On the day that I was born the Vietnam war was in its 6th year. I would be four years old in April of 1975 when Saigon fell, and though it might be hard for some to believe, can actually vaguely remember footage of Ed Bradley being interviewed about being one of the last journalists to leave the city.

I grew up in an era consumed by fear, one in which two global superpowers struggled for what was sold to most as an ideological war for control of the world itself. In school, my education was predominantly one-sided. The United States stood for all that was just, the Soviets everything that wasn’t. The fact that hundreds of millions of people were silently caught in the middle was not something that was ever pronounced or even confronted, nor the fear mongering by a handful of spin doctors that cast the Cold War in massively simplistic terms. From Hollywood to the classroom, the fear that gripped my generation was promoted around the clock. A fear that left us holding our collective breath waiting for the unthinkable to occur.

In 1989, the year that I graduated from high school, the Berlin Wall fell, and with it came the diminishment of the pit in our collective stomachs. It was a time of disbelief, of joy, and, most importantly, of the revelation of human commonality. After all those years of having been indoctrinated to despise a faceless enemy we were finally able to see their faces – and they were not those of monsters or ideological fanatics. They were people, just like us.

Oppression is a difficult thing to indentify in many cases. In those instances where oppressive governments hold power it is obviously easier to see. But in free societies, where fear and doubt are used as tools of indoctrination, oppression is much more difficult to spot, let alone admit the existence of. The latter was a mechanism perfected during the Cold War by the West and it is one that has not diminished since.

Most human beings require a constant state of fear on some level. The simplest demonstration of this is found in the world’s foremost religions, the majority of which promote the inescapable reality that unless certain guiding principles are adhered to an eternity in Hell is assured. Ironically, it is the inclusion of such a possibility that has made them so popular – the reverse being that if you do fear the possibility of Hell that you will openly embrace their doctrines in hopes of avoiding that fate. Of course, this is a controlling mechanism that has been used for thousands of years, and one that has, in no small way, influenced others to exploit its application simply using different variables.

There was a time when the Soviet Union was referred to as ‘The Evil Empire’ by many in the West. Here in Canada we viewed the 1972 hockey series between the Soviets and Team Canada as more of a clash of ideologies, not a sporting event. But that is precisely what it was – a sporting event, not some biblical clash of good versus evil. Being that we won in such a dramatic fashion, it has become sporting legend, but even more than that – ideological mythology.

Fear, confusion, right, wrong, indoctrination – all five are part of the same fist of control. Open that fist and you are faced with something altogether different, the extension of which is one of the most underestimated powers on this planet.

I cannot begin to imagine what growing up in this current atmosphere must be like. Obviously the threat of terrorism has replaced my generation’s fear of a global nuclear confrontation, though there are those working diligently at present to make that an additional factor. There is an ongoing, open ended, global war against an enemy that has been given an all-encompassing name despite the fact that it is not the finely tuned global network of evil that it’s routinely painted as. It is, like most things, not that simple. But the tenets of fear require it to be that simple, so that is what we are made to believe.

Under the guise of combating an evil that is largely represented by the image of a single man, two wars are currently being waged. Both have created precedents for a succession of questionable events throughout the world, and while many of them are condemned, the precedent itself is defended.

The scope of the current global War On Terror is not as dangerous as its ambiguity. During the Cold War there was a defined enemy, every elementary school kid could look at a map of the world and point to the USSR, making it a ‘threat’ easily located. The same cannot be said of al-Qaeda, as any terrorist attack that occurs can now be blamed on what we have been led to believe is their command structure when, in truth, such attacks could be carried out by those that simply share similar principles or for reasons altogether different. The true danger lies in the fact that, no matter the reasons for a terrorist attack, they can now all be laid at the doorstep of a single entity because we have been indoctrinated to believe that possible.

The Cold War lasted for over 40 years. How long will the War on Terror last given the ambiguity of the enemy perceived? Two generations? Three? And when the day finally comes when we are gifted the sight to see those that have been uniformly painted the ‘enemy’ as people, what new crusade will be sparked to take its place?

Because the fist will remain. Unless…

Since the advent of the nuclear age, only two nuclear weapons have ever been employed, both in August of 1945 on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

While many will argue that their use was required to avoid directly invading the Japanese islands, an effort that the government and military at the time claimed would cost the lives of upwards of a million US soldiers, the reality was that most of Japan has been decimated by conventional fire bombing, that the government of Japan had been attempting to negotiate a surrender all that summer, and that the people of Japan, despite news reels shown in US movie houses, were not on the streets in force training to repel US forces. They were, in truth, in the grips of near total economic and civic collapse.

The bombs were, in all honesty, dropped for post-war geopolitical reasons. The Soviets, who had coveted most of Eastern Europe in their advance towards Berlin, were viewed as a threat to Western post-war interests. Thus, individuals such as Dean Acheson urged the use of the bombs to demonstrate US military might, a position that was completely abhorrent to the likes of then General Dwight Eisenhower and the majority of the scientists that had worked on the Manhattan Project. They were dropped nonetheless, ushering in a new age of permanent global nuclear proliferation.

From the second that Little Boy detonated above Hiroshima unleashing the equivalent of 16 kilotons of TNT, decimating everything in a 1.6 kilometer radius, evaporating every living thing within the bomb’s primary blast radius, and killing some 140,000 people (during, and by way of radioactive fallout), deterrence immediately became the primary purpose for possessing a nuclear capability. That reality has not changed in the 63 years since.

The Manhattan Project placed the United States at the forefront of the nuclear arms race, but their position as the planet’s lone nuclear power would end when the Soviet Union successfully tested First Lightning, referred to as Joe 1 by US intelligence, on August 29th, 1949. The rest, as they say, is history.

Reason And Emotion

That’s not to say that the world hasn’t flirted with the possibility since. Fortunately, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example, cooler heads prevailed. Then again, it should be noted why they prevailed.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, both Washington and Moscow had their fair share of Hawks pressing for a confrontation. Thankfully, a handful of individuals on both sides possessed the emotional fortitude to examine the realities of what would become of the world in the aftermath of posturing that had but one outcome. The United States would ultimately view it as a victory, but the reality is that it was nothing more than a victory over political arrogance. Of course, little mention is ever given the role played by then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, a veteran World War Two Commander who witnessed first hand the horrors of Stalingrad. Khrushchev was no stranger to the realities of war, and in his first transmission to President Kennedy during the crisis made that point very clear – that both he and Kennedy knew full well the ramifications, betraying an emotional state that was extremely uncommon for as Soviet leader.

Emotionality is something that many view as extremely dangerous when it comes to the nuclear equation, but it is perhaps the one thing that perseveres when it comes to facing the realities of mutually assured destruction. Reasonable men can find excuse enough to destroy the world on any given day. It is not until emotionality enters into the equation that the reality of nuclear war becomes abundantly apparent.

The Inescapable Outcome

There is no winning a nuclear contest – that is, not a contest between two or more nations that possess nuclear weapons. The reality is that the modern destructive power of a single nuclear weapon is such that the devastation wrought is not something that can be justified with regards to proportional or superior responses. The loss of hundreds of thousands of lives simply cannot be viewed as acceptable compared to the loss of a million or more lives in response. No citizen of any nation on earth would think that acceptable given the lasting affects of even a single nuclear weapon on a specific city or location.

In the case of Iran, were the Iranians to possess a weapon and use it, or even three, against Israel, they would be facing a nation with approximately one hundred times their nuclear capability. In short, while the Iranians would be able to, for example, strike Tel Aviv, killing multitudes, the Israelis could eradicate every major city in Iran, not to mention a list of other targets.

There is also the political question of approximation to consider. Were Iran to target Israel, the conventional response against groups in Palestine and Gaza would most likely be as immediate as possible, decisive, and unrelenting. Under the circumstances, collateral damage, including the death of civilians in large numbers, would most likely occur. Given the state of mind that the IDF would be in, were such a thing to occur, I do not think that that is at all a stretch.

All of that, of course, is without involving the United States and what their nuclear response would be were Iran to strike Israel. Compared to Israel, the United States possesses vastly more advanced delivery capabilities, the most lethal being the use of Ohio Class Submarines that have the ability to strike multiple targets within minutes if their proximity to those targets is within a certain radius. As it stands now, given that two US battle groups are in the Gulf, there are certainly nuclear boats with them, making their proximity to Iranian targets minimal. A single such boat carries a compliment that could completely wipe out the population of Tehran.

Given the magnitude of both Israeli and American capabilities, even the most crazed lunatic in Iran would be faced with the reality that their nation would be utterly devastated in response to any attack made against Israel. Their family, the families of their friends and counterparts, all would be killed. The government of Iran, along with its entire military, civic, and religious infrastructures would cease to exist. The majority of Persia, as we know it, would basically be gone.

It’s one thing to believe that a group can exist that believes self-sacrifice is required for some greater, albeit fanatical, purpose. It’s entirely another to believe that the government of a nation would sacrifice the majority of its population for the sake of ideological fanaticism and nothing more, with no endgame or stratagem involved. To believe the Iranian government stupid enough to employ nuclear weapons as a first strike option requires the inclusion of the belief that they have no goal other than to ensure their own destruction, that they not only have no regard for the lives of the Iranian people, but their own as well. Even were they to gift a weapon to a terrorist group, the ramifications would be the same, because they would be held responsible. In fact, were Israel attacked with a nuclear weapon, no matter where that attack originated from, Iran would still be the victim of nuclear reprisals, and it is rather unintelligent, in my opinion anyway, to think that the government of Iran isn’t aware of that fact.

In essence, the current position of the United States, Israel, and others, is that the Iranians are seeking to obtain an offensive nuclear capability. Such a position all but promotes the fundamental tenets of the Bush Doctrine, the cornerstone of which is the use of preemptive, unilateral force to deal with those deemed a threat to US national security, its interests, or allies. Mind you, the US is not alone when it comes to such policies. The Israelis also partake in such practices when it suits their purposes, such as violating Lebanese airspace and conducting over-flights over Beirut, which they recently did.

I have said it before, and will exhaustively say it again now – what constitutes a ‘safe’ nuclear power? One that discloses its nuclear practices? The Iranians have been repeatedly accused of hiding their program by nations that have never allowed the IAEA to inspect theirs. Israel, as I have pointed out in the past countless times, has an estimated 300 nuclear weapons, though denies to this day that it even has a weapons program at all and refuses to allow its facilities to be inspected by the United Nations.

So what exactly makes Israel a ‘safe’ nuclear power? They continue to diversify their delivery systems, such as through the acquisition of submarines, and have even been caught stealing nuclear secrets from the United States – something that has, to this very day, never really been addressed by the highest levels of the US government. And yet the world is supposed to believe that the Iranian government is bent on not only acquiring a nuclear capability, but also actually being ignorant enough to employ it knowing full well that the consequences of such actions would result in their destruction?

Why? Because the current Iranian regime refuses to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist? I’ll not disagree that that’s a ridiculous position, but it is by no means provides justification for initiating a nuclear exchange that would be tantamount to suicide.

Given the realities of modern nuclear age, are we to believe that the Iranian government, or even a radical faction within its military, is so consumed by madness that it would use nuclear weapons against those that possess the ability to retaliate in an overwhelming fashion? And if we are, then how are we to view the last 63 years since their first employment and the overwhelming proliferation that followed? As nothing more than a game played by sane men using the most insane weapon ever conceived to play an elaborate game of global chess? And if we are, then what exactly does that make us?

Pawns or Kings?

When, in 2001, President Bush announced the adoption of what is now known of The Bush Doctine as official US foreign policy, those who were aware of the policies promoted by a cabal of US neoconservatives throughout the 1990’s knew that it was, in truth, simply The Wolfowitz Doctine, the roots of which lay in Paul Wolfowitz’s 1992 draft of The Defense Planning Guidance commissioned by Dick Cheney, then Secretary Of Defense.

Excerpts of the draft were leaked to The New York Times in March of 1992, causing a controversy regarding US post Cold War foreign policy aims. In short, the draft outlined the unique position that the United States found itself in, that being the only global super power left after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that it should exploit that advantage to ensure that no rival could threaten that position. Thus, the inclusion of the use of preemptive, unilateralist military action became two of the fundamental platforms of the doctrine.

The draft states at one point…

“The third goal is to preclude any hostile power from dominating a region critical to our interests, and also thereby to strengthen the barriers against the re-emergence of a global threat to the interests of the U.S. and our allies.”

Following 9/11, the Bush administration adopted The Wolfowitz Doctine as official US foreign policy. At the time, and given the events preceding its adoption, many would overlook the lasting ramifications that it would have on a global scale. The adoption of the doctrine, at its core, opened the door for the preemptive invasion of Iraq, which was a subject tabled in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 despite solid evidence at the time of Iraqi complicity. Of course, the world would eventually learn that the government of Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11, but with regards to the tenets of the doctrine, culpability was not something that was actually required for purposes of justification. Given the doctrine’s unbounded philosophy, all that was required was the appearance of a regional concern. Even US historical culpability with regards to support for the regime of Saddam Hussein could be fearlessly disregarded. Given the traumatic domestic effects caused by the events of 9/11, the doctrine’s moral amnesia was only amplified.

What is now known as The Bush Doctrine has been official US foreign policy for a little over seven years. Beyond the hot wars that it has produced, it’s implementation has also had far reaching implications regarding the positions of others given its marriage of the ubiquitous threat of global terrorism and the promotion of preemptive action to deal with not only it, but a myriad of other security concerns that involve others that have used the implementation of the doctrine to adopt similar foreign policy positions.

In Wolfowitz’s originally draft, he outlined the continued threat posed by Russia, claiming that they represented the only power on earth that possessed the capability of destroying the United States. Despite this, the current administration has disregarded Russia’s traditional regional concerns and used its influence - politically, covertly, and militarily – to enact the tenets of the doctrine on Russia’s doorstep. It should then therefore come as no surprise when individuals, such as Russian General Yuri Baluyevsk, make statements such as…

“We have no plans to attack anyone, but we consider it necessary for all our partners in the world community to clearly understand … that to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia and its allies, military forces will be used, including preventively, including with the use of nuclear weapons.”

Sound somewhat familiar in tone? It should, because it’s precisely the same sort of position outlined in The Defense Planning Guidance and, by way of it, The Bush Doctrine. In truth, without the existence of the afore mentioned US foreign policy platforms, the atmosphere in which such statements could be made would not exist, or, at the very least, be dramatically reduced.

Of course, such statements aren’t taken for what they are, which is rhetoric that has become significantly amplified because of the tenets of current US foreign policy and its enactments - Iraq, for example. Wolfowitz was indeed correct when he commented that Russia remains a significant force in Eurasia, but what he failed to take into account was how, if those polices initially outlined in The Defense Planning Guidance were ever instituted, how the Russians would not merely react, but capitalize on the precedents set by them. Thus, because of the inherent arrogance of Wolfowitz’s position, and the transference of the core elements of his initial draft into current US foreign policy, a Pandora’s box has been opened with regards to how others can use the precedents set by The Bush Doctrine to their own advantage.

In between, of course, is the rest of the world, forced to sit on the sidelines and watch while the folly of arrogance dismantles global security.

Bobby Fischer played chess. Despite the controversy that overshadowed this his later life, that’s what Bobby Fischer did; perhaps better than anyone ever has.

In 1972, he, and the game, were turned into objects of Cold War confrontation when he played Russian Boris Spassky, defeating him to become the only World Chess Champion the United States has ever produced. Unfortunately, the contest was publicized not as a chess match, but rather a confrontation between East and West, diluting the point of the match and leaving Fischer disenfranchised.

Bobby Fisher’s accolades include becoming the youngest US junior chess champion, a record that still stands, and a Grand Master at the age of 12. At the age of 14 he became the youngest US national chess champion, a record that also has yet to be matched.

In my opinion, there is no question that Fischer’s genius was touched with madness. Following his reappearance after simply vanishing in the mid 70’s, he began making wildly controversial anti-Semitic remarks despite the fact that he came from a Jewish background, as well as a laundry list of other actions and statements that displayed the probability of mental distress.

I am not going to say that these things should be overlooked when remembering Fischer, and am well aware that to many they will overshadow his accomplishments with regards to the game. I suppose it ultimately depends on how you view chess – as simply a game or as something that, at its highest levels, requires a brilliance that is singularly unique.

Bobby Fischer died today at the age of 64 from an undisclosed illness in Iceland, which granted him citizenship in 2005 to avoid deportation back to the United States for breaking international sanctions by playing Spassky in Yugoslavia in 1992.

Fischer won the rematch, though many of the world’s chess elite, including then World Champion Garry Kasparov, claimed that he was past his prime after observing it.

One of the great ironies of the late 20th and early 21st centuries is the self-imposed sense of heightened morality that various nations have provided themselves to justify the possession of nuclear weapons.

I use the term ironic because we are, after all, talking about the possession of the worlds most destructive force, one that, if used, could change the face of the planet itself. Thus, who, that would claim any sort of moral superiority, would want anything to do with that sort of destructive power to begin with?

The reality of nuclear weapons is that they exist as deterrents, not offensive weapons (having only been used twice since their inception as such), and have thus been attainted or mass produced by a variety of nations for that purpose – primarily during the Cold War era. But that does not explain why, for example, Israel possesses nuclear weapons, nor why they refuse, to this day, to admit that they do.

This leads us back to the sense of entitlement that some possess with regards to the possession of nuclear weapons and the right they feel they have to then condemn others for attempting to attain the same sort of security that such an overwhelming deterrent provides.

Again, Israel provides the prefect example.

As stated prior to this, Israel continues to deny that they even have a nuclear arsenal, even though they jailed Mordechai Vanunu for leaking the truth about their ‘non-existent’ nuclear program to the international press. Vanunu, once a technician at the Negev Nuclear Research Center, was tried, in secret, for treason in 1988 and spent 18 years in prison (11 of those in solitary confinement) for his exposure of Israel’s program. After his release, Vanunu again spoke openly about Israel’s program, and was subsequently jailed for a further six months in 2006. His access to the press is now strictly monitored, if not forbidden in most cases, and he is also unable to leave the country.

Like India, North Korea, and Pakistan, Israel is not recognized as a nuclear weapons state under the auspices of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, even though the head of the IAEA, Mohamed El Baradei, considers Israel to be a state possessing nuclear weapons. In a slip up during an interview in December of 2006, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, while referring to Iran’s desire to obtain a nuclear weapon and the now massively misinterpreted assertion that Iranian President Ahmadinejad claimed that Israel should be wiped off the face of the map…

“Can you see that is the same level when you are aspiring to have a nuclear weapon as America, France, Israel and Russia?” he asked.

Officials at the Prime Minister’s Office later attempted to minimize the damage and rejected the claim that Olmert violated the ambiguousness policy by admitting that Israel possesses nuclear weapons.

They clarified that OImert only referred to the fundamental issue and said that by no means whatsoever did he intend to talk about the existence of absence of nuclear weapons.” - Y Net News, 12.12.06

As some of you might recall, on the 6th of this month, the Syrian government claimed that Israeli military aircraft violated their airspace and dropped munitions within their boarders. The Israeli government’s response was to claim that it does not comment on military operations, and many throughout the world employed the term ‘allegedly’ in articles about the event. Interestingly, in today’s Haaretz, new information has come to light (relying an article in yesterday’s Washington Post) that attempts to clarify what occurred on the 6th…

“An American Mideast expert said the alleged Israel Air Force strike in northern Syria last week was directly connected to a shipment Syria received from North Korea three days earlier, the Washington Post reported Saturday.

The expert spoke on condition of anonymity in order to protect his sources, who the report said are comprised of “Israeli participants” in the strike. He said the shipment was labeled as cement, but Israel believed it carried nuclear equipment.

The U.S. daily said the expert believed the IAF strike targeted a facility the Syrians claim serves as an “agricultural research center,” but Israel believes is used to extract uranium from phosphates.

The Washington Post also reported that the secrecy of the mission, on which Israel refuses to release details, was extended to those who carried it out. He said that the pilots providing cover for the aircraft that attacked the facility were not given specifics of the mission, and the pilots who actually carried out the strike were only briefed after they were in the air.

While neither side has explained what exactly happened in the early hours of September 6, a number of Israeli and American officials have speculated that the alleged attack was designed to thwart the possible development of Syrian nuclear capabilities.”

The Post also reported yesterday…

“Syria has signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty but has not agreed to an additional protocol that would allow for enhanced inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. GlobalSecurity.org, which offers information on weapons of mass destruction, said that “although Syria has long been cited as posing a nuclear proliferation risk, the country seems to have been too strapped for cash to get far.”

This is interesting, and also reverts back to my referencing irony at the beginning of this entry. While Syria has signed the NPT, Israel has not. The reason being, of course, that they refuse to admit that they have a program at all, even though it’s believed that their missiles have intercontinental capabilities – which seems very strange being that those they deem threats are entirely regional. Second, while Israel’s actions are basically defended, it is conveniently pointed out that Syria has not agreed to the additional protocol that allows for enhanced inspections by the IAEA. This, too, is ironic, being that Israel’s program has never been scrutinized by the United Nations, nor have they ever agreed to allow it to be.

This is where an entirely warped sense of moral entitlement comes into play with regards to nuclear weapons. While the world’s foremost powers, and their allies, can justify the possession of nuclear arsenals, they also possess the right to condemn those that they feel would present a threat to their sense of global and regional security were they to obtain nuclear deterrents. Since 9/11, this has largely been done by claiming that nations, such as Iran and Syria, both of whom have been singled out as state sponsors of terrorism, could gift terrorist organizations a weapon, or that such technology could be absconded with. Further, that they would dare to fly in the face of the overwhelming realities of mutually assured destruction were they to use a nuclear weapon out right.

That said, what do such concerns indicate? That Iran and Syria are immoral? That they do not possess the graces that we claim paramount within our own selves? That they would willingly bring down upon themselves the roofs of their own houses and sacrifice the lives of tens of millions of their own people? That they would be ignorant enough to supply a nuclear weapon to those that might use it without regard, knowing full well that the response to such usage would ultimately be visited upon them ten fold?

When one looks at the massive imbalance of nuclear power in the world, it is easy to see why the acquisition of nuclear deterrents by various nations might be of concern. Because it would represent a challenge to the already overwhelming military superiority of those that claim to hold the moral high ground. This, of course, is why it’s entirely ironic – because morality and decency have nothing to do with assurances of military dominance.

It is here that the question has to be asked. Were the regime of Saddam Hussein to have possessed a nuclear deterrent, would the United States have invaded the country in 2003? Given the fact that it didn’t, and the Iraqi regime was removed from power, what government in the region who has since been threatened by the United States would not want to obtain a deterrent against a possible invasion?

It should be lost on no one that many of the foreign militants in Iraq that are members of Salafi Jihadi groups are Saudi nationals. And yet no threatening rhetoric has been directed at Saudi Arabia. This week, General Petraeus claimed that al-Qaeda in Iraq remains a significant threat, yet there was no mention of how many of those within its ranks are from foreign locales, such as Saudi Arabia. It should also not be overlooked that the Saudis are included in the recent $20 billion dollar US military aid package to a number of predominantly Sunni states over the next decade. Of course, to counter balance that, Israel was gifted $30 billion dollars in military aid over the next decade, an increase of 25%, most of which has to be used to purchase arms from US manufacturers. Were Iran or Syria customers, one wonders how different the position of the United States, and their allies in the region, might be.

Quite obviously, our morality could be set aside for the sake of placating others with gifts of military assistance so long as they adhered to our goals.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Paul Wolfowitz wrote in the Defense Planning Guidance, which would be buried after the New York Times published excerpts from it, though it would later re-emerge post 9/11 and be instituted as official US foreign policy…

“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia.

“There are three additional aspects to this objective: First the U.S must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests. Second, in the non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order. Finally, we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.”

In truth, when it comes to nuclear weapons, morality has no place. As I type this, under the surface of the waters of Persian Gulf, it is probable that one of fourteen Ohio-class SSBNs is present. Within the confines of such a submarine sleeps a complement of 24 Trident II missiles, a total of 288 missiles equipped with 1152 nuclear warheads. In short, it alone has the nuclear capability to decimate a significant portion of the Iranian population.

Immorality, it seems, is a universal proposition.

John Pilger’s entry posted today on the The Guardian’s Comment Is Free blog entitled “The old Iran-Contra death squad gang is desperate to discredit Chavez” is an interesting read. In it, Pilger confronts some of Latin America’s harsh realities and, having also made a documentary entitled The War On Democracy, which “shows that the principles of democracy can be found more readily among the poorest people of Latin America than anywhere near the corridors of the White House. It features an exclusive interview with Hugo Chávez and Pilger also speaks to former US government officials who claim the CIA waged covert wars in Latin America”, his views on the subject carry some weight.

In the entry Pilger writes…

“In making my film The War on Democracy, I sought the help of Chileans like Roberto and his family, and Sara de Witt, who courageously returned with me to the torture chambers at Villa Grimaldi, which she somehow survived. Together with other Latin Americans who knew the tyrannies, they bear witness to the pattern and meaning of the propaganda and lies now aimed at undermining another epic bid to renew both democracy and freedom on the continent.

The disinformation that helped destroy Allende and give rise to Pinochet’s horrors worked the same in Nicaragua, where the Sandinistas had the temerity to implement modest, popular reforms. In both countries, the CIA funded the leading opposition media, although they need not have bothered. In Nicaragua, the fake martyrdom of La Prensa became a cause for North America’s leading liberal journalists, who seriously debated whether a poverty-stricken country of 3 million peasants posed a “threat” to the United States. Ronald Reagan agreed and declared a state of emergency to combat the monster at the gates. In Britain, whose Thatcher government “absolutely endorsed” US policy, the standard censorship by omission applied. In examining 500 articles that dealt with Nicaragua in the early 1980s, the historian Mark Curtis found an almost universal suppression of the achievements of the Sandinista government - “remarkable by any standards” - in favour of the falsehood of “the threat of a communist takeover”.

The similarities in the campaign against the phenomenal rise of popular democratic movements today are striking. Aimed principally at Venezuela, especially Chávez, the virulence of the attacks suggests that something exciting is taking place; and it is. Thousands of poor Venezuelans are seeing a doctor for the first time in their lives, having their children immunised and drinking clean water. New universities have opened their doors to the poor, breaking the privilege of competitive institutions effectively controlled by a “middle class” in a country where there is no middle. In barrio La Línea, Beatrice Balazo told me her children were the first generation of the poor to attend a full day’s school. “I have seen their confidence blossom like flowers,” she said. One night in barrio La Vega, in a bare room beneath a single lightbulb, I watched Mavis Mendez, aged 94, learn to write her own name for the first time.

More than 25,000 communal councils have been set up in parallel to the old, corrupt local bureaucracies. Many are spectacles of raw grassroots democracy. Spokespeople are elected, yet all decisions, ideas and spending have to be approved by a community assembly. In towns long controlled by oligarchs and their servile media, this explosion of popular power has begun to change lives in the way Beatrice described.

It is this new confidence of Venezuela’s “invisible people” that has so inflamed those who live in suburbs called country club. Behind their walls and dogs, they remind me of white South Africans. Venezuela’s wild west media is mostly theirs; 80% of broadcasting and almost all the 118 newspaper companies are privately owned. Until recently one television shock jock liked to call Chávez, who is mixed race, a “monkey”. Front pages depict the president as Hitler, or as Stalin (the connection being that both like babies). Among broadcasters crying censorship loudest are those bankrolled by the National Endowment for Democracy, the CIA in spirit if not name. “We had a deadly weapon, the media,” said an admiral who was one of the coup plotters in 2002. The TV station, RCTV, never prosecuted for its part in the attempt to overthrow the elected government, lost only its terrestrial licence and is still broadcasting on satellite and cable.

Yet, as in Nicaragua, the “treatment” of RCTV is a cause celebre for those in Britain and the US affronted by the sheer audacity and popularity of Chávez, whom they smear as “power crazed” and a “tyrant”. That he is the authentic product of a popular awakening is suppressed. Even the description of him as a “radical socialist”, usually in the pejorative, wilfully ignores the fact that he is a nationalist and social democrat, a label many in Britain’s Labour party were once proud to wear.

In Washington, the old Iran-Contra death squad gang, back in power under Bush, fear the economic bridges Chávez is building in the region, such as the use of Venezuela’s oil revenue to end IMF slavery. That he maintains a neoliberal economy, described by the American Banker as “the envy of the banking world” is seldom raised as valid criticism of his limited reforms. These days, of course, any true reforms are exotic. And as liberal elites under Blair and Bush fail to defend their own basic liberties, they watch the very concept of democracy as a liberal preserve challenged on a continent about which Richard Nixon once said “people don’t give a shit”. However much they play the man, Chávez, their arrogance cannot accept that the seed of Rousseau’s idea of direct popular sovereignty may have been planted among the poorest, yet again, and “the hope of the human spirit”, ofwhich Roberto spoke in the stadium, has returned.”

It is often overlooked that the most powerful weapon in the world is, in fact, information. And given that, the use of highly developed counter-intelligence is therefore the pinnacle of power. The United States largely learned the art of counter-intelligence during the Second World War from the British, its undisputed historical masters, and, after the creation of the CIA, went on to perfect it during the Cold War, though credit must also be given the Soviets for their efforts as well. It has been used domestically, internationally, and has infiltrated every medium that is able to be influenced by it, from educational curriculums to newspapers to television. It can be used to discredit foreign leaders, political movements, distort economic realities, and justify military interventions. It can even scapegoat an entire religion for the sake of national hysteria based on the actions of a handful.

In the world of intelligence, it doesn’t get more dirty, nor secretive, than counter-intelligence. During the Cold War it was employed with perfection in such cases as the overthrow of Mosaddeq in Iran (a democratically elected leader), Allende in Chile (a democratically elected leader), and Árbenz in Guatemala (a democratically elected leader) - just not the right sort of democratically elected leaders.

In all three cases, the cause for their removal was purely economic, inferring that they were not in line with those who had benefited from lucratively established practices in their countries. In all three cases, they were painted as communist, or highly socialist, bringing into question the possibility that they might align themselves with the Soviets.

In all three cases it worked. In fact, it worked so well that the realities of their removal are usually dismissed in many curriculums at the post secondary level, some of which actually lean on the propaganda that was used in the counter-intelligence operations themselves. In such cases, operations such as AJAX and PBSUCCESS are explained away as Cold War necessities.

The point of counter-intelligence is not to spread false information. It is to spread confusion so that disinformation seems logical by comparison. The recreation of truth is not particularly the point, only the acceptance that wrongdoing is, in some way, afoot. Thus, portions of populations can be swayed to condemn governments, religious leaders, and even other ethnicities within their societies purely based on a lack of knowledge and the fear that that causes.

Also of importance is the fact that counter-intelligence is commonly double edged. While its use is employed in one fashion in a foreign locale, it is applied in a completely different fashion domestically. Thus, a divergence of realities is created that, domestically, causes public condemnation of those being targeted while, at the same time, creating the required confusion of those being manipulated abroad. In the context of a free society, such as the United States, it is important that this element exists, as it helps project legitimacy.

We are, like it or not, products of decades of counter-intelligence that has, in no small way, affected how we view others. This reality has only helped strengthen and diversify the power of counter-intelligence initiatives, and has most certainly been amplified in a domestic sense to an unprecedented level.

The Boston Globe’s James Carroll may have summed it up the best this morning, writing…

“A consensus has lately developed that the Bush administration’s worst legacy will be tied to the disastrous war in Iraq, but that may be wrong. The resuscitation of the fantasy of missile defense, and with it the raising from the dead of the arms race, may result in catastrophes in comparison to which Iraq is benign.”

In a speech given in Prague today, President Bush criticized Russia for failing to properly implement democratic reforms, among other things. Some of the hypocrisies presented by his remarks were rather stunning…

“The United States will continue to build our relationships with these countries and we will do it without abandoning our principles or our values.”

One must therefore assume that those principles and values include illegal wiretapping, the illegal detention of prisoners at Guantanamo and the suspension of Habeas Corpus, the unilateral and illegal invasion of foreign nations, the operation of secret detention facilities around the world that are not accessible to the International Red Cross, the kidnapping of foreign nationals, the rendition of detainees to countries known for their use of torture, and the support of regimes, such as that of Saudi Arabia, that aren’t even democratic.

President Bush also stated…

“If standing for liberty in the world makes me a dissident, then I’ll wear the title with pride.”

Given the opportunity, I’m sure the ghosts of hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis would love nothing more than to shove that statement directly up his ass.

I cannot fathom how utterly embarrassing it must be for Americans to have this man as their global representative. Further, that he is on the brink of rekindling something that plagued the world for over fourty years.

Pat Buchanan weighs in…

“We appear to be headed for a second Cold War – and, if we are, responsibility will not fully rest with the Kremlin. For among those who have mismanaged the relationship are presidents Clinton and Bush II, the baby boomers who appear to have kicked away the fruits of a Cold War victory won by their Greatest Generation predecessors.

How did they do it?

When the Red Army went home from Eastern Europe, the United States, in violation of an understanding with Moscow, began to move NATO east. We have since brought into our military alliance six former members of the Warsaw Pact and three former provinces of the Soviet Union: Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

Anti-Russia hawks are now pushing to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. If they succeed, we could be dragged into future confrontations with a nuclear-armed Russia about who has sovereignty over the Crimea and whether South Ossetia should be part of Georgia.

Are these vital U.S. interests worth risking a war? Why are we moving a U.S.-led military alliance into the front yard and onto the side porch of a country with thousands of nuclear weapons? Would we accept any commensurate Chinese or Russian move in the Caribbean?

After Moscow gave us a green light to use the former Soviet republics of Central Asia to base U.S. forces for the Afghan war, the United States has sought permanent bases there. Russia and China have now united to throw us out of their back yard.

America colluded with Azerbaijan and Georgia to build a Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan pipeline to transmit Caspian Sea oil across the Caucasus to the Black Sea and Turkey, cutting Russia out of the action.

In 1999, the United States bombed Serbia 78 days to punish her for fighting to hold her cradle province of Kosovo, which Muslim Albanians were tearing away. Orthodox Russia had long seen herself as protectress of the Balkan Slavs. That Clinton ignored Russia in launching this unprovoked war on Serbia was seen in Moscow as proof that Russian concerns had become irrelevant in Washington.

After helping dump over the government in Belgrade, our Neocomintern – the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House, and other fronts – interfered in Ukraine and Georgia, helping oust pro-Moscow regimes and install pro-American ones. Since then, NED has been run out of Belarus and its subsidiaries are about to get the boot from Moscow.

Can we blame the Russians for being angry? How would we react to left-wing NGOs in Washington, flush with Moscow oil money, aiding elements hostile to the Bush administration?

The United States has been constantly hectoring Russia on backsliding from democracy. But compared to Beijing, Moscow is Montpelier, Vt. And why, if the Cold War is over, are Russia’s political arrangements any of our business?

If we don’t like the way Putin treats Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Boris Berezovsky, and the other “oligarchs” who robbed Russia blind in the 1990s, maybe Putin doesn’t like how we treated Martha Stewart.”

If freedom is worth fighting for, then surely peace is its greatest vice.

Since the end of the Second World War, every conflict that the West has involved itself in has been justified by claiming it necessary to safeguard freedom and liberty. Of them, how many have?

It could be argued that the Cold War was fought in numerous ways to protect the free world from the ravages of Communism. Interestingly, there are only a handful of examples that the West can point to as actual successes in that regard, Afghanistan being one of them. But even then, one must examine the aftermath of that victory with regards to current global events.

The Korean War failed in its purpose, as did Vietnam. In fact, during the Cold War, not one hot war resulted in what could be considered a victory against what the West perceived as their global enemy. On the other hand, covert operations, employing unethical methods and pay-rolling murderers and radicals, tended to produce far better results. Afghanistan falls into that category being that those who supported the Mujahideen and The Northern Alliance in their struggle against the Soviets never involved themselves militarily. They acted as financiers, advisors, and gunrunners - nothing more. And, of course, Afghanistan is not the only example of this method being employed. Western powers have colluded with a variety of groups and individuals whose ideologies were, and are, entirely counter to the principles of freedom and liberty. In the context of covert operations, the goal is not to promote an ideology, rather to ensure that those you oppose are dealt with by whatever means necessary, and that you protect your interests no matter who happens to be willing to secure them.

In truth, that is the global legacy of the West in the latter half of the 20th century. Those conflicts that have involved sacrificial lambs of our own are not what are commonly referred to by others abroad when they attack Western complicity, or, for that matter, Soviet complicity. Their primary source of animosity lay in what the general public knows little of, the secret actions undertaken by their own governments and the ramifications that they have had abroad.

While there are numerous examples that can be sited, Chile provides an adequate demonstration.

The Nixon administration worked diligently to overthrow the government of Salvador Allende, their reasons being the usual – he threatened to nationalize aspects of Chilean industry. The result was, of course, the eventual seizure of power by General Augusto Pinochet, whose regime was responsible for mass human rights violations during his tenure as the head of the country’s military junta. Thousands disappeared during the Pinochet era, tens of thousands were jailed and tortured, others were simply disposed of, and all of it was overlooked by the United States who supported Pinochet’s economic reforms (see: Chicago Boys) and enjoyed continued access to Chilean markets. Of course, Allende was a member of Chile’s Socialist Party, and therefore provided ample cause for alarm.

All of that said, who is Chile’s current President? Well, it so just so happens that it’s Michelle Bachelet, the leader of - you guessed it - Chile’s Socialist Party.

Many Chileans have not forgotten Pinochet’s silent partner, nor their hypocrisy. Because while 30,000 Chileans were forced to flee Chile for their lives after the coup that placed the junta in power, the American people, even disenfranchised by the Vietnam War, still believed that theirs was a country that stood for something other than aiding and abetting murderers. It is also very important to remember that Allende’s government was, by no means, a pawn of the USSR. Afghanistan, on the other hand, was, prior to their invasion of it in 1979.

Pin The Tail On The Donkey

What do we possess that compels us to think it applicable the world over? If it’s the perceived enjoyment of living in free societies then, I’m afraid, it’s time we saw an optometrist. The truth is that our own freedoms aren’t even of serious import to us. Were they, we would be far more vigilant than we are, far more critical of government, and even more critical of the use of military force, let alone our own apathy. Any society that claims itself free and possesses the ability to influence government, because the citizenry represents the true base of power, does not offer up excuses as to why it cannot be vigilant. Because that is only the freedom to be ignorant, a liberty that has come to supercede all others in our society.

In the struggle to maintain that which we claim to hold dearest, our freedom, we have only exercised our right to embrace ignorance on unprecedented levels while turning our backs on the very rights that we possess to ensure that our freedoms cannot be diminished. We are, in a sentence, the authors of our own undoing. Reason, it seems, has no place with us.

On September 10th, 2001, how many Canadians cared about Afghanistan, the plight of its people, its government, or how much Naan bread was going for in the typical Afghan market? Who even really cared about poppy production?

Be honest with yourself – very few.

And yet, by the 1st of October, 2001, it became a target the size of the sun itself, the lean-to of international terrorism, a country tyrannically governed by the very same radical despotic regime that a month earlier few even knew about, let alone cared about. But because of the trauma caused us by the attacks of 9/11, reason was thrown out the window in favour of something far more comfortable – vengeance, which, not surprisingly, is steeped in the ease of ignorance.

On that terrible day in 2001, not one Afghan national took part in the attacks. That didn’t matter, mind you, because the author of the attacks had been a guest of the country’s government since his expulsion from Sudan, and therefore it seemed only logical that military action against Afghanistan was warranted. On the 12th of September, 2001, President Bush declared that the attacks themselves represented an act of war, even though no nation, and I emphasize ‘nation’, had declared war on the United States following them.

Of the 19 hijackers, 15 of them were Saudi. Of the remaining four, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was Egyptian, and one was Lebanese. None of the men were members of the Taliban, none of them were Afghans, and in no way did the attacks that day constitute an act of war on Afghanistan’s behalf because only three countries in the world even recognized the Taliban as the country’s legitimate government, all three of which – The United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia – also supplied them aid.

Given that, a few contradictions should be noted:

Saudi Arabia, during the reign of the Taliban, afforded the United States military bases and purchased arms from them. This, of course, was the same government that exiled Osama Bin Laden for his views, but would eventually recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, the very regime that Bin Laden helped finance.

Following the attacks of 9/11, Pakistan conveniently became an ally in the new War On Terror, their past support for the Taliban quickly fading from memory. The United States was afforded military accommodations in Pakistan from which to launch operations against Afghanistan while it’s President, General Pervez Musharraf, lied to the Pakistani people about the financial costs incurred during Operation Enduring Freedom.

The United Arab Emirates is home to the USAF’s Al Dhafra Air Base, from which U-2 and Global Hawk flights operated during OEF.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Afghanistan was the perfect target - one of the poorest countries in the world, little to no conventional military might to speak of, and politically fractured. Of course, the author of the attacks, who would initially deny involvement only to be contradicted by video tapes found in a house by US troops on which he displayed foreknowledge of them, was also there and had colluded with the country’s radical regime – one which the United States itself did not recognize as the official government of the country, though that would not stop them from taking the position that 9/11 constituted an act of war against the United States and that Afghanistan could be held responsible because of the Taliban’s relationship with al-Qaeda’s leadership.

It is here that the disconnect occurs.

How does one hold a nation responsible for the actions of a radical group within it? In the eyes of the United States, and many others, Afghanistan was a nation still in the midst of civil war, as the Northern Alliance was still resisting the Taliban. Thus, if one faction within a nation has benefited from the financial assistance of a radical organization, as the Taliban did, how do the attacks of 9/11 constitute an act of war against the United States by the nation of Afghanistan? Further to that, if a nation such as Saudi Arabia, from which most of the hijackers came, and who recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government, can’t be viewed as suspect, then how could Afghanistan, as a whole, be?

The answer is – it couldn’t.

The reality is that we did nothing to sort out the puzzle pieces, nor did we bother trying to entertain the fact that there might exist complexities that would make the matter less direct. The enemy was in Afghanistan, a little under 3,000 people had just perished in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, so Afghanistan would be made to pay.

And pay it has.

Price Tags And Body Bags

As I write this, combat operations in Afghanistan have taken the lives of 55 of our countrymen. Their sacrifice has been spun to legendary proportions by those that would use their deaths for the purpose of justifying our presence there. It is not wrong to honour them, nor their commitment to our country, but it falls to those left behind to look beyond their singular role at the larger picture. Because if we fail to do so, if we’re to simply buy into the solemnity of their sacrifice, then we dishonour not only them, but that for which they perceived to fight – freedom.

Canadians should make no mistake, we are a country at war. And in doing so must also realize that the war in which we are involved does not deter those that might seek to attack us using unconventional means. If anything, it provides them justification and heightened motivation. When dealing with terrorism, as the British can well attest, containment is not something that works with regards to deterring terrorist attacks. Were that the case, their presence in Northern Ireland would have resulted in decreasing IRA bombings in England, something that it did not do. If anything, it only increased operations outside of Northern Ireland.

The simplicity given the face of the enemy in Afghanistan is a weapon, not a fact. While Canadian forces face a revitalized Taliban bolstered by newcomers that have hitched their wagons to the Taliban’s horse because of their desire to see their country rid of foreign occupation, they do not represent those that planned or carried out the attacks of September 11th. In all probability, those of that ilk that remain have long since fled into Pakistan where they are most likely being sheltered by the likes of the Pakistani ISI and those sympathetic to their cause. Thus, we are not fighting in Afghanistan to disenthrall those responsible for 9/11, only what remains of the largely unrecognized governing regime that existed prior to the invasion. And even though that regime was supported by Osama Bin Laden, along with the likes of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan (now both allies in the War On Terror), it has been able to sustain itself despite the presence of Western forces and the continued operations of their Northern Alliance allies. That is not to say that theirs is an ideology that isn’t irreprehensible, only that the realities of that ideology are often overlooked by those struggling against what they perceive as foreign invaders, and that that fact should not be disregarded. There is a reason why Hamid Karzai is referred to as ‘The Mayor of Kabul’, and it has everything to do with the ineffectuality of his government and the process that led to its formation, a process hurriedly undertaken to gratify our own sense of accomplishment rather than one that took into account the long-term effects that it might have on the Afghan psyche regarding the virtues of the democratic process.

Freedom, you see, is not something definable by a single people’s view, despite the definition available in your dictionary. It is, like most things, a complicated matter that involves a myriad of factors dependant on culture, religion, and history. To force the world to conform to a single understanding of the term will only produce resistance, not magically open eyes that will suddenly see the relevance of having a McDonald’s on every second corner. Freedom, in the context of a national movement, has to be something sought by those that would have a government created to represent its application. It is not something that can be forced on a people who have had no populist stake in the struggle for it. Ironic as it may seem, most would fight for the right to retain their own bad government than see a foreign power instill one, no matter how it is packaged and sold them. NATO’s current struggle against the Taliban is representative of this in that it has attracted support from amongst those that view their struggle not entirely as a radically religious one, but one of self determination.

Layer Cake

As Jim Miles recently pointed out in an article about Linda McQuaig’s book Holding the Bully’s Coat – Canada and the U.S. Empire…

“The first chapter covers a series of mini-themes that exposes the American empire at the same time implicating Canada in its complicity with American actions. Familiar topics arise with Canada as they do with America abroad in the world: Canada’s recent implicit support of torture in Afghanistan by ‘rendering’ prisoners to Afghanis bases; military plans of attack, in this case against Canadian the 1930’s, such that it would cause “devastation” and include “chemical warfare”; a view of American “exceptionalism”, another word for ignoring international norms, laws and institutions (illegal wars, torture, nuclear weapons double standards, UN, ICC, Kyoto, ICJ, Biological weapons); in other words a generalized withdrawal from international law and conventions.

McQuaig recognizes the incongruity of the U.S. “defending” itself against many created foes, focussing her arguments on the Persian Gulf, reiterating the American tale of woe about “vulnerability”, of America being under attack. While the majority of Canadians do not want to be a part of this militaristic exceptionalism, the “media, academic and corporate worlds – pander to Washington.” The elite see Canada as a renewed power, as an energy superpower, but what sort of superpower would give all its energy resources to another country before its own needs are guaranteed, leading to the author’s conclusion that Canada would not be viewed “with anything but contempt, as the bully’s unctuous [great choice of word – “simulation of affected enthusiasm” based on the root meaning of anointed with oil] little sidekick.”

Oil and free market economics flow via the Canadian elites “fiercely resisting such [social] planning in the Canadian national interest.” As Canada’s social services diminish and its resources are sold off liberally and cheaply, the reality is that “there is little connection between a country’s level of social spending and its ability to compete in the global economy.” Examples are evident for this, with Norway being the most successful, and with the countries of Latin America slowly turning away from the disastrously imposed free market policies.

In the second chapter, “No More Girlie-Man for Peacekeeping” the Canadian popular view of peacekeeping is explored, again exposing the elites, in this case Canada’s own copycat military-industrial-political he-man alliance, as manipulating events towards the American pre-emptive war attitude that searches out strategic control of oil and gas resources, hidden behind the hunt for terrorism, as “America’s vigilance against terrorism…just happens to coincide with its need for oil.” Once again the media come into the picture, a poorly defined picture of “distortion” that has “rendered the suffering of the Arab world invisible to us.” What is viewed in the west is far different than the view seen by others, “the ultimate horror of occupation: the powerlessness of an occupied people against an all-powerful foreign army.”

The argument then turns fully to Afghanistan where Canada is an invading army (and for those Canadian politicians ignorant of the role of oil in Afghanistan, it is a focal point for oil trans-shipment as well as having significant reserves of gas in its north-western provinces in the Caspian Basin), that has committed war crimes by “rendition” and the “collateral damage” of killed citizens. She concludes the section posing the question of security, “Because we realize our security is not actually at stake, and we sense that there is no compelling purpose to this mission….We’re not aggressors [arguable, but perhaps only semantic]. We’re just helping out the aggressor in order to protect our trade balance.”

In summary, McQuaig concludes that “Powerful forces inside the Canadian elite want to move Canada not only away from peacekeeping – as they’ve already succeeding in doing- but also away from an allegiance to the United Nations and the rule of law.” This is a strong statement that Canadians and the world need to be fully aware of.”

No Canadian should ever overlook the importance of those factors that have shaped Canadian foreign policy over the last six years with regards to our cooperation with US foreign policy objectives and the reasons for it. Nor should they take at face value the simplest of explanations regarding our collusion. It has become far too easy to manipulate public opinion, and if one need proof of just how easy it is, look no further than the removal of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004 and our role in it…

“Many of the supporters of the Famni Lavalas party and Aristide, as well as progressive and independent observers worldwide, denounced the rebellion as a foreign controlled coup d’etat orchestrated by Canada, France and the United States (Goodman, et al, 2004) to remove a publicly elected President.

The argument is that the governments of the United States, France and Canada were interested in the removal of Aristide from power because of his populist tendencies. For example, in 2003, Canada hosted a meeting of Haïtian opposition leaders called the Ottawa Initiative which concluded that “Aristide must go”. At the same time, the United States, France and Canada were funding the rebel groups, via opposition NGOs and the International Republican Institute, and provided the necessary military and logistic support for the rebellion. Rebel leader Guy Philippe has been trained by U.S. forces and had been on the CIA payroll. Other prominent rebel figures had also been previously trained by the U.S. despite their participation in previous rebellions and terrorist acts with some living in the U.S” (Wikipedia)

As far as The Ottawa Initiative is concerned, you might be surprised to discover…

“The Ottawa Initiative on Haiti or simply the Ottawa Initiative, was a conference that took place in Montreal on 31 January and 1 February 2003, to decide the future of Haiti’s government, though no Haitian government officials were invited. The conference was attended by Canadian, French, and U.S. and Latin American officials. What exactly transpired is difficult to say, since Canada is keeping the documents that came out of this conference secret.” (Wikipedia)

When asked during an interview with Naomi Klein for The Nation why he was removed from power, Aristide responded - privatization, privatization, and privatization.

We were, of course, sold a different story. An age old story that involved freedom fighters and an emerging despot that threatened freedom itself. And most Canadians, those who even knew about it, bought that version of events.

This, of course, exemplifies our right to be freely ignorant rather than employing vigilance with regards to the principles that we are so often eager to champion at the drop of a hat. In such cases, we do not examine our own complicity as citizens of a nation whose government would act illegally, and in doing so have helped create a reality in which government doesn’t hope to succeed in avoiding condemnation but relies on public apathy to ensure that those undertakings that are suspect are never widely examined. And those that do bother to point fingers are easily dismissed as a variety of things, from radicals to hippies and so forth.

Afghanistan is, of course, no different. With regards to the recent scandal involving the rendition of detainees to Afghan authorities known for their use of torture, the public was diverted away from two very important truths – that members within our government and military were aware of it, and that despite knowing did nothing serious to deter it until it became news. Of course, when it did become news, it was challenged by claims that by debating the issue Canadians were somehow undermining our troops and emboldening the enemy, that to attempt to critically examine what had occurred and who knew about it was entirely counter to our military efforts.

Now I ask you, is it not our democratic duty to debate this topic? Is it not the right of every Canadian from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland to look at the realities of this issue without it being impressed upon them that to do so for more than five minutes is somehow detrimental those fighting in Afghanistan to supposedly ensure that Afghans have that very right?

Furthermore, for the sake of the integrity of our democracy, is it not our responsibility to hold those responsible accountable and have them removed from their various offices and commands? Unfortunately, as long as our love affair with the right to be freely ignorant continues, we remain a reliable horse on which to bet.

In all probability, Canadian troops, under the same make-shift banner of half-assed legitimacy, will remain in Afghanistan for years to come. Public opinion will, of course, only be swayed once the body count reaches a significant enough level to cause alarm, and by then who knows whether the showcase democracy gifted it will still be around, or whether, like the Russians and the British before us, we will find ourselves trapped in a foreign land fighting a determined enemy that has always been willing to give up more for their cause than those that have always arrogantly believed otherwise.

The lesson of 9/11 will never be learned because to admit that it was a lesson is to admit something that we simply never will. That what we do for our own benefit, projected in the diminishing light of our own freedom, has been responsible for creating monsters. In the shadow of The Second World War and the predominance we have placed on its victorious resolution, we have, in many ways, fallen prey to that which we sacrificed to deter. And the most overwhelmingly important aspect of that is our continued belief that our way of life not only represents the pinnacle of civilized society, but that to refuse it is to entertain perfidy.

We were supposed to shoot the Carmelina video that day or the next. Dale Junior was flying in from North Carolina to be in it when his plane was forced to make an unscheduled stop in Kansas. The phone kept ringing, I remember that very well, and when I turned on the television and saw what was transpiring in New York, my mind was flooded with innumerable questions. The three most predominant were: premeditation, impact, and response.

It’s ironic, of course, that the video for Carmelina features torture as its central theme; a clinical, detached, sterilized torture that is presented as entirely routine. It was, in truth, an idea that I took from my favourite film, Brazil, but when I watch it now it seems almost uncanny to me given the course taken with regards to the use of torture and rendition to known torturers by those nations who have claimed to hold the moral high ground since 9/11.

I remember thinking to myself that the response would be, in a word, immense, and at the time thought that the US intelligence community must surely have some significant insight into the impetus of the attacks, one that was far more clearly defined than would later be revealed. In fact, I thought that they would have been far more astute about labeling it blowback.

In Blowback, published prior to 9/11, Chalmers Johnson explores the realities of covert operations abroad and their implications on the United States. The term itself, coined by the CIA, is defined as:

“The unintended consequences of covert operations. Blowback typically appears as a surprise, apparently random and without cause, because the public generally is unaware of the secret operations that caused it. In its strictest terms, blowback was originally informational only and referred to consequences that resulted when an intelligence agency participated in foreign media manipulation, which was then reported by domestic news sources in other countries as accepted facts.”.

There is little question that what occurred on September 11th had roots, and that the attacks themselves were not engineered without the consideration of US Middle East foreign policy history in mind, even if such context seems ridiculous to us, primarily because we were detached from its realities. The world public, which rallied behind the American people following that terrible day, as well as Americans themselves, got lost in a singular explanation, one which would lead to their support of operations and initiatives that have seriously undermined our most sacred principles and exposed the realities of what some of the world’s foremost military powers are both capable of and willing to do.

That, in itself, I believe, was one of the key purposes behind the attacks. To expose the hypocrisy of those that commonly play games with others abroad for their own benefit, and with little consideration for those used, while the general public knows little or nothing of it. There were, of course, other objectives involved, such as the immediate psychological ramifications it would have on the American public, the crippling of world markets, the damage and disarray it would cause the American military and political infrastructures, and the domestic fear that it would cause for years to come. But beneath all of that was something far more brilliant, and I do not mean to use that word to imply that the attacks were anything but murderous, rather to simply demonstrate that by undertaking them the government of the United States would be placed in a position to react as would be expected of them, and that much of the American people, rather than bothering to investigate possibilities, willingly allowed the curtailment of their liberties to occur and got onboard with the administration’s numerous initiatives, even those that had nothing to do with the events of that day whatsoever. In short, it exposed the prevalence of American militarism and how it has been used to affect people throughout the world for decades, be it half way around the world or within the United States itself. To believe that such goals were not a part of the reason for the attacks of 9/11 is to refuse to confront one very important thing: that those who planned the attacks were not fools by any means, and knew well enough what would occur following them, both domestically and internationally.

In truth, it is always easier to view such terrible occurrences in black and white while disregarding motive. But, like any premeditated crime, and 9/11 was surely that to the utmost degree, there is always a reason, even if those reasons are steeped in the psychotic or have historical relevancies that we are not able to put into proper context.

All of this is not meant to excuse or even justify the events of September 11th, but to ignore context is a very slippery slope. No sooner had the attacks taken place than two engines began to turn. One focused on Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the other, behind closed doors at the Pentagon, focused on Iraq. With regards to the former, it was something the world could get behind, a face and a group that, because of the images of that day, represented an immense evil, one that instantly galvanized world support for the United States, a global solidarity that the Bush administration would utterly squander to the point where the very same populations that had once held vigils for the victims of 9/11, including some 1 million Iranians in Tehran, would take to the streets in historically unprecedented numbers to protest the wholly engineered Anglo-American invasion of Iraq – before it even happened.

Six years on, the events of September 11th have been used to justify numerous things, from the unilateral invasion of Iraq to the use of illegal detention and torture – both of which were supported by the American public initially based not on factual realities, but rather the endless wheel of propaganda that 9/11 has afforded the American government. And like the attacks of 9/11, such undertakings have been both illegal in many respects and a very real threat to the reliability and conscience of our political infrastructures.

Coming Face To Face With Cause And Effect

In the sticky world of foreign interventionism and covert operations, it is always important to remember that most of what occurs within the cloud of the unknown often, if not always, has repercussions, even if such repercussions do not materialize for decades. Case in point, the engineered removal of the democratically elected Prime Minister Of Iran in 1953, Dr. Mohammed Mossadeq…

One has to wonder, had Mossadeq not been removed from power, would Iran have developed into the Middle East’s foremost democracy? And if that did occur, what impact would it have had on the region in general regarding the spread of democracy?

Unfortunately, Mossadeq’s removal led to decades of autocratic rule by a monarch and, ultimately, his removal by a movement steeped in the theocratic, one that was not about to overlook decades of Western complicity.

The removal of Mossadeq is a rather straightforward example, in truth. Where lines become blurred is when one begins to examine the support of various groups and regimes in the region depending on how that support coincided with Western foreign policy objectives. And in saying that, the blatant hypocrisy displayed by Western powers cannot be disregarded when examining cause and effect.

For example…

While aiding the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the United States was also involved in aiding the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. In fact, after the Israelis captured Soviet made tanks in Lebanon, the CIA worked to transfer them to the Mujahideen by way of the Pakistani ISI. Of course, the majority of the fighters in Afghanistan had long since held Israel in contempt for their occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, so the obvious question has to be asked – did they know that those tanks and arms that had come via ISI were, in fact, part of a greater transfer from the Israelis to the CIA and then to the ISI?

This sort of convolution is nothing new in the annals of covert Western operations. With regards to Afghanistan, it should not be lost on anyone that the point of supporting the Mujahideen was to have them drive the Soviets out of the country and, in turn, exhaust as much of the Soviet’s military resources as possible. That being the case, it is also of paramount importance to realize that once that goal was accomplished the country would be in the hands of religiously motivated guerrillas, the majority of which were entirely sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians.

At the time, backing both the Israelis and the Mujahideen in Afghanistan served US ends. But the duality of that sort of mindset is not something that remains cloaked in secrecy forever. Obviously those involved in helping liberate Afghanistan had ties to, or even came from, Lebanon and Palestine. And eventually the realization that both ends of the candle were being burned by those that had helped support them would be revealed. So too is it important to remember that while the Saudis were involved in aiding the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, they were also US allies and worked closely with them. And yet, being a Muslim country, not to mention one in which Islam’s two most holy sites reside, they had allied themselves with a Western power that had extremely strong military ties with Israel.

While not the whole story, such realizations were obviously not lost on the likes of Osama Bin Laden, nor should they have been on the CIA. In the after-action report filed regarding Operation AJAX, CIA analysts conceded that the operation could, at some point, produce blowback. One wonders what the thoughts of CIA analysts were during the 1980’s when the United States was engaged in not only aiding the Mujahideen and what we now refer to as The Northern Alliance, but also the regime of Saddam Hussein. And all the while, in the background, military assistance to Israel continued unabated. That’s not even taking into account other covert operations in other parts of the world, such as in Latin America where the CIA was getting its hands dirty in El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua – just to name a few. Nor does it take into account operations in Africa, Europe, or Asia.

As the Iran-Contra scandal would expose, the US was involved in playing both sides in the Iran-Iraq conflict, though the CIA’s assistance was primarily focused on Saddam Hussein’s efforts. His use of gas against the Iranians was aided by the CIA, who provided him satellite coverage of Iranian positions and troop movements, allowing his forces to better target them. And, as is to be expected, the crimes perpetrated by his regime were, at the time, largely overlooked. Even after he gassed Halabja and the House passed a resolution calling for the suspension of aid to Iraq, the Reagan White House vetoed it stating that it was unclear if Hussein had been responsible or the Iranians had been. And while they did issue a weak statement of condemnation, their support for his regime did not end.

Again, these are historical realities that are not exclusively available to us, but to those that would use them to formulate policies of their own, ones that, after years of either doing business with the United States covertly, or being used as unwitting proxies in the ‘global war against Communism’, might take offense.

Traditionally, we have explained away our evils by evoking the Cold War as justification for our actions. We tell ourselves that it was all necessary and played an integral role in the eventual demise of the Soviet Union, which is a rather skewed perspective when one refuses to take into account the part played by the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev and others that worked to help dismantle what they, themselves, viewed as a corrupt entity that was, quite obviously, in its last throes.

So how are we to explain away those actions that have led others to formulate policies, be they steeped in religious fanaticism or not, that are steeped in the recognition of our usury and interference? Because to them the Cold War was never the foremost justification for their actions, even though our reasons for covert support or intervention primarily was. And when the Soviet block fell, and we proclaimed ourselves the victors of the Cold War, what then became of our relationships with those that we had coddled and used in that struggle, even though to them the defeat of global Communism was never their aim?

Pax Americana

During the Gulf War, coalition forces staged air and ground operations from bases within Saudi Arabia. At the end of the war, US military presences in both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait remained, something that displeased a great many Saudis, Osama Bin Laden among them, given that Islam’s two most holy sites are located in that country. The United States would continue to have a military presence in Saudi Arabia until 2003, after which they were forced to relocate after the Saudis finnaly refused to allow them to launch air strikes against Iraq from Saudi bases.

The displeasure created by the US military’s presence in Saudi Arabia for more than a decade should not be disregarded or considered of little import. It is, in fact, a point of real importance with regards to the motivations of men like Osama Bin Laden and others that, to this day, remain in Saudi Arabia and hold drastically anti-Western views, not to mention unfavourable ones regarding the Saudi regime. To us it might not seem that big a deal, but it is not our perspective that matters, something that we all too often disregard when doing the math behind questions such as “why do they hate us?”.

“After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, bin Laden offered to help defend Saudi Arabia (with 12,000 armed men) but was rebuffed by the Saudi government. Bin Laden publicly denounced his government’s dependence on the U.S. military and demanded an end to the presence of foreign military bases in the country. According to reports (by the BBC and others), the 1990/91 deployment of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia in connection with the Gulf War upset Muslims because the Saudi government claims legitimacy based on their role as guardians of the sacred Muslim cities of Mecca and Medina. After the Gulf War cease-fire agreement left Saddam Hussein remaining in power in Iraq, the ongoing presence of long-term bases for non-Muslim U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia continued to undermine the Saudi rulers’ perceived legitimacy and inflamed anti-government Islamist militants, including bin Laden.” – [Link]

More often than not, we tend to look at our actions and positions from a wholly selfish standpoint rather than attempting to empathize with others. In doing so, especially given the mindset created during the Cold War era, we often fail to realize the magnitude of our external influencing.

There are currently some 2,500,000 US personnel serving in the Armed Forces around the world. They man, in total, 737 military bases, making the Pentagon one of the planet’s foremost landlords. To put into perspective just how enormous the US global military presence is, at the height of its dominance, the Romans policed from Britannia in the north to Egypt in the south, from Hispania in the west to Armenia in the east, with a total of 37 major military bases.

To think that such military arrogance should simply be tolerated by the world’s population without question or, in extreme cases, even retaliation, is a stretch. In the face of such an overwhelming global power, and its manipulative undertakings, primarily in the latter half of the 20th century, one seriously wonders why it should come as a shock that someone, somewhere, that has taken offense to the actions or abuses of such a power, might act.

The point is not whether you agree with their cause or not, it’s whether you understand the ramifications of a global imperialism that is routinely cast in a positive light so to detract from the fact that it is, in fact, a global power that, despite its denials to the contrary, acts without impunity with regards to its own objectives.

One ultimately must wonder – if “freedom” is so very contagious and sought after then why does it require 737 military bases to safeguard its survival? And if, by way of examining that question, you come to the conclusion that it isn’t really about freedom, then you must ultimately ask yourself – what is it about?

In the early 1990’s, while Paul Wolfowitz was penning the guidelines for US dominance over the post Cold War world, flames were beginning to spread in various pockets that had once been provinces of US covert assistance. And Afghanistan was one of them.

Forgotten Afghanistan

After being forced to leave Sudan in the spring of 1996, Osama Bin Laden returned to the place of his greatest triumph, a triumph made possible because of the assistance of external forces that aided him and others like him. It would be there that he would help fund the Taliban’s rise to power, a movement in which he would find refuge until the invasion in 2001.

After the attacks of September 11th, despite immediately being linked to them by the United States and then Great Britain, Bin Laden initially denied involvement and released a statement that praised the attackers but claimed that the attacks had been carried out by “individuals with their own motivation”. Of course, after the invasion of Afghanistan, video tapes would be found on which Bin Laden displayed foreknowledge of the attacks and his reasoning behind them, contradicting his initial statement.

The reality is that we may never know the actual truth behind the plot. Being that Bin Laden is most likely in Pakistan, and may even be secretly protected by the Pakistani ISI or others, it isn’t likely that his apprehension is going to occur any time soon. And, of course, that suits the likes of the Bush administration immensely. The longer they can use Bin Laden as their ghost, the more ambiguous and convoluted the War On Terror can become. And that, as we’ve seen demonstrated in Iraq, includes unilateral action against those that had nothing to do with 9/11 but can provide the United States opportunities – as ill conceived as they might be.

But despite that, the war in Afghanistan remains the forgotten war, one that has been largely neglected by the United States in favour of Iraqi operations. In all, there are some 51,000 NATO forces currently in Afghanistan, which was invaded in 2001 directly in response to the attacks of September 11th. Compared to that, there are currently 145,000 US troops alone in Iraq, with 250,000 US troops participating in its initial invasion.

So which is the priority? The apprehension of the man suspected of plotting the devastating attacks on September 11th and the ability to ensure that Afghanistan is secure? Or the implementation of the Bush doctrine in as many locations as will allow before it’s replaced by a new foreign policy platform that will have to struggle to overcome what it has set into motion? Besides Afghanistan, the United States is not only embroiled in a bloody and costly war in Iraq that has completely overshadowed the war in Afghanistan, but have also been active in Somalia, where US air and special forces were used to help remove the ICU from power.

In response to the attacks of September 11th, the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien pledged Canada’s support for US efforts to remove the Taliban from power and capture Osama Bin Laden. Neither objective has been wholly accomplished since 2001, and Canadian involvement in the war has only escalated. There are those that claim that our role in Afghanistan is a vital national security measure, and that by being there we are somehow preventing terrorism from rearing its ugly head on Canadian soil. To this day I struggle to even comprehend such logic, and the attacks in London only further prove that just because we act militarily elsewhere that terrorism is not deterred abroad. If anything, it is encouraged.

The irony is that those we now fight in Afghanistan were once aided by the very country that initially invaded it in 2001 in response to 9/11. And by way of association, we have inexorably linked ourselves to their legacy.

Historical context is, for some, an inconvenience. So too is it something primarily disregarded by those who adhere to beliefs that it contradicts. When examining context it is crucial to also examine complicity, as to disregard it is to disregard history in favour of invention.

US covert participation with regards to aiding various factions in Afghanistan in the 1980’s against the Soviets provides an example of how context is currently and routinely disregarded. It’s no secret that the United States aided a variety of Afghan groups in the 80’s through intermediaries such as the Saudis and Pakistanis, nor is it a secret that the promotion of their aid was laden with propaganda, often focusing on those being aided as ‘freedom fighters’. What was not examined was the ideologies of the groups being aided, nor how those ideologies would impact Afghanistan once the war ended.

The Communist Coup Of 1978

In 1978 a coup removed Mohammed Daoud Khan from power, who was killed the following day on April 28th. On May 1st, The Communist People’s Democratic Party, or PDPA, took power and Nur Mohammed Taraki assumed the Presidency.

In the decade prior to the coup, the Soviet Union had worked diligently to mend grievances between two primary rival factions within the PDPA which had split the party in 1967. The first, led by Nur Mohammed Taraki, was the Khalq faction. The second, the Parcham faction, was led by Babrak Karmal.

The coup that removed Khan, referred to by those that planned and initiated it as The Saur Revolution, was almost entirely achieved by the Khalq, and purportedly initiated by Hafizullah Amin who was, at the time, under house arrest. The Khalq faction’s predominance in the execution of the coup led to its eventual control over the armed forces, placing it in a position of power with regards to the formation of the new government. The irony of the coup was that Mohammed Daoud Khan believed the Parcham faction to be the greater threat, as members of it had connections to senior members within his government.

During the period in which the Taraki-Amin government ruled, not only was there a purging of the Parcham from the government – Karmal himself was sent to Czechoslovakia to act as ambassador and other high ranking members of the Parcham faction were sent out of the county - but over 10,000 of Afghanistan’s ruling elite were eliminated and some 27,000 ‘political prisoners’ were executed between the spring of 1978 and the winter of 1979 at Pul-i-Charki prison just east of Kabul. As one might expect, the political initiatives of the government, which itself had become steadily more radicalized, were also disastrous, ones which would ultimately lead to schisms between the government and the village mullahs and headmen who refused to adhere to the government’s secularization and modernization of the country’s highly religious rural areas.

The Soviet Invasion Of Afghanistan

In early December of 1978, the PDPA government and the Soviet Union signed a friendship treaty, one which would ultimately be leaned on as context for the invasion of the country by Soviet Forces. The reason for the agreement was quite simple - the PDPA government had seen an increase in uprisings against its authority. Significant numbers of Afghans had started to enter Pakistan and begin organizing a resistance movement. Though their immediate goal was one of conjoined similarity – the removal of the PDPA – their further agendas were, in fact, quite dissimilar. It would be these fighters that the Western world would be told were fighting for democracy, which was, in reality, the furthest thing from the truth.

In the winter of 1979 the US ambassador to Afghanistan was taken hostage by Islamists posing as policemen who then demanded the release of two Islamic militant prisoners. He was held captive at the Kabul Hotel, which was quickly surrounded by Afghan forces and Soviet advisors. After negotiations failed, an exchange of gunfire ensued in which the ambassador, Adolph Dubs, was killed. Following the incident, the United States chose not appoint a replacement.

Then, in the spring of 1979, an entire division of Afghan infantry in Herat under the command of Ismail Khan mutinied in support of Shi’ite Muslim opposition to the government and killed some 100 Soviet advisors and their families living in the city. Because of this, Herat was then bombed, resulting in the deaths of thousands of civilians, and was eventually retaken by Afghan forces.

The uprising in Herat eventually led to Taraki’s formal request for Soviet ground forces to help maintain his government’s control of the country. The Soviets declined the request, believing that their presence would only make matters worse, though did supply Taraki with gunships piloted and serviced by Soviets crews, some 500 military advisors, and 700 paratroopers disguised as technicians to secure Kabul’s airport. Taraki’s government also received considerable food aid from the Soviets as well.

Given the declination of their government’s control of the country, infighting within Khalq began in earnest. In the fall of 1979, members loyal to Taraki made several attempts to assassinate Amin. Ironically, it would be Taraki that was eventually assassinated, leaving Amin in control of the country.

Amin briefly attempted to swing his philosophy to amend past conflicts with the Islamic community in Afghanistan. He even went so far as to claim that the Saur Revolution was based on the principles of Islam, a tactic that failed to win him support amongst those that had not forgotten the harsh actions taken by the PDPA in the past. During this period, Amin also began systematically eliminating his opponents, many of whom were Soviet sympathizers. Unlike Taraki, Amin’s loyalty was seen by the KGB as a rouse, as he was simultaneously seeking to open diplomatic channels with Pakistan and others. Thus, the Soviets, who felt that Amin’s governance would be repressive and counter to their interests, decided that he should be removed from power.

On December 24th, 1979, Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan by way of a massive airlift of three divisions into Kabul. Two days later they had secured Kabul, eliminating Amin and those loyal to him within the Afghan army. They then installed Babrak Karmal, the exiled Parcham leader, as the new head of State. Unfortunately, as had always been the case since the radicalization of the PDPA under Taraki and Amin, Karmal’s government was plagued by a series of seemingly unsolvable problems, the severest of which was that despite the fact that the Parcham had been widely persecuted by the Khalq, their ideology was no longer one with which disenfranchised Afghans identified with.

Freedom Fighters And The Miscalculation Of Their Pay Masters

Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, one which was defended under the auspices of the Brezhnev Doctrine as being justifiable because the Soviet Union was merely coming to the aid of a fellow socialist nation, the West’s reaction was one of obvious condemnation. The Carter administration redefined Afghanistan as the front line in the global war against Communism (sound familiar?), which led to the alteration of the position taken by the United States regarding Pakistan, whose economic aid had been revoked because of their nuclear program. The US thus offered a new economic and military assistance deal to Pakistan if it agreed to act as a conduit between the United States and the Mujahideen. This initial offer was refused, though an increased offer made by the new Reagan administration was eventually accepted, and concerns over their nuclear program were silenced. Along with the United States, similar offers of aid came from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and others.

During the war against the Soviets, the Pakistani ISI was primarily used as a conduit with which to move money and materials to a variety of groups that comprised the resistance. While the resistance movement had been founded in Pakistan predominantly by Afghans, such as the Hizb-e-Islami and Ittehad-i-Islami which both rose out of Burhanuddin Rabbani’s Jamiat-i-Islami movement, it eventually grew to include foreign fighters from around the Islamic world, including the likes of Osama Bin Laden and others. Also of significance were the northern Tajik forces commanded by Ahmad Shah Massoud, which would later become known as The Northern Alliance.

In the case of Osama Bin Laden, he was urged to by his once teacher, Abdullah Azzam, to relocate to the Pakistani border city of Peshawar in 1979 from which to assist in the struggle. Peshawar, located no more than 15 miles from the Khyber Pass, provided them a location from which to funnel foreign fighters and military support into Afghanistan. By 1984, the two had founded Maktab al-Khadama, an organization which focused on providing money, arms, and foreign fighters to aid in the war effort. The access to materials came largely by way of the ISI, but the trail backwards primarily led through the Saudis to the CIA, who spent billions of dollars funding the Mujahideen throughout the 80’s.

The complexities of the various groups that fought the Soviets during the 80’s somehow escaped those that supported them. To most it was simply about funding those that were fighting the Soviets; delving into their ideologies or plans with regards to Afghanistan after the fact was not something commonly entertained, nor were the tribal complexities of the country and the power vacuum that could very well occur after the fall of the Soviet backed PDPA government. It must also not be overlooked that those who fought the Soviets were cast in the West as freedom fighters, individuals seeking a democratic Afghanistan, not religiously motivated warriors bent on ridding the country of foreign invaders and their henchmen, and certainly not ones that favoured the introduction of Sharia Law into Afghan society.

The political vacuum created at the end of the war was, in no small part, a very real byproduct of insular, Cold War thinking. It left the country in a state of confusion that eventually resulted in a civil war between those that had been victorious in defeating the Soviets. One of the factions to arise during that period was the Taliban, who, in 1997, were recognized by the government of Pakistan as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan.