Whispers of Surrender in Afghanistan?

reply to post by mmiichael

The US being responsible for the rise of bin Laden is now taken as dogma by conspiracists. But it's not even remotely true. In the complex often shifting world of alliances the US, Britain, the Russians, the Saudis, the French - have all supplied every rebel and rogue group with funds and weapons at some juncture to further a campaign.

Oh, please, you are now resorting to revisionist history. The CIA ADMITTED that it's support of Bin Laden gave him the weapons and support that he needed to drive the Russians out. If we had NOT supported him, Bin Laden would most probably have been killed or captured, or sent into obscure exile.

Prime suspect in the New York and Washington terrorists attacks, branded by the FBI as an "international terrorist" for his role in the African US embassy bombings, Saudi born Osama bin Laden was recruited during the Soviet-Afghan war "ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to fight Soviet invaders". 1

In 1979 "the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA" was launched in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in support of the pro-Communist government of Babrak Kamal.2:

With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan's ISI [Inter Services Intelligence], who wanted to turn the Afghan jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan's fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands more came to study in Pakistani madrasahs. Eventually more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad.3

The Islamic "jihad" was supported by the United States and Saudi Arabia with a significant part of the funding generated from the Golden Crescent drug trade:

In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166,...[which] authorize[d] stepped-up covert military aid to the mujahideen, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goal: to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal. The new covert U.S. assistance began with a dramatic increase in arms supplies -- a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by 1987, ... as well as a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and Pentagon specialists who traveled to the secret headquarters of Pakistan's ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. There the CIA specialists met with Pakistani intelligence officers to help plan operations for the Afghan rebels.4

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) using Pakistan's military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) played a key role in training the Mujahideen. In turn, the CIA sponsored guerrilla training was integrated with the teachings of Islam:

Predominant themes were that Islam was a complete socio-political ideology, that holy Islam was being violated by the atheistic Soviet troops, and that the Islamic people of Afghanistan should reassert their independence by overthrowing the leftist Afghan regime propped up by Moscow.5

Pakistan's Intelligence Apparatus

Pakistan's ISI was used as a "go-between". The CIA covert support to the "jihad" operated indirectly through the Pakistani ISI, --i.e. the CIA did not channel its support directly to the Mujahideen. In other words, for these covert operations to be "successful", Washington was careful not to reveal the ultimate objective of the "jihad", which consisted in destroying the Soviet Union.

In the words of CIA's Milton Beardman "We didn't train Arabs". Yet according to Abdel Monam Saidali, of the Al-aram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo, bin Laden and the "Afghan Arabs" had been imparted "with very sophisticated types of training that was allowed to them by the CIA" 6

CIA's Beardman confirmed, in this regard, that Osama bin Laden was not aware of the role he was playing on behalf of Washington. In the words of bin Laden (quoted by Beardman): "neither I, nor my brothers saw evidence of American help". 7

Motivated by nationalism and religious fervor, the Islamic warriors were unaware that they were fighting the Soviet Army on behalf of Uncle Sam. While there were contacts at the upper levels of the intelligence hierarchy, Islamic rebel leaders in theatre had no contacts with Washington or the CIA.

With CIA backing and the funneling of massive amounts of US military aid, the Pakistani ISI had developed into a "parallel structure wielding enormous power over all aspects of government". 8 The ISI had a staff composed of military and intelligence officers, bureaucrats, undercover agents and informers, estimated at 150,000. 9

Meanwhile, CIA operations had also reinforced the Pakistani military regime led by General Zia Ul Haq:

'Relations between the CIA and the ISI [Pakistan's military intelligence] had grown increasingly warm following [General] Zia's ouster of Bhutto and the advent of the military regime,'... During most of the Afghan war, Pakistan was more aggressively anti-Soviet than even the United States. Soon after the Soviet military invaded Afghanistan in 1980, Zia [ul Haq] sent his ISI chief to destabilize the Soviet Central Asian states. The CIA only agreed to this plan in October 1984.... `the CIA was more cautious than the Pakistanis.' Both Pakistan and the United States took the line of deception on Afghanistan with a public posture of negotiating a settlement while privately agreeing that military escalation was the best course.10

www.globalresearch.ca...

Originally posted by ProfEmeritus
Oh, please, you are now resorting to revisionist history. The CIA ADMITTED that it's support of Bin Laden gave him the weapons and support that he needed to drive the Russians out. If we had NOT supported him, Bin Laden would most probably have been killed or captured, or sent into obscure exile.

No you're either not following or resorting to revisionist history. I only counter the usual Truther statements of bin Laden being a US/CIA tool.
Acknowledge the support given to him by the US. But he subsequently spends the 90s developing his terrorist network. As I say, things change, allegiances are in a constant flux.

Check your calendar - it's late in 2009, not 1989.

A detailed capsule history here

www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&before_9/11=huntForBinLaden

It has not been revealed when US intelligence begins monitoring bin Laden exactly, though the CIA was tailing him in Sudan by the end of 1991. But in late 1995 the FBI is given forty thick files on bin Laden from the CIA and NSA, mostly communications intercepts. The sheer amount of material suggests the surveillance had been going on for several years. Dan Coleman, an FBI agent working with the CIA’s bin Laden unit, will begin examining these files and finds that many of them are transcripts from wiretapped phones tied to bin Laden’s businesses in Khartoum, Sudan, where bin Laden lives from 1991 to 1996. [Miller, Stone, and Mitchell, 2002, pp. 148-149; Wright, 2006, pp. 242-244]

CIA Director George Tenet will later comment, “The then-obscure name ‘Osama bin Laden’ kept cropping up in the intelligence traffic.… [The CIA] spotted bin Laden’s tracts in the early 1990s in connection with funding other terrorist movements. They didn’t know exactly what this Saudi exile living in Sudan was up to, but they knew it was not good.” [Tenet, 2007, pp. 100] The London Times will later report that in Sudan, “bin Laden used an $80,000 satellite phone and al-Qaeda members used radios to avoid being bugged…” [London Times, 10/7/2001] Bin Laden is mistaken in his belief that satellite phones cannot be monitored; a satellite phone he buys in 1996 will be monitored as well.

1993: CIA Declares Bin Laden Significant Financial Backer of Islamic Militants

In 2007, former CIA Director George Tenet will write, “As early as 1993, [the CIA] had declared bin Laden to be a significant financier backer of Islamic terrorist movements. We knew he was funding paramilitary training of Arab religious militants in such far-flung places as Bosnia, Egypt, Kashmir, Jordan, Tunisia, Algeria, and Yemen”. [Tenet, 2007, pp. 100]

July-August 1993: US Intelligence Realizes Bin Laden Is Important Financier of Islamist Militants

In a July 1993 intelligence report, the CIA notes that Osama bin Laden has been paying to train members of the Egyptian militant group Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya in Sudan, where he lives. The CIA privately concludes he is an important terrorist financier. In August 1993, the State Department sees links between bin Laden and the “Blind Sheikh,” Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman, who leads Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya and was recently arrested in the US.

A State Department report comments that bin Laden seems “committed to financing ‘Jihads’ against ‘anti-Islamic’ regimes worldwide.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 109, 479] In August 1993, the State Department also puts bin Laden on its no-fly watch list. However, US intelligence will be slow to realize he is more directly involved than just giving money. Some intelligence reports into 1997 will continue to refer to him only as a militant financier. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 109, 479]

August 12, 1993 and Shortly Thereafter: US Declares Sudan a Terrorism Sponsor; Bin Laden Placed on US Watch List

On August 12, 1993, the US officially designates Sudan to be a “state sponsor of terrorism.” Countries given this designation are subject to a variety of US economic sanctions. As of 2008, Sudan has yet to be removed from the US lists of terrorism sponsors. Osama bin Laden is living in Sudan at the time, and shortly after this designation is issued the State Department places bin Laden on its TIPOFF watch list. This is designed to prevent him from entering the US. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004]; US Department of State, 7/17/2007] However, Britain apparently does not follow suit, because bin Laden will continue to make trips to Britain through 1996.

[edit on 25-11-2009 by mmiichael]

My argument against the war out there always was and will be ... Defense is something you do from within your own borders. You make your border of Iron and ensure that nothing , not even air can get past without testing so thorough that every organ , every bloodvessel , of every visitor, has been mapped , and deemed not to be a terror suspect in any nation.
You ensure that your people are secure and safe as far as can be expected by educating them about possible threats, whilst reminding them we are ALL human, and all of us have the right to go freely in this land . You ensure the security of your airspace by lofting patrols of lazer equiped anti missile planes, and ground batteries of same.
Then you wait. When threats come, you destroy them, when illegal access is attempted , it is turned back , when men come here who would preach bile and venom at your people, you turn them back , and if they wont be merely turned , you knock them out, you drop them out of a plane where ever the hell they came from, and one thing you dont ever EVER do ... Put the rights of xenophobes and terror suspects, above the right of a soldier to only fight in honourable circumstances, against an enemy at least as well equiped as he is . Nor above the right of a civillian to go about his or her business without fear of pointless death in terror explosions. And you also dont get the blood of innocent foreign non combatants on your hands , because guess what... its not war. Its defense. I wish they would be honest about this war. I wish the government of the UK would seperate the ministry of defense from the organisation fighting this war. The name does not apply to an organisation orchestrating a land war thousands of miles from its own territory .

reply to post by mmiichael

I only counter the usual Truther statements of bin Laden being a US/CIA tool. Acknowledge the support given to him by the US. But he subsequently spends the 90s developing his terrorist network. As I say, things change, allegiances are in a constant flux.

The point that I made in an earlier post:

When you create a terrorist to fight your enemy, you can be sure that he will ultimately turn on you, once he has defeated the enemy.

is that the CIA is our own worst enemy. Every attempt at intervention ends up biting us in the posterior. We consistently make friends of enemies and then end up making enemies of friends. We meddle when there is no actual threat to our country. Why? Unfortunately, it is because the CIA "analysts" sit on their duff in their comfortable building in Langley, and play video games which affect the welfare of our nation, and when they are subsequently wrong, we don't even get a "whoops" from them.

These are the people that brought you WMD in Iraq, as well as the prediction that Sadam would never invade Kuwait. Don't even get me started on the CIA's Angleton and his good friend, Soviet agent Kim Philby.


This agency does not PROTECT the US, but continually gets us into situations that we don't belong in, in the first place.

Don't conclude from this that I am a pacifist. However, the CIA has never learned to think, aim, then shoot. They just shoot, and we deal with the consequences. The agency is TRULY a prime example of government incompetency.

Originally posted by ProfEmeritus
This agency does not PROTECT the US, but continually gets us into situations that we don't belong in, in the first place.

Don't conclude from this that I am a pacifist. However, the CIA has never learned to think, aim, then shoot. They just shoot, and we deal with the consequences. The agency is TRULY a prime example of government incompetency.

We're probably more in sync than our stated differences make it seem. I'm not American and have lived in many parts of the world. Just tired of seeing the US and CIA blamed for every bad regime, regional war, car accident, anything wrong.

The CIA is for sure out of touch with what is happening and how to fix things. Sometimes it's out of anyone's hands to affect positive change. But they need to get in tune with the psychology and headspace of other cultures and their leaders.

A lot of the problem is not them but the directives of old warhorse generals and "Cold Warrior" policy makers. The CIA is a govt agency and their mandate is enforcing US foreign policy.

The current Muslim World confrontation with the West is throwing them. The US is being outguessed by people who understand how they think, but the US cannot understand how the Muslim World works. It's not national boundaries and leaders any more.

The US thinks they're playing Chess - but it's a 3D Holographic video game with real people and places.

A good shake up would do wonders. It will only happen when there's a major f**k u*. A biological weapon released in the US or a nuke.

The first may have happened already. The CIA were probably asleep at the wheel.


M




[edit on 25-11-2009 by mmiichael]

reply to post by mmiichael

We're probably more in sync than our stated differences make it seem. I'm not American and have lived in many parts of the world. Just tired of seeing the US and CIA blamed for every bad regime, regional war, car accident, anything wrong.

Absolutely, we're in sync. I'm not trying to disagree with you on the issue. It is an issue that I have inside knowledge on, and believe me, the CIA is in complete disarray. The original intent of the CIA was decent. However, over the years, the typical problems of government agencies, namely red tape, filtering of information as it travels up the food chain, and sea changes, as a result of new administrations, have made it nothing more than a bureaucracy, and an inept one at that.

Of course we are pulling out of Afghanistan.
We lost the war for good when the Saudis decided to follow Iran's lead and remove the USD as their trading currency.

We no longer have any leverage in the region and we will remove our troops.


As far as the CIA goes, they are certainly our biggest problem.
They got drunk on the power that comes with being able to influence worldly events in a covert manner.

It would be very tough not to do precisely what they do. Which IS to play video games, in essence, at the cost of thousands of lives daily.
Takes a man of great integrity not to abuse the power that the CIA offers its workers.

Originally posted by mmiichael
In Iraq and Afghanistan the US is hoping to have installed something resembling representative governments so the entire population isn't at the mercy of local cutthroats who have no concern for the country's population at large.

If you really believe our wars are about spreading democracy, then there is this bridge in Brooklyn I can get for you cheap.....

Originally posted by starviego

Originally posted by mmiichael
In Iraq and Afghanistan the US is hoping to have installed something resembling representative governments so the entire population isn't at the mercy of local cutthroats who have no concern for the country's population at large.

If you really believe our wars are about spreading democracy, then there is this bridge in Brooklyn I can get for you cheap.....

Brooklyn Bridge? I can't afford the taxes and maintenance. A really old one-liner that shows your age.

I'm not idealistic about Democracy or think the US is benignly promoting it philosophically.

The 20th Century demonstrated a representative government is easier to deal with, more tractable, more stable, better for everyone. Education, agriculture, industry, trade, mean survival. Internal wars, tribalistic feuds unresolved for decades, regional warlords, despotic rule - are dysfunctional relics.

With population growth, fresh water access the primary environmental concern, chronic food shortages, climate change, pollution, pandemics, fierce competition for resources - if there isn't a consolidated government providing security and distribution of food and fuel, there will be anarchy and mass starvation for a couple billion people very soon. Look at Russia and China when they were at this stage of development. 30-40 million dead for both.

East Asia has come up to speed and showing a lot can be accomplished in a few decades. If there aren't proper governments installed in the Middle East soon, any future concern for people of the region will be bypassed in favour of rape, pillage, plunder. The Sudan is what will become the norm. Genocide to eliminate internal disputes over resource controls.

It's now about getting with the program - popular representation, co-operation, organization, economic planning, equitable distribution, which democracies at least try do. Or just falling deeper into tribalism, permanent seige, completely exploitation - eventually falling off the map.

It's get organized or die these days.


M

Originally posted by mmiichael

Originally posted by starviego

Originally posted by mmiichael
In Iraq and Afghanistan the US is hoping to have installed something resembling representative governments so the entire population isn't at the mercy of local cutthroats who have no concern for the country's population at large.

If you really believe our wars are about spreading democracy, then there is this bridge in Brooklyn I can get for you cheap.....

Brooklyn Bridge? I can't afford the taxes and maintenance. A really old one-liner that shows your age.

I'm not idealistic about Democracy or think the US is benignly promoting it philosophically.

The 20th Century demonstrated a representative government is easier to deal with, more tractable, more stable, better for everyone. Education, agriculture, industry, trade, mean survival. Internal wars, tribalistic feuds unresolved for decades, regional warlords, despotic rule - are dysfunctional relics.

With population growth, fresh water access the primary environmental concern, chronic food shortages, climate change, pollution, pandemics, fierce competition for resources - if there isn't a consolidated government providing security and distribution of food and fuel, there will be anarchy and mass starvation for a couple billion people very soon. Look at Russia and China when they were at this stage of development. 30-40 million dead for both.

East Asia has come up to speed and showing a lot can be accomplished in a few decades. If there aren't proper governments installed in the Middle East soon, any future concern for people of the region will be bypassed in favour of rape, pillage, plunder. The Sudan is what will become the norm. Genocide to eliminate internal disputes over resource controls.

It's now about getting with the program - popular representation, co-operation, organization, economic planning, equitable distribution, which democracies at least try do. Or just falling deeper into tribalism, permanent seige, completely exploitation - eventually falling off the map.

It's get organized or die these days.


M

The Afghans and folks in the mid east have been living just fine for thousands of years.. they were practicing laws and doling out justice long before the founding fathers were sperm swimming laps in a prostate.

As a matter of fact we took their legal concepts and incorporated them into our own; the code of hammurabi. The last people they are going to be lectured by is the hypocritical farce we call a govt.

We dont have "leaders" that any sane person would follow, we have silly globs of spoiled fat liars that are professional whores for corporate America. Upward failing lackeys of the PTB who have jobs not because of skills or merit.. but because they can march in lock step with their fellow clones to push their shadowy over-lords agenda.

The people of Iraq & Afghanistan were not begging the incompetent US govt to save them by replacing their bad govt with our craptastically foolish corrupt one...

If their way of life was as bad as you want to believe, and the occupiers way was a fantastic free democratic alternative every human should crave... why are they fighting us so hard? maybe because they just don't care what the occupier of the day wants, never have, never will.. soviets and americans are the same pale face foreigners trying to change their way of life at gunpoint.. and they're not interested.

Originally posted by GovtFlu
The Afghans and folks in the mid east have been living just fine for thousands of years.. they were practicing laws and doling out justice long before the founding fathers were sperm swimming laps in a prostate.

As a matter of fact we took their legal concepts and incorporated them into our own; the code of hammurabi. The last people they are going to be lectured by is the hypocritical farce we call a govt.

We dont have "leaders" that any sane person would follow, we have silly globs of spoiled fat liars that are professional whores for corporate America. Upward failing lackeys of the PTB who have jobs not because of skills or merit.. but because they can march in lock step with their fellow clones to push their shadowy over-lords agenda.

The people of Iraq & Afghanistan were not begging the incompetent US govt to save them by replacing their bad govt with our craptastically foolish corrupt one...

Sorry to disagree. You may not have noticed, we're well into the 21st Century. The word's population isn't measured in hundreds of millions as it was once was or even 1-2 billion. 7 billion people competing for the dwindling agricultural produce, hoping to live beyond the age of 40, wanting education, health services, legal rights, the ability to travel more than a few miles, electricity, basic modern conveniences - can no longer live as they did in ancient or feudal times with 1-2% of the population having anything resembling quality of life. The demand for exotic spices, figs, hand woven carpets has changed.

Afghanistan would collapse if it kept on it's course. A theocratic narcostate is not something to aspire to. Think in terms of millions dead. Too poor and weak to defend itself, local warlords would cut opium deals with the highest bidders. The people suffer. No Americans present - the Chinese, Russians,
Pakistanis, Iranians, waiting to fill the vacuum.

Myself I'd opt out for the Americans. Better chance for survival.

It's been getting worse by the year. Climate change could mean famine and pandemic any time. Most people aren't intellectual or romantic when it comes to life and death. Their Code of Hammurabi from 1750 BC has little to offer a starving disease-wracked baby in 2009 AD.


M





[edit on 26-11-2009 by mmiichael]

Originally posted by mmiichael
- if there isn't a consolidated government providing security and distribution of food and fuel, there will be anarchy and mass starvation for a couple billion people very soon.
... If there aren't proper governments installed in the Middle East soon, any future concern for people of the region will be bypassed in favour of rape, pillage, plunder. ....
It's now about getting with the program .....

OK, so the war isn't about democracy, it's about saving lives. Making war to save lives... uh.....yeah. Only a gub'mint boy would think like that, and your posts sound like CIA position papers.

If this is true, and I doubt it is, but if it is true then you can take the top of the limo and check the weather report in Dallas.

Originally posted by starviego
OK, so the war isn't about democracy, it's about saving lives. Making war to save lives... uh.....yeah. Only a gub'mint boy would think like that, and your posts sound like CIA position papers.

I could be a CIA disinformation agent or worse.

But, if you really must know, no one gives a rat's ass about tough-talking "all talk - no action" online guys trying to beef up their manhood by showing what great rebels they are and experts on foreign policy.

How many countries have you lived in? Ever been in a place so dirt poor you could get killed for pocket change? Or sport? Ever watch someone die because the most basic medical treatment wasn't available?

People shouldn't have to live in dirt and eat it - just because it's been a way of life forever to be continually robbed and raped by local thugs who seize power through force and weapons.

You can go over there and tell them they're being exploited by the Evil American Government. They'll be grateful for your enlightening them.

M


[edit on 26-11-2009 by mmiichael]

Originally posted by TrueBrit
My argument against the war out there always was and will be ... Defense is something you do from within your own borders. You make your border of Iron and ensure that nothing , not even air can get past without testing so thorough that every organ , every bloodvessel , of every visitor, has been mapped , and deemed not to be a terror suspect in any nation.
You ensure that your people are secure and safe as far as can be expected by educating them about possible threats, whilst reminding them we are ALL human, and all of us have the right to go freely in this land . You ensure the security of your airspace by lofting patrols of lazer equiped anti missile planes, and ground batteries of same.
Then you wait. When threats come, you destroy them, when illegal access is attempted , it is turned back , when men come here who would preach bile and venom at your people, you turn them back , and if they wont be merely turned , you knock them out, you drop them out of a plane where ever the hell they came from, and one thing you dont ever EVER do ... Put the rights of xenophobes and terror suspects, above the right of a soldier to only fight in honourable circumstances, against an enemy at least as well equiped as he is . Nor above the right of a civillian to go about his or her business without fear of pointless death in terror explosions. And you also dont get the blood of innocent foreign non combatants on your hands , because guess what... its not war. Its defense. I wish they would be honest about this war. I wish the government of the UK would seperate the ministry of defense from the organisation fighting this war. The name does not apply to an organisation orchestrating a land war thousands of miles from its own territory .

My sentiments exactly ... well said

reply to post by mmiichael


This post and your next one seem to explain the nature of Africom.

Americans living now have gotten their idea of what surrender means from the picture of Hirohito signing the treaty to end WW2 aboard the ship. Americans postWW2 are just as afraid of the word "surrender" as Hirohito was, granted the reasons may be different.

In an increasingly complex world, one picture (or statement) may be woth a thousand words, but it does not tell the whole story.