World power politics and CIA covert ops: Will Pakistan remain a victim?

The US has its own unique position in the global community as a world power and its powerful hold is no more a secret. Pakistan fought two wars as a US ally and heavily suffered. Pakistanis always feel that the US used us and then forgot our sacrifices. 

The International community including Pakistan always looks towards the elections of the US after every four years. From the start of its presidential election campaign till the very end to the finial announcement, we see eventful programs. Both opponent parties advocate about human rights, peace in the world and prosperity of their countrymen; their party’s manifestos are full of such promises just like the elections of the third world.

While the political parties are advocating their visible political national agendas unfortunately the intelligentsia of their country is having its own agenda in the background. CIA, Pentagon and FBI are busy in weaving their own networks around the globe, allowing their station chiefs to continue to follow the instructions from the respective HQs. The agenda is, of course, simply to expand the American influence using the dirty Intel tricks / well thought strategies based on the regional key quotient combined with all their skills to make the subject country feel that America is not only great, but being made to feel its presence through their policies.

The operations of CIA can be well judged by examining the leaks of Phillip Burnett Franklin Agee, and by the confession of two former CIA agents, whose conscience compelled them to desert their agency, and to write a book released from Italy. Phillip Agee, former CIA agent who resigned from CIA in 1986 had written a book, “Inside the Company: CIA Diary”, in 1975. 

Mr. Agee in his book disclosed that during his first overseas assignment in 1960 to Ecuador, his primary mission was to force a diplomatic break between Ecuador and Cuba and to achieve these objectives he used the techniques of bribery, intimidation, bugging and forgery.  During his four years in Ecuador he could penetrate in Ecuadorian politics and his actions subverted and destroyed the political fabric of Ecuador. Mr. Agee went on to disclose that he had helped United Arab Republic code-room in Montevideo, Uruguay, with two contact microphones placed on the ceiling of the room below. Mr. Agee, in his book, had highlighted the effectiveness of the CIA network throughout the world claiming that President Jose Figueres Ferrer of Costa Rica, President Luis Echeverria Alvarez (1970-1976) of Mexico and President Alfonso Lopez Michelson (1974-1978) of Colombia were CIA collaborators and agents.

At the start of Cold War between United States and the then Soviet Union, the CIA had acknowledged having given $ 1 million to Italian centrist parties in 1948 general elections besides publishing forged letters in order to “discredit the leaders of the Italian Communist Party”.

The sole objective was to block the Italian Communist Party coming to power, which would have been against the geo-political interests of the US. The public record is full details of many such covert CIA operations.

The Vietnam War for example proved to be the biggest misadventure of the US, the consequences of which were completely misjudged, based on the faulty Intel gathered by CIA. As a result, it was not only a major setback for America, but also brought miseries to the people of Vietnam, which includes killing of Women and children and mass migration; the War killed more than 5 lakh innocent civilians. One of the living victims of this war is no other than legend Senator John McCain and he carries deep wounds both on his heart and body. He is presently heading the foreign relation committee.

The history of interference in the Middle East by the US dates back to the WWII. In line with its hegemonic objectives in the Middle East politics, the US first instigated the then Iraqi President Saddam Hussain to invade Kuwait over a border dispute between both the countries and then jumped in the arena as ‘Liberator’ of Kuwait from the invasion of Iraq. 

The war engineered between Kuwait and Iraq displaced the poor Kuwaitis and other nationals. This is where anti US feelings begin to grow, and continued growing, but CIA never stopped. The tricks played by the US were nothing but to exploit the situation and to set its feet in the Middle East and the world witnessed the Arab spring initiative and the tragic end of era of Col Gaddafi and Hosni Mubarak.

On the basis of false and concocted intelligence provided by CIA vis-à-vis Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), the US once again decided to ‘Liberate’ Iraqi people from the tyranny of Saddam Hussain through military invasion and consequently invaded Iraq; toppled and hanged Saddam Hussain and disband Iraqi Army as well as almost every institution thus creating a power vacuum in the country. 

Prior to the US going to invade Iraq on the basis of false and concocted intelligence provided by the CIA, the writer is witness to the offer made by Saddam Hussain through his Ambassador in UAE to the Americans via Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto for the inspection of the suspected sites, but of course the Americans regretted. It was conveyed that the US has already decided to proceed to attack against Iraq.

As a consequence of yet another War started by the US, the world witnessed the horrors of what happened to Iraq and Saddam Hussain; a tragic history indeed, which has created inertia of never-ending war and this war hatched ISIS and this US invasion of Iraq triggered war between Shias and Sunnis on sectarian lines – started from Fallujah and spread to across the country.  The dismantling of Iraqi Army –majority comprising of Sunnis – made the former Army personnel feel isolated from the main centre of power prompting them to associate themselves with the Daesh and its workers got their initial training in Jordan and it is an open secret as to who arranged and financed the said training of these ISIS terrorists. I will leave the details for some other time.

The statement of then US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton explains the graphical situation while briefing the Congress about the anti-regional designs of the US, which is yet another failure, as the impact of such endeavours has gone out of hand. She remarked that “Let’s remember here, the people we are fighting today we funded them twenty years ago… let’s go recruit these Mujahideen”. “And great, let them come from Middle East and other countries, importing their own brand of Islam so that we can go beat the Soviet Union in the name of Islam”. World witnessed first Mujahideen and then Taliban and thereafter Al Qaeda.

How the US initiated and promoted Arab Spring in the Arab countries has been highlighted in a book ‘Arabesques$’ (Investigation into the US Role in the Arab Uprisings), by Ahmed Bensada. The US Government role in instigating, funding and coordinating the Arab Spring revolutions’ has been well explained by the author. The Arab Spring heavily impacted on the political fabric of Middle East.  The assassination of Col. Gaddafi of Libya by trained opponents – trained by the CIA and Mossad – created a power vacuum in the country.  A few months after his assassination, some of these same militants would lead Islamic militias attempting to overthrow Assad in Syria.

The prolonged civil war in Syria is yet another story engineered by the US and it is amazing to see as to how Middle East including Turkey was sucked in it and Turkey realized its mistake only after having suffered badly.The volatile geo-political situation created in the Middle East has affected not only on the stability of the region but had felt its ripples across the globe.  The toppling of Saddam Hussain, Col. Gaddafi and civil war in Syria for years provided grounds to the terrorists to flourish and undertake their terrorist activities throughout the world and these trained terrorists will continue to haunt the world.

The earliest failure was engineering of war in Afghanistan to restrict the then Soviet Union and then ultimately leaving the region after a long prolonged war without any exit plan, which gave birth to Taliban phenomenon and terrorism. Reentry in Afghanistan after 9/11 was yet another blunder, because of which, the region is still suffering. We do not know how long it will take, will the sufferings end, or whether this small-scale war will engulf the entire region including Iran and Middle East. The most recent signals emerging from the West are not positive either and it may be enough to create irreversible tension igniting Third World War. 

The un-calculated and unwise strategies made by the US to protect its interest are inflicting wounds on other nations. The international communities have the right to question these double standards, which is making the world an unsafe place. The failure of American CIA was again witnessed by the world like creating an uncertain geo-political situation in Middle East and the use of Al-Qaida against Syria in war against Syria. The world with all modern technology and detection fails to understand as to how Daesh, Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations get the ammunition and arms with fleet of bulletproof vehicles to have their agenda implemented. One day yet someone would come up with internal leaks.

We Pakistani can never forget that the war initiated through a Pakistani dictator Gen. Zia-ul-Haq in the region commonly known as Soviet-Afghan War, resulted in another failure of CIA and unfortunately every time CIA failures leave miserable and painful life for the inhabitants of the subject area; this time it was for the inhabitants of FATA in Pakistan and in Afghanistan. Our FATA is still suffering and burning. It is unfortunate that CIA after observing the failures and having been fully exposed decided to outsource their intelligence network. The world witnessed Blackwater not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan, which is a part of the public record in the US. Prince Erik role for CIA is no more a secret. 

A similar kind of involvement was initiated in Pakistan under the cover of transportation of supply through Pakistani Ports to Afghanistan using both the land and air routes. Americans managed an understanding with Gen. Musharraf, and Gen Musharraf gave a go ahead without realizing the after effects of such concessions given to the US. It was for the first time in the history of the diplomatic world where the contractors used hundreds of diplomatic passports, which was ousted by the government of Pakistan People’s Party and blocked the free exit from Islamabad Airport. The way the so-called diplomats under the garb of diplomatic cover operated in Pakistan for their intelligence operation through private contractors became ultimately known to the world, when the entire operation stood exposed with the arrest of Raymond Davis which is yet another long story.

The relationship between Pakistan and America has always been thorny and the irony is that every time, in return for its loyalty, Pakistan has suffered rather than getting benefit from this dysfunctional relationship. For Example, Pakistan lent its air base at Badaber as a token of support, which was then used against the then Soviet Union by the US and ultimately cost us our relationship with Soviet Union. Pakistan was heavily relying on the US for its defence to save the breaking away of East Pakistan.  In return, unfortunately navel 7th Fleet of the US never reached to stop the breaking of Pakistan in 1971, while India kept in marching the other side of the boarder along with Mukti Bahni duly financed by India and eventually Indian conspiracy against Pakistan was allowed to be implemented right under the nose of UNO.

The experience and the ongoing recently emerging situation clearly suggests that something is being cooked against Pakistan after the visits of Indian PM Modi to the US followed by his visit to Israel. The most recent strong advice of the US for Pakistan is to have good relations with Delhi and Kabul without realizing what Afghanistan and India has been doing against Pakistan; supplying deaths both at borders and within the country. The pressure is also always mounted on Pakistan for Haqqani Network, whereas Haqqani operates from Kandahar, which is part of Afghanistan and moreover the entire anti-Pakistan terrorists’ leadership is being not only supported with training but also being funded by India and Afghanistan to operate inside Pakistan. 

Let’s see how America is going to favour or disfavour Pakistan as a reward or punishment in coming few days. The US’s usual generic demand from Pakistan is always to “DO MORE”, no matter what we do, or how much cost we have to bear as a result; but on the other hand for India, America is always there to do more, to equip it with military hardware-Treatment of special favourite nation. 

Thus the people of Pakistan need to take this discriminatory treatment of the US seriously, otherwise this unmatched support of the US can imbalance this regional equation and can create more tensions in the region proving to be dangerous for the world peace as such a war if undertaken will produce unprecedented number of terrorists creating further high threats for the International peace. 
 I call upon the president of the US and SG UNO to play their role to curb the unending serious interference in the other countries in view of the above stated few facts which are just tip of iceberg.

In the end I would like to thank to all those who appreciated the said article on JIT. There is long list of questions especially on the legal status of JIT, which I have explained fully, and I have also proposed its role to be defined through an act of Parliament. I am in favour of improving law as per our legal requirements. There is always room for improvement. You may further pose questions through my contacts given below. (The writer is a former interior minister of Pakistan and recipient of Sitara-e-Shujat and Nashan-e-Imtiaz. He is chairman of think tank — Global Eye. @Email: rmalik1212@gmail.com, Twitter @senrehmanmalik)