولن يطبق. وحالياً أنا مع تعديله، نحن نفضل الإتفاق على اللااتفاق طبعاً، لكن إذا اردنا ان نكون دولة محترمة علينا تجديد ميثاقنا لتحسين العلاقات بين اللبنانيين. اتفاق الطائف بحدّ ذاته هو مرحلة من مراحل الإنحطاط اللبناني، ولو وافق عليه كلّ سكان لبنان أنا شخصياً لا أوافق عليه، هو من مرحلة الذل المسيحي أولاً واللبناني ثانياً، هذا النظام الهجين الذي ليس معروفاً اصله من فصله، وبنهاية المطاف تًرك الحكم للخارج ليبتّ بكلّ شاردة وواردة، وهذا الأمر حصل بارادة سورية ورضى أميركي وبركة سعودية ونكهة حريرية، أسأل بعد تحررّ لبنان من النظام السوري، لماذا لا نتحررّ من النظام الذي جعل لبنان تحت وصايته؟ "إنّ إحدى الشوائب الكبرى فيه هي عدم وجود حكم أو مرجع قادر على بتّ الخلافات بين مختلف السلطات، وقبول بكركي به كان نتيجة تضليل بعض القادة المسيحيين، وقد تكون موافقتها للخروج من المآزق القتالي الذي حصل، وغالباً ما ترى الكنيسة في السلام ولو على مضض مرحلة أفضل من استمرار الحرب، انطلاقاً من لم يكن بالإمكان أفضل ممَّا كان.
أنتم متهمّون بأنكم تأخذون بالخطاب الـ"عوني" على غيره من الخطابات السياسية في المناطق المسيحية، ما هو ردّكم؟
الأب كميل مبارك لا يتبنّى موقف أحد من السياسيين، كلّ ما افعله هو الشهادة من أجل الحق، وكلّ من يقول الحق سواء كان صديقاً أم لا ألتقي معه، ولقاء بعض الخطب مع خطابات التيار الوطني الحرّ وزعيمه الجنرال ميشال عون يعني أنّ لقاءنا هو شهادة للحق، وهذا يمكن أن يكون مع غيره من الذين يسعون الى الحقيقة.
هل يخشى الأب مبارك على موقعه الديني بسبب مواقفكم الوطنية الجريئة؟
عندما رسمني المطران زيادة كاهناً، أخذنا شعار "أقسم الله ولن يندم أنّك أنت كاهناً الى الأبد". وأنا اقول "أنا كاهن الى الأبد، ولا يستطيع أحد ان ينزع هذه الصفة عنّي طالما أنا شاهد على الحقيقة".
الى ماذا يعود الحماس الشعبي تجاه خطبك الدينية؟ هل هي فشّة خلق؟
الناس تريد الحقيقة وتحبّها، فعندما يسمعونها كما هي، يرون أن هذا الصوت يعبّر عن آرائهم، وهذا بالفعل ما يحصل فبعد بعض الخطب التوجيهية أتلقّى مئات الإتصالات من المناطق الداعمة كافة وهي بالمناسبة ليست عاطفية لأني لا أعرفهم، بكل بساطة ما يجمعني معهم هو قول الحقيقة.
************************************************************************
Osama Bin Laden Created by the US and CIA2/MOSSAD/ISI/MI6
. 'Bin Laden is a product of the U.S. spy agencies, according to an article
in the Tribune de Genève by Richard Labévière, writer of the book Les
dollars de la terreur, les États Unis et les islamistes.
The first contact with Bin Laden was in 1979, when the new graduate from the
Univ. of Jedah got in touch with the U.S. embassy in Ankara, Turkey. With
the help of the CIA and the U.S. Armed Forces intelligence services he began
to organize in the early 1980s and network to raise money and to recruit
fighters for the Afghan mujahidins that were fighting the Soviets. He did
this from the city of Peshawar in Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan.
Part of these activities were financed with the production and sale of
morphine, the base of heroin. This was the beginning of today Al Qaida (the
base) network led by Bin Laden. Indeed the chickens are coming home to roost
for the CIA and U.S. bosses.
http://www.timesofindia.com/today/07euro1.htm
LONDON [IANS]: The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) worked in tandem with
Pakistan to create the "monster" that is today Afghanistan's ruling Taliban,
a leading US expert on South Asia said here.
"I warned them that we were creating a monster," Selig Harrison from the
Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars said at the conference here
last week on "Terrorism and Regional Security: Managing the Challenges in
Asia."
Harrison said: "The CIA made a historic mistake in encouraging Islamic
groups from all over the world to come to Afghanistan." The US provided $3
billion for building up these Islamic groups, and it accepted Pakistan's
demand that they should decide how this money should be spent, Harrison
said.
Harrison, who spoke before the Taliban assault on the Buddha statues was
launched, told the gathering of security experts that he had meetings with
CIA leaders at the time when Islamic forces were being strengthened in
Afghanistan. "They told me these people were fanatical, and the more fierce
they were the more fiercely they would fight the Soviets," he said. "I
warned them that we were creating a monster."
Harrison, who has written five books on Asian affairs and US relations with
Asia, has had extensive contact with the CIA and political leaders in South
Asia. Harrison was a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace between 1974 and 1996.
Harrison who is now senior fellow with The Century Foundation recalled a
conversation he had with the late Gen Zia-ul Haq of Pakistan. "Gen Zia spoke
to me about expanding Pakistan's sphere of influence to control Afghanistan,
then Uzbekistan and Tajikstan and then Iran and Turkey," Harrison said. That
design continues, he said. Gen.Mohammed Aziz who was involved in that Zia
plan has been elevated now to a key position by Chief Executive, Gen. Pervez
Musharraf, Harrison said.
The old associations between the intelligence agencies continue, Harrison
said. "The CIA still has close links with the ISI (Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence)."
Today that money and those weapons have helped build up the Taliban,
Harrison said. "The Taliban are not just recruits from 'madrassas' (Muslim
theological schools) but are on the payroll of the ISI (Inter Services
Intelligence, the intelligence wing of the Pakistani government)." The
Taliban are now "making a living out of terrorism."
Harrison said the UN Security Council resolution number 1333 calls for an
embargo on arms to the Taliban. "But it is a resolution without teeth
because it does not provide sanctions for non-compliance," he said. "The US
is not backing the Russians who want to give more teeth to the resolution."
Now it is Pakistan that "holds the key to the future of Afghanistan,"
Harrison said. The creation of the Taliban was central to Pakistan's
"pan-Islamic vision," Harrison said. It came after "the CIA made the
historic mistake of encouraging Islamic groups from all over the world to
come to Afghanistan," he said. The creation of the Taliban had been
"actively encouraged by the ISI and the CIA," he said. "Pakistan has been
building up Afghan collaborators who will sustain Pakistan," he said. (IANS)
More On The Taliban And Other "Monsters" Of The CIA:
For more details on the CIA's role in creating the Taliban, and dozens of
other terrorist organizations around the world, refer to the latest issue of
COAT's magazine, Press for Conversion!.
This issue (#43) is on the theme: "A People's History of the CIA: The
Subversion of Democracy from Australia to Zaire." It is available
(full-text) at our web site http://www.ncf.ca/coat/
Anatomy of a Victory: CIA's Covert Afghan War
By: Steve Coll, Washington Post, July 19, 1992
"In all, the United States funneled more than $ 2 billion in guns and money
to the mujaheddin during the 1980s, according to U.S. officials. It was the
largest covert action program since World War II."
A specially equipped C-141 Starlifter transport carrying William Casey
touched down at a military air base south of Islamabad in October 1984 for a
secret visit by the CIA director to plan strategy for the war against Soviet
forces in Afghanistan.
Helicopters lifted Casey to three secret training camps near the Afghan
border, where he watched mujaheddin rebels fire heavy weapons and learn to
make bombs with CIA-supplied plastic explosives and detonators.
During the visit, Casey startled his Pakistani hosts by proposing that they
take the Afghan war into enemy territory -- into the Soviet Union itself.
Casey wanted to ship subversive propaganda through Afghanistan to the Soviet
Union's predominantly Muslim southern republics. The Pakistanis agreed, and
the CIA soon supplied thousands of Korans, as well as books on Soviet
atrocities in Uzbekistan and tracts on historical heroes of Uzbek
nationalism, according to Pakistani and Western officials.
"We can do a lot of damage to the Soviet Union," Casey said, according to
Mohammed Yousaf, a Pakistani general who attended the meeting.
Casey's visit was a prelude to a secret Reagan administration decision in
March 1985, reflected in National Security Decision Directive 166, to
sharply escalate U.S. covert action in Afghanistan, according to Western
officials.
Abandoning a policy of simple harassment of Soviet occupiers, the Reagan
team decided secretly to let loose on the Afghan battlefield an array of
U.S. high technology and military expertise in an effort to hit and
demoralize Soviet commanders and soldiers. Casey saw it as a prime
opportunity to strike at an overextended, potentially vulnerable Soviet
empire.
Eight years after Casey's visit to Pakistan, the Soviet Union is no more.
Afghanistan has fallen to the heavily armed, fraticidal mujaheddin rebels.
The Afghans themselves did the fighting and dying -- and ultimately won
their war against the Soviets -- and not all of them laud the CIA's role in
their victory. But even some sharp critics of the CIA agree that in military
terms, its secret 1985 escalation of covert support to the mujaheddin made a
major difference in Afghanistan, the last battlefield of the long Cold War.
How the Reagan administration decided to go for victory in the Afghan war
between 1984 and 1988 has been shrouded in secrecy and clouded by the
sharply divergent political agendas of those involved. But with the triumph
of the mujaheddin rebels over Afghanistan's leftist government in April and
the demise of the Soviet Union, some intelligence officials involved have
decided to reveal how the covert escalation was carried out.
The most prominent of these former intelligence officers is Yousaf, the
Pakistani general who supervised the covert war between 1983 and 1987 and
who last month published in Europe and Pakistan a detailed account of his
role and that of the CIA, titled "The Bear Trap."
This article and another to follow are based on extensive interviews with
Yousaf as well as with more than a dozen senior Western officials who
confirmed Yousaf's disclosures and elaborated on them.
U.S. officials worried about what might happen if aspects of their
stepped-up covert action were exposed -- or if the program succeeded too
well and provoked the Soviets to react in hot anger. The escalation that
began in 1985 "was directed at killing Russian military officers," one
Western official said. "That caused a lot of nervousness."
One source of jitters was that Pakistani intelligence officers -- partly
inspired by Casey -- began independently to train Afghans and funnel CIA
supplies for scattered strikes against military installations, factories and
storage depots within Soviet territory.
The attacks later alarmed U.S. officials in Washington, who saw military
raids on Soviet territory as "an incredible escalation," according to Graham
Fuller, then a senior U.S. intelligence official who counseled against any
such raids. Fearing a large-scale Soviet response and the fallout of such
attacks on U.S.-Soviet diplomacy, the Reagan administration blocked the
transfer to Pakistan of detailed satellite photographs of military targets
inside the Soviet Union, other U.S. officials said.
To Yousaf, who managed the Koran-smuggling program and the guerrilla raids
inside Soviet territory, the United States ultimately "chickened out" on the
question of taking the secret Afghan war onto Soviet soil. Nonetheless,
Yousaf recalled, Casey was "ruthless in his approach, and he had a built-in
hatred for the Soviets."
An intelligence coup in 1984 and 1985 triggered the Reagan administration's
decision to escalate the covert progam in Afghanistan, according to Western
officials. The United States received highly specific, sensitive information
about Kremlin politics and new Soviet war plans in Afghanistan. Already
under pressure from Congress and conservative activists to expand its
support to the mujaheddin, the Reagan administration moved in response to
this intelligence to open up its high-technology arsenal to aid the Afghan
rebels.
Beginning in 1985, the CIA supplied mujaheddin rebels with extensive
satellite reconnaissance data of Soviet targets on the Afghan battlefield,
plans for military operations based on the satellite intelligence,
intercepts of Soviet communications, secret communications networks for the
rebels, delayed timing devices for tons of C-4 plastic explosives for urban
sabotage and sophisticated guerrilla attacks, long-range sniper rifles, a
targeting device for mortars that was linked to a U.S. Navy satellite,
wire-guided anti-tank missiles, and other equipment.
The move to upgrade aid to the mujaheddin roughly coincided with the
well-known decision in 1986 to provide the mujaheddin with sophisticated,
U.S.-made Stinger antiaircraft missiles. Before the missiles arrived,
however, those involved in the covert war wrestled with a wide-ranging and
at times divisive debate over how far they should go in challenging the
Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
Roots of the Rebellion In 1980, not long after Soviet forces invaded
Afghanistan to prop up a sympathetic leftist government, President Jimmy
Carter signed the first -- and for many years the only -- presidential
"finding" on Afghanistan, the classified directive required by U.S. law to
begin covert operations, according to several Western sources familiar with
the Carter document.
The Carter finding sought to aid Afghan rebels in "harassment" of Soviet
occupying forces in Afghanistan through secret supplies of light weapons and
other assistance. The finding did not talk of driving Soviet forces out of
Afghanistan or defeating them militarily, goals few considered possible at
the time, these sources said.
The cornerstone of the program was that the United States, through the CIA,
would provide funds, some weapons and general supervision of support for the
mujaheddin rebels, but day-to-day operations and direct contact with the
mujaheddin would be left to the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence
agency, or ISI. The hands-off U.S. role contrasted with CIA operations in
Nicaragua and Angola.
Saudi Arabia agreed to match U.S. financial contributions to the mujaheddin
and distributed funds directly to ISI. China sold weapons to the CIA and
donated a smaller number directly to Pakistan, but the extent of China's
role has been one of the secret war's most closely guarded secrets.
In all, the United States funneled more than $ 2 billion in guns and money
to the mujaheddin during the 1980s, according to U.S. officials. It was the
largest covert action program since World War II.
In the first years after the Reagan administration inherited the Carter
program, the covert Afghan war "tended to be handled out of Casey's back
pocket," recalled Ronald Spiers, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, the
base of the Afghan rebels. Mainly from China's government, the CIA purchased
assault rifles, grenade launchers, mines and SA-7 light antiaircraft
weapons, and then arranged for shipment to Pakistan. Most of the weapons
dated to the Korean War or earlier. The amounts were significant -- 10,000
tons of arms and ammunition in 1983, according to Yousaf -- but a fraction
of what they would be in just a few years.
Beginning in 1984, Soviet forces in Afghanistan began to experiment with new
and more aggressive tactics against the mujaheddin, based on the use of
Soviet special forces, called the Spetsnaz, in helicopter-borne assaults on
Afghan rebel supply lines. As these tactics succeeded, Soviet commanders
pursued them increasingly, to the point where some U.S. congressmen who
traveled with the mujaheddin -- including Rep. Charles Wilson (D-Tex.) and
Sen. Gordon Humphrey (R-N.H.) -- believed that the war might turn against
the rebels.
The new Soviet tactics reflected a perception in the Kremlin that the Red
Army was in danger of becoming bogged down in Afghanistan and needed to take
decisive steps to win the war, according to sensitive intelligence that
reached the Reagan administration in 1984 and 1985, Western officials said.
The intelligence came from the upper reaches of the Soviet Defense Ministry
and indicated that Soviet hard-liners were pushing a plan to attempt to win
the Afghan war within two years, sources said.
The new war plan was to be implemented by Gen. Mikhail Zaitsev, who was
transferred from the prestigious command of Soviet forces in Germany to run
the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the spring of 1985, just as Mikhail
Gorbachev was battling hard-line rivals to take power in a Kremlin
succession struggle. Cracking the Kremlin's Strategy
The intelligence about Soviet war plans in Afghanistan was highly specific,
according to Western sources. The Soviets intended to deploy one-third of
their total Spetsnaz forces in Afghanistan -- nearly 2,000 "highly trained
and motivated" paratroops, according to Yousaf.
In addition, the Soviets intended to dispatch a stronger KGB presence to
assist the special forces and regular troops, and they intended to deploy
some of the Soviet Union's most sophisticated battlefield communications
equipment, referred to by some as the "Omsk vans" -- mobile, integrated
communications centers that would permit interception of mujaheddin
battlefield communications and rapid, coordinated aerial attacks on rebel
targets, such as the kind that were demoralizing the rebels by 1984.
At the Pentagon, U.S. military officers pored over the intelligence,
considering plans to thwart the Soviet escalation, officials said. The
answers they came up with, said a Western official, were to provide "secure
communications [for the Afghan rebels], kill the gunships and the fighter
cover, better routes for [mujaheddin] infiltration, and get to work on
[Soviet] targets" in Afghanistan, including the Omsk vans, through the use
of satellite reconnaissance and increased, specialized guerrilla training.
"There was a demand from my friends [in the CIA] to capture a vehicle intact
with this sort of communications," recalled Yousaf, referring to the newly
introduced mobile Soviet facilities. Unfortunately, despite much effort,
Yousaf said, "we never succeeded in that."
"Spetsnaz was key," said Vincent Cannistraro, a CIA operations officer who
was posted at the time as director of intelligence programs at the National
Security Council. Not only did communications improve, but the Spetsnaz
forces were willing to fight aggressively and at night. The problem,
Cannistraro said, was that as the Soviets moved to escalate, the U.S. aid
was "just enough to get a very brave people killed" because it encouraged
the mujaheddin to fight but did not provide them with the means to win.
Conservatives in the Reagan administration and especially in Congress saw
the CIA as part of the problem. Humphrey, the former senator and a leading
conservative supporter of the mujaheddin, found the CIA "really, really
reluctant" to increase the quality of support for the Afghan rebels to meet
Soviet escalation. For their part, CIA officers felt the war was not going
as badly as some skeptics thought, and they worried that it might not be
possible to preserve secrecy in the midst of a major escalation. A
sympathetic U.S. official said the agency's key decision-makers "did not
question the wisdom" of the escalation, but were "simply careful."
In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive
166, and national security adviser Robert D. McFarlane signed an extensive
annex, augmenting the original Carter intelligence finding that focused on
"harassment" of Soviet occupying forces, according to several sources.
Although it covered diplomatic and humanitarian objectives as well, the new,
detailed Reagan directive used bold language to authorize stepped-up covert
military aid to the mujaheddin, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war
had a new goal: to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action
and encourage a Soviet withdrawal.
New Covert U.S. Aid The new covert U.S. assistance began with a dramatic
increase in arms supplies -- a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by 1987,
according to Yousaf -- as well as what he called a "ceaseless stream" of CIA
and Pentagon specialists who traveled to the secret headquarters of
Pakistan's ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
There the CIA specialists met with Pakistani intelligence officers to help
plan operations for the Afghan rebels. At any one time during the Afghan
fighting season, as many as 11 ISI teams trained and supplied by the CIA
accompanied the mujaheddin across the border to supervise attacks, according
to Yousaf and Western sources. The teams attacked airports, railroads, fuel
depots, electricity pylons, bridges and roads, the sources said.
CIA and Pentagon specialists offered detailed satellite photographs and ink
maps of Soviet targets around Afghanistan. The CIA station chief in
Islamabad ferried U.S. intercepts of Soviet battlefield communications.
Other CIA specialists and military officers supplied secure communications
gear and trained Pakistani instructors on how to use it. Experts on
psychological warfare brought propaganda and books. Demolitions experts gave
instructions on the explosives needed to destroy key targets such as
bridges, tunnels and fuel depots. They also supplied chemical and electronic
timing devices and remote control switches for delayed bombs and rockets
that could be shot without a mujaheddin rebel present at the firing site.
The new efforts focused on strategic targets such as the Termez Bridge
between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. "We got the information like
current speed of the water, current depth of the water, the width of the
pillars, which would be the best way to demolish," Yousaf said. In
Washington, CIA lawyers debated whether it was legal to blow up pylons on
the Soviet side of the bridge as opposed to the Afghan side, in keeping with
the decision not to support military action across the Soviet border, a
Western official said.
Despite several attempts, Afghan rebels trained in the new program never
brought the Termez Bridge down, though they did damage and destroy other
targets, such as pipelines and depots, in the sensitive border area, Western
and Pakistani sources said.
The most valuable intelligence provided by the Americans was the satellite
reconnaissance, Yousaf said. Soon the wall of Yousaf's office was covered
with detailed maps of Soviet targets in Afghanistan such as airfields,
armories and military buildings. The maps came with CIA assessments of how
best to approach the target, possible routes of withdrawal, and analysis of
how Soviet troops might respond to an attack. "They would say there are the
vehicles, and there is the [river bank], and there is the tank," Yousaf
said.
CIA operations officers helped Pakistani trainers establish schools for the
mujaheddin in secure communications, guerrilla warfare, urban sabotage and
heavy weapons, Yousaf and Western officials said.
The first antiaircraft systems used by the mujaheddin were the Swiss-made
Oerlikon heavy gun and the British-made Blowpipe missile, according to
Yousaf and Western sources. When these proved ineffective, the United States
sent the Stinger. Pakistani officers traveled to the United States for
training on the Stinger in June 1986 and then set up a secret mujaheddin
Stinger training facility in Rawalpindi, complete with an electronic
simulator made in the United States. The simulator allowed mujaheddin
trainees to aim and fire at a large screen without actually shooting off
expensive missiles, Yousaf said. The screen marked the missile's track and
calculated whether the trainee would have hit his airborne target.
Ultimately, the effectiveness of such training and battlefield intelligence
depended on the mujaheddin themselves; their performance and willingness to
employ disciplined tactics varied greatly. Yousaf considered the aid highly
valuable, although persistently marred by supplies of weapons such as the
Blowpipe that failed miserably on the battlefield.
At the least, the escalation on the U.S. side initiated with Reagan's 1985
National Security Directive helped to change the character of the Afghan
war, intensifying the struggle and raising the stakes for both sides. This
change led U.S. officials to confront a difficult question that had legal,
military, foreign policy and even moral implications: In taking the Afghan
covert operation more directly to the Soviet enemy, how far should the
United States be prepared to go?
----------------------
South Asians will watch the year end in a pall of gloom. The region is fast getting sucked into the vortex of terrorism. The Afghan war has crossed the Khyber and is stealthily advancing towards the fertile Indo-Gangetic plains.
Whatever hopes might have lingered that Barack Obama would be a harbinger of "change", have also been dashed by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The Financial Times of London reported on Monday that in an exclusive interview Rice prophesied that the incoming Obama administration might have little option but to follow the current US approach on a range of foreign policy issues. Significantly, her prognosis figured in the course of a foreign policy review that primarily focused on Russia, Iran and Afghanistan.
South Asian security is at a crossroads. On the one hand, the United States made great strides in getting embedded in the region on a long-term footing. South Asia must figure as a rare exception in the George W Bush era's dismal foreign policy legacy. On other hand, the big pawn on the South Asian chessboard, India, is heading for parliamentary elections. Almost certainly, a new government with new thinking will assume office in Delhi by May. US-India ties will also come under scrutiny.
Hype of US-India ties
The Bush administration made the Indian leadership feel "special". The Indian establishment felt comfortable with the US's regional policy, which it fancied as working in favor of its aspirations to emerge as the pre-eminent power in the Indian Ocean region. Delhi had no problems with the creeping "militarization" of the Bush administration's regional policy; more precisely, the Pentagon's "muscling" or ''encroachment" into a striking number of aspects of the US government, including its foreign policy, as Thomas A Schweich, former senior State Department official with hands-on experience on Afghanistan, put it in a devastating article last Sunday in the Washington Post
What mattered to Delhi was that the US regional policy regarded India as a counterweight to China. Equally, Delhi was not perturbed that the cold warriors in Washington were relentlessly pursuing a policy of encirclement of its traditional ally Russia or pressing for a regime change in Iran, India's close friend. In fact, Delhi cut adrift from the regional politics and single-mindedly focused on its strategic partnership with the US, which, it felt, if carefully nurtured, would take care of India's two main challenges on the foreign policy front, namely, its adversarial relationships with China and Pakistan, and elevate India altogether from the morass of its regional milieu.
The US-India nuclear agreement signed in September, the burgeoning military-to-military cooperation, the prospect of "inter-operability" between the two armed forces - all this elevated US-India ties to the level of a veritable alliance.
Delhi took in its stride the status of a key "non-NATO ally" that the US regional policy ascribed to India's arch-rival Pakistan - comfortable in the estimation that the Pakistani connection after all was a passing need of the US in the context of the Afghan war, whereas India was the US's "natural ally".
Meanwhile, Delhi systematically began harmonizing its own regional policies with the US's strategy, especially with regard to rolling back its cooperation with Iran while boosting security ties with Israel, distancing itself from the trilateral format involving Russia, China and India, and reducing to a minimum its involvement with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
India signed up with a "quadrilateral alliance" involving the US, Japan, Australia and India in a bizarre containment strategy toward China, which, of course, annoyed Beijing. Some in the Indian strategic community openly threatened to play a "Tibet card" against China, confident in the strength of the US-India strategic partnership. Hubris crept into the Indian mindset, which was indeed a startling sight, altogether new to the millennia-old largely benign Indian civilizational temper.
The Indian leadership paid heed to US and Israeli opposition to the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project despite its immense significance for India's energy security, besides holding the potential of realizing a long-lost dream of making Pakistan a real "stakeholder" in good-neighborly relations. In a dramatic illustration of how much Delhi's policies shifted, the Indian security czars took the visiting Israeli army chief in September to the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, almost signaling that India was joining hands with the US-Israeli fight against "Islamic terror".
It was a calibrated act of strategic defiance, extraordinary for Delhi's traditionally cautious West Asia policy or power projection in the Arab world. Delhi was showing its thumb's up at the Muslim opinion regarding the US-led war against "Islamic terror". It didn't seem to care how much antagonism was building up against the US's war on Islamic terror or against Israel's state terrorism within Pakistan and in the neighboring regions of the Muslim Middle East.
Israel's influence on the Indian foreign and security establishment peaked. Most important, Delhi overlooked all pressing evidence that the US-led war in Afghanistan was closely linked to the containment strategy towards Russia and Iran (and China) and the eastward advance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into the Asian theater.
In February, when visiting US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates suggested an Indian military deployment in Afghanistan, it was received with careful attention and empathy. Some Indian analysts argued that this was actually a good thing as it would inevitably lead to the US and India joining hands to cleanse Pakistan's body polity of its Islamic fervor and make it a truly civilized, democratic country.
Indian illusions shaken up
Then the terrorists struck on the western Indian city of Mumbai, India's financial capital, on November 26. The horrific violence came as a chilling reminder to Delhi that the more things seemed to change in the power equilibrium in South Asia, they have remained much the same as they were through past decades. India quickly sobered up to the realization that its security is ultimately defined by its neighborhood and there is no running away from the hard realities of life.
The past four-week period has also shaken up Indian illusions regarding Washington's regional policies. It is plain to see that the US never really abandoned its "hyphenated" policy towards India and Pakistan as South Asia's two important rival powers, both of which are useful in their own ways for the pursuit of the US's geostrategies.
Within hours of the Mumbai attacks, Rice rushed to Delhi to commiserate. She promised quick action to bring the terror machine to book. She urged Delhi to exercise restraint while she worked on the Pakistani leadership to cooperate with India. She then flew to Pakistan. Two other top US officials followed up Rice's mission in the following weeks. Delhi waited patiently though evidence began to pile by the hour that the terrorists had set out from Pakistani soil in a well-orchestrated operation of high professional skill that would have been possible only with the connivance and support of the security establishment in Islamabad.
Meanwhile, Pakistan, which is vastly experienced in handling Washington's "pressure", began ably working on Rice and the US military and political establishment. By last week, Islamabad seemed to have concluded that the US pressure had all but run its course. Actually, by gently holding out the threat to the US that the Afghan operations would grievously suffer unless Washington restrained Delhi from precipitating any tensions on the India-Pakistan border, Islamabad seems to have neatly pole-vaulted over Rice to appeal straight to the Pentagon, where there is abiding camaraderie towards the Pakistani generals.
The Pakistani generals' calculation proved correct when the Pentagon made it abundantly clear to Delhi that it wouldn't allow the Pakistani generals to be "distracted" at this juncture. Speaking from Camp Eggers in Afghanistan on December 20, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, laid down the ground rules for India. He said the overarching strategy for success in Afghanistan must be regional in focus and include not just Afghanistan, but also Pakistan and India. Continuing in this seemingly innocuous vein, Mullen explained that the three countries must "figure a way" to decrease tensions between them and the "regional strategy" here is aimed at addressing long-term problems that increase instability in the region.
Mullen then referred specifically to Kashmir as a problem where reduction of tensions "allowed the Pakistani leadership ... to focus on the west [border with Afghanistan]". He expressed apprehension that the terror attack in Mumbai might "force the Pak leadership to lose interest in the west", apart from bringing India and Pakistan closer to a nuclear flashpoint. Curiously, Mullen gave credit to the Pakistani top brass for cooperation in the Afghan war, which "has had a positive impact" on the ground.
US hinting at Kashmir mediation
Mullen probably hoped to rattle Delhi by confirming what many American "experts" have been recently suggesting, namely, the US is working on a "regional strategy" in South Asia, which grouped Afghanistan, Pakistan and India together. He virtually corroborated a recent hint by US Senator John Kerry (who is expected to chair the powerful Senate Committee on Foreign Relations) that Obama would be appointing a special envoy for South Asia in an unprecedented move.
Delhi finds such ideas completely unacceptable. Delhi traditionally rejected any outside "third-party" mediation in India-Pakistan disputes. Having said that, successive governments in Delhi tacitly acquiesced with a US mediatory role in India-Pakistan relations in the recent years since the Kargil conflict in 1999. To be sure, Delhi's pragmatism was based on the belief that it wouldn't be a bad idea if the US used its influence on Pakistan to moderate its policies on the range of issues generating India-Pakistan tensions - Pakistani support for cross-border militancy and terrorism, in particular. In other words, Delhi preferred to selectively avail of the US mediatory role in areas where it stood to gain.
But an institutionalized US mediatory mission in South Asia hyphenating Afghanistan, Pakistan and India is an altogether different proposition. It not only linked India and Pakistan but it also held out the danger of constant US meddling in Indian policies. The intriguing thing is why the US has projected its "regional strategy" doctrine at this juncture, knowing fully well that Delhi will find it disagreeable.
One possible explanation is that the US is attempting pressure tactics by appointing a special envoy to discuss Kashmir. Washington has been strongly pitching for a fair share of the multi-billion dollar arms deals that are in the Indian pipeline. A single deal for the procurement of 126 aircraft and related supplies including co-production alone can be worth anywhere up to US$16 billion. The Bush administration hoped to clinch the deal before year-end.
Gates visited Delhi in February with the arms merchants and unabashedly canvassed for awarding the contracts through direct negotiations rather than international tender. But the Indians are sticking to their cumbersome tender procedures which require the US companies to compete with Russia and France and other arms manufacturers.
Not only that, Delhi recently overlooked the Pentagon's sales pitch and awarded a lucrative contract for helicopters to Russia worth $1.3 billion. A leading pro-American newspaper promptly wrote an editorial condemning the Indian government's decision.
Indeed, Mullen's statement rings a warning bell for Delhi. But then, a difficult choice lies ahead for Obama. Will he rake up the Kashmir issue as a pressure tactic? It is certain that Delhi will reject any US attempt to mediate on Kashmir. An extraordinarily high voter turnout in the current election to the provincial legislature in Srinagar vindicates Delhi's stand that there is no need or scope for any outside intervention in the Kashmir issue.
Defying all doomsday predictions and despite the prevailing impression of widespread political alienation among Kashmiris, the voters in the state have affirmed an extraordinary faith in India's democratic process. The voter turnout touched as high as 60% in the election, which has been held in a atmosphere free of violence and coercion. Therefore, Delhi will see no reason to give in to any third party mediation.
Clearly, there are several templates to the terror attacks on Mumbai. No matter who planned and executed the Mumbai attacks from Pakistani soil and with what complicated motives, the recent events have immensely helped the generals in Rawalpindi at this juncture to correct the imbalances they perceived in the US's South Asian policies during the past three to four years, which they regarded to be weighed in India's favor, despite Pakistan being the key US ally in the "war on terror" and its armed forces having taken a heavy beating with hundreds of casualties.
Also, Islamabad has exposed the fallacy in Indian thinking that it
Significantly, amid all the fracas over the Mumbai attacks and despite repeated Indian calls to isolate Pakistan in the world community as the "epicenter" of terrorism, Washington is quietly putting together a new multi-billion dollar aid package for Pakistan, and CENTCOM is drawing up a new five-year plan committing $300 million assistance annually to the Pakistani military.
Kerry, while on a recent visit to Islamabad, made the commitment to speed up the "mid-life upgradation" of Pakistan's F-16 aircraft capable for delivering nuclear weapons. He said the US considered a "vibrant, strong, economically viable" Pakistan to be "vital for peace and stability in South Asia".
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Islamabad has weathered the US "pressure" over the Mumbai attacks. In Islamabad's estimation, the focus in Washington is turning to the gala inaugural ceremony of Obama on January 20, followed by several weeks during which no major US foreign policy initiatives need to be expected as the new administration settles in. Thus, Islamabad has shrewdly judged that sooner, rather than later, the international community will begin counseling Delhi to engage Pakistan in a spirit of dialogue.
India running out of options
With Pakistan's recalcitrance and Mullen's veiled threat of reopening the Kashmir file, a sense of frustration is gripping Delhi. Pakistan has ignored India's tough posturing. The faltering Indian security agencies, which have been in a state of appalling decline in recent years, seem to have failed to put together any hard evidence of a Pakistani involvement in the Mumbai attacks.
The Pakistani generals count on Washington to rein in India. And Delhi is fast running out of options. In the spirit of its "strategic partnership" with the US, if Delhi counted on Washington to read the riot act to Islamabad, it is dismayed to see that Washington is more interested in restraining India rather than do any arm-twisting on Pakistan. Rice increasingly looks like an angel beating her wings in vain, while the Pakistani generals have ensured that the imperatives of the Afghan war leave the Pentagon no option but to be supportive.
At the same time, India is heading for a crucial, tightly fought parliamentary election within a few months and the government cannot afford to appear to be weak and rudderless. The majority opinion in the country somehow has convinced itself that the Pakistani security establishment perpetrated the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. The government faces potentially damaging criticism in the competitive domestic politics that its US-centric foreign policy has run into a cul-de-sac. The powerful pro-US lobby in Delhi's strategic community and the corporate media already looks confused. The fizz in the US-India strategic partnership is fast vanishing. The much-touted US-India nuclear deal, hailed as a historic achievement of the government, already looks jaded and something of an embarrassment.
Obama's war priorities
Thus, the challenge facing Obama is having to reconcile the almost irreconcilable contradictions in the US's South Asia policy. Surely, his number one priority will be to stave off defeat in the war in Afghanistan. Obama's Afghan strategy is to double the level of US forces in Afghanistan from 32,000 troops at present and to try to arrest and incrementally reverse the Taliban's steady gains in the recent period. Clearly, the US intends to engage the Taliban politically and is no longer averse to accommodating the Taliban in the power structure at some point in the next year or two, but this has to be from a position of strength. No doubt, 2009 is a decisive year of the war.
At the same time, Afghanistan is heading for presidential elections in 2009. Hamid Karzai has stated his intention to seek another five-year mandate. In 2004, the US was in a commanding position and could dictate the course of Afghan politics. But that is not quite the situation today. Even Karzai is showing the gumption to openly mock at the US's Afghan strategy. Asked by the Chicago Tribune last week about Obama's description of Karzai as weak and spending too much time in a bunker, the Afghan president snapped back, "Bunker? We are in a trench, and our allies are with us in the trench. We were on a high hill with a glorious success in 2002 ... We must now look back and find out as to why we are in a trench, or if you'd like to describe it, as a bunker."
Four years ago, it was unthinkable that Karzai would have used such biting sarcasm against the US ambassador in Kabul, Zalmay Khalilzad, let alone Bush. Karzai asked, "Why are we in a bunker?" He then went on to tear the US war strategy to pieces for its mindless and excessive use of force, and concluded, "And if this behavior continues, we will be in a deeper trench than we are in today. And the war against terrorism will end in a disgraceful defeat."
Clearly, in these troubled times ahead, Obama cannot afford to get tough with the Pakistani generals. He will need all his charm to coax them to cooperate for the successful conduct of the war, and they can be a difficult lot indeed as the recent destruction of the NATO's supply convoys amply testify. Besides, Pakistan holds the trump card in any political reconciliation involving the Taliban. Arguably, Pakistan has a crucial say in the election of the next Afghan president as well. After all, the onerous duty falls on Islamabad to orchestrate the participation of over 4 million Afghan refugees who are living in Pakistan in the election process, and these ethnic Pashtuns could be a decisive vote bank in determining who the next Afghan president will be.
Of course, much will also depend on Obama's adherence to the "Great Central Asia strategy", which aims at rolling back Russia, Iran and China's regional influence. If he is genuinely keen to work out a durable Afghan settlement, he will need to take help and cooperation from Russia, Iran and India in putting together a credible inter-Afghan reconciliation. In fact, such an approach - broad-basing the search for an Afghan settlement - will help reduce Obama's dependence on Pakistan. Delhi will welcome such an approach by the Obama administration. But would the cold warriors in Washington allow Obama to opt for a change of course? Unlikely. Indeed, against the backdrop of the Afghan war, there has been a creeping takeover of the US foreign and security policy in South Asia by the generals in the Pentagon who are probably today quite in a position to devour Obama's call for change.
Reality check for India
All this adds up to a harsh reality for Delhi: it might as well abandon any hopes that Obama will turn the screws on the Pakistani generals. On the contrary, the Pakistani generals may have concluded that it is their turn to expect that the US puts pressure on Delhi to behave with restraint. (Of course, there is no guarantee that such terrorist attacks as on Mumbai do not repeat.) The Pakistani generals may not think it sufficient enough if the US restores an even-handed approach to relations with the two South Asian rivals. Conceivably, they may insist on US mediation in India-Pakistan disputes, especially on the Kashmir issue. They will insist that unless Pakistan is free of its threat perceptions on its eastern border, the armed forces will remain far too "distracted" to concentrate on the war in Afghanistan.
That is why, the denouement of the current crisis over the Mumbai terrorist attacks will be of critical importance for India. Delhi is beginning to feel disenchanted by the US role in the crisis. Using unusually tough language, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee hinted that India's patience with Pakistan was wearing thin. Speaking in Delhi on Tuesday, Mukherjee made plain his displeasure with the US mediation in the current crisis. He said, "While we continue to persuade the international community and Pakistan, we are also clear that ultimately it is we who have to deal with this problem. We will take all measures necessary as we deem fit to deal with the situation."
Mukherjee added, "We are not saying this just because we are affected but because we believe that it will be good for the entire civilized world and also for the Pakistani people and society. This terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan is the greatest danger to the peace and security of the entire civilized world."
But all indications are that Pakistan is not impressed by the Indian rhetoric. It seems to think Indian politicians are grandstanding in an election year. But, just in case Delhi may spring a surprise, Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Kiani has warned that the armed forces would give an equal response "within few minutes" if India carried out any surgical military strikes. "The armed forces are fully prepared to meet any eventuality, and the men are ready to sacrifice for their country," he reportedly said.
As Delhi and Islamabad dig in, Obama will have a hard time balancing the US's regional policy. However, one positive outcome will be that the US-India relationship will emerge out of this phase as a more mature process, having shed the false expectations and the rhetorical hype of recent years. A new government will also be assuming office in Delhi by next May and it is bound to take a fresh look at the "strategic partnership" with the US.
It is highly unlikely that any new leadership in Delhi will emulate current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's ardor for India's strategic partnership with the US. India will also have drawn its lessons from the current crisis. The return to an independent foreign policy may become necessary - almost unavoidable. The year 2009 may well prove to be a formative year of readjustment in India's post-Cold War foreign policy.
