Afghan War Diaries and Official Lies
Carol Rose of the Boston Globe recently published the following statement on the leaked Afghan War Diaries:
“Not since Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon papers on the failing war in Vietnam have we witnessed the importance of transparency in forcing our democracy to engage in an honest and public debate about a war that is costing billions in tax dollars and incalculable loss of human life.”
She may be right, however the devil, as always, is in the details.
L. Fletcher Prouty was a CIA insider during three presidential administrations who coined the phrase “The Secret Team”, which is the title of one of his books. In this book he made numerous references to the Pentagon papers. Prouty wanted to expose the inner workings of the CIA and their dubious operations, but without leaking any information he knew to be classified. He chose the Pentagon Papers as the source material for much of his book and offered his own insider interpretation of this leaked set of documents (some of which he authored). Here is what he had to say about the Pentagon Papers and the official “lies” they contained.
Much has been written on these subjects and on their vast supporting infrastructure, generally known as the “intelligence community.” Some of this historical writing has suffered from a serious lack of inside knowledge and experience. Most of this writing has been done by men who know something about the subject, by men how have researched and learned something about the subject, and in a few cases by men who had some experience with the subject. Rarely is there enough factual experience on the part of the writer. On the other hand, the Government and other special interests have paid writers huge amounts to write about this subject as they want it done, not truthfully. Thus our history is seriously warped and biased by such work.
[…]
A good example of this is the work of Les Gelb and his Pentagon associates on the official version of the purloined “Pentagon Papers.” That very title is the biggest cover story (no pun intended) of them all; so very few of those papers were really of Pentagon origin. The fact that I had many of them in my office of Special Operations in Joint Staff area, and that most of them had been in the files of the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (ISA) did not validate the local of their origin They were “working copies” and not originals. Notice how few were signed by true military officers.
[…]
As you may recall, this treasure trove of TOP SECRET papers was delivered to The New York Times, and other newspapers in mid-June, 1971, by a then-unknown “hippie” of that period. His name was Daniel Ellsberg. What few people have learned since that time is the fact that both Daniel Ellsberg, who pirated these highly classified papers, and Leslie Gelb of the Director of that Task Force has worked in that same office of International Security Affairs (ISA).
[…]
It is quite fantastic to find people like Daniel Ellsberg being charged with leaking official secrets simply because the label on the piece of paper said “TOP SECRET,” when the substance of many of the words written on those same papers was patently untrue and no more than a cover story. Except for the fact that they were official “lies,” these papers had no basis in fact and therefore no basis to be graded TOP SECRET or any other degree of classification.[1]
What Prouty goes on to discuss in his book is how the Pentagon papers were actually a subtle form of propaganda to give the CIA a pass when it came to the public fallout over the war in Vietnam. The reality of the situation was that the CIA was running the show but had no idea what they were doing other than the desire to play “fun and games”, clandestine operations in Vietnam and elsewhere in SE Asia. The US government and military went along with the CIA and followed them into the quagmire, not the other way around. The CIA needed a way to pass the buck onto somebody and the Pentagon Papers were a clever way of doing this. The Pentagon Papers directed the blame and frustration for the Vietnam war away from the Intelligence community and onto the shoulders of the US military.
The situation has certainly changed today. Reading a summary of the Afghan War Diaries, it appears the the CIA is not hiding the fact that it is giving direction to the soldiers and military units in Afghanistan. They make no bones about this in the report. So times certainly have changed in that regard. In a UK Guardian summary they mention the following:
Shum Khan, a man both deaf and unable to speak, lived in the remote border hamlet of Malekshay, 7,000ft up in the mountains. When a heavily armed squad from the CIA barrelled into his village in March 2007, the war logs record that he "ran at the sight of the approaching coalition forces … out of fear and confusion".
The secret CIA paramilitaries, (the euphemism here is OGA, for "other government agency") shouted at him to stop. Khan could not hear them. He carried on running. So they shot him, saying they were entitled to do so under the carefully graded "escalation of force" provisions of the US rules of engagement.
[…]
Behind the military jargon, the war logs are littered with accounts of civilian tragedies. The 144 entries in the logs recording some of these so-called "blue on white" events, cover a wide spectrum of day-by-day assaults on Afghans, with hundreds of casualties.
[...]
US and allied commanders frequently deny allegations of mass civilian casualties, claiming they are Taliban propaganda or ploys to get compensation, which are contradicted by facts known to the military.
But the logs demonstrate how much of the contemporaneous US internal reporting of air strikes is simply false.[2]
It is asinine to think that we Americans understand the intricacies of the cultures that weave together Afghanistan. To label some Afghanistan's as “Taliban insurgents”, “Al Qaida”, and others “civilians” is a completely subjective process and does not mirror the reality of the tribal nature of the people under fire from US and coalition forces. The people of Afghanistan don't wear uniforms and don't carry around “Taliban” ID cards. Claiming a death was an “insurgent” or “Al Qaida” is just a tactic to soften the reality of the war and keep the public placated. This is not Taliban propaganda, the Taliban are not writing the news that we hear in the US. The US military and what passes for the press in this country are the ones that do the propagandizing. This recent leaked set of documents is no different, it still comes directly from the US military, only a bit above the cover story given to the general public. These are all still "official lies".
While the reports of mass civilian casualties is sickening, it is really nothing new. There have been press reports highlighting the Afghan civilian casualties now for years. None of this should surprise anybody who keeps a careful eye on the news coming from this region. What is disheartening is that the civilian deaths mentioned in these reports will be tallied and assumed to be the extent of the murderous killing taking place in Afghanistan, however nothing could be further from the truth. The real number of civilian deaths is likely to be an order of magnitude greater than to total mentioned in these leaked documents.
What is interesting in this leak is the attention (dare I say selective) of the reports pointing the finger at Pakistani Intelligence (ISI). This isn't entirely new either. The Obama Administration has been looking for ways to broaden the war in Afghanistan since they stepped into office. Pointing the finger at the ISI is a good way to shift the blame from US or coalition forces onto another shadowy entity (ISI) that Americans know little about. Widening the scope of the war to include Pakistan seems to be on the agenda, although if this is modus operandi behind these leaks, it seems to have been done in a pretty sloppy way. Again, the UK Guardian gives a polite summary:
The miltiary's grading system offers one way of sifting the ISI file. Some 27 of the 180 reports are graded as C3 and above, meaning they come from a "fairly reliable source" and are "possibly true".
But many such reports appear highly implausible.
[...]
Apparently more credible reports of ISI skulduggery are marked SEWOC, or Signals Intelligence Electronic Warfare Operations Centre, signifying they come from intercepted communications. One SEWOC report, in December 2007, accused the ISI of deploying children as suicide bombers. But the military source said that such intelligence was also prone to distortion, and that its value depended on whose conversation was being eavesdropped.
[...]
One name that frequently surfaces is that of General Hamid Gul, director general of the ISI between 1987 and 1989, who is referenced in eight reports. One has him smuggling magnetic mines into Afghanistan to attack Nato troops; in another he is plotting to kidnap United Nations staff to bargain for imprisoned Pakistani militants. A report from January 2009 has Gul meeting Arab militants in Pakistan's tribal belt to send suicide vehicles into Afghanistan. "It was not known whether Hamid Gul was acting with the knowledge or consent of the ISI," the report states.
But while Gul, 73, is a well-known fundamentalist ideologue in Pakistan, experts say he is unlikely to play a frontline role in the fighting. Afghan informers may have used his name – he is notorious in Afghanistan – to spice up their stories, said Semple.
"There's a pattern of using a dramatis personae of famous ISI officers and Afghan commanders, and recurring reports of dramatic developments such as the delivery of surface-to-air missiles, to give these reports credibility," he said. "But most of them are simply fabricated."
Afghanistan has a long history of intelligence intrigues that stretches back to the early 19th century. Afghans have learned to use intelligence as a tool to influence the foreign powers occupying their land. In the past quarter century it has become a lucrative source of income in a country with few employment opportunities.
Since 2001 intelligence has become a tool to influence US policymakers, who enjoy the greatest military clout in the region but are poorly informed about its intricacies. The retired US officer said some NDS officials "wanted to create the impression that Pakistani complicity was a threat to the US". And more broadly speaking, "there's an Afghan prejudice that wants to see an ISI agent under every rock".[3]
Now this is starting to get interesting. The man mentioned here, General Hamid Gul did an
interview about a year ago and gave his thoughts on the Afghan war. While, he is a professional intelligence agent and it is important to take what he says with more than a few grains of salt, his assessment in the interview seems pretty level headed and he also points the finger at some pretty powerful groups; Israel's Mossad being one such group. In the interview he is asked his thoughts on the Taliban within Pakistan's northern border (the TTP).
I turned the conversation towards the consequences of the war in Afghanistan on Pakistan, and the increased extremist militant activities within his own country's borders, where the Pakistani government has been at war with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, or Pakistan Taliban). I observed that the TTP seemed well funded and supplied and asked Gul how the group obtains financing and arms.
He responded without hesitation. "Yeah, of course they are getting it from across the Durand line, from Afghanistan. And the Mossad is sitting there, RAW is sitting there - the Indian intelligence agency - they have the umbrella of the U.S. And now they have created another organization which is called RAMA. It may be news to you that very soon this intelligence agency - of course, they have decided to keep it covert - but it is Research and Analysis Milli Afghanistan. That's the name. The Indians have helped create this organization, and its job is mainly to destabilize Pakistan."[4]
Gul also describes the situation with the opium trade in Afghanistan as one of the main motivations by coalition forces to continue the war.
"Now, let me give you the history of the drug trade in Afghanistan," his answer began. "Before the Taliban stepped into it, in 1994 - in fact, before they captured Kabul in September 1996 - the drugs, the opium production volume was 4,500 tons a year. Then gradually the Taliban came down hard upon the poppy growing. It was reduced to around 50 tons in the last year of the Taliban. That was the year 2001. Nearly 50 tons of opium produced. 50. Five-zero tons. Now last year the volume was at 6,200 tons. That means it has really gone one and a half times more than it used to be before the Taliban era." He pointed out, correctly, that the U.S. had actually awarded the Taliban for its effective reduction of the drug trade. On top of $125 million the U.S. gave to the Taliban ostensibly as humanitarian aid, the State Department awarded the Taliban $43 million for its anti-drug efforts. "Of course, they made their mistakes," General Gul continued. "But on the whole, they were doing fairly good. If they had been engaged in meaningful, fruitful, constructive talks, I think it would have been very good for Afghanistan."
[…]
General Gul named the brother of President Karzai, Abdul Wali Karzai. "Abdul Wali Karzai is the biggest drug baron of Afghanistan," he stated bluntly. He added that the drug lords are also involved in arms trafficking, which is "a flourishing trade" in Afghanistan. "But what is most disturbing from my point of view is that the military aircraft, American military aircraft are also being used. You said very rightly that the drug routes are northward through the Central Asia republics and through some of the Russian territory, and then into Europe and beyond. But some of it is going directly. That is by the military aircraft. I have so many times in my interviews said, 'Please listen to this information, because I am an aware person.' We have Afghans still in Pakistan, and they sometimes contact and pass on the stories to me. And some of them are very authentic. I can judge that. So they are saying that the American military aircraft are being used for this purpose. So, if that is true, it is very, very disturbing indeed."[4]
So here we have this massive wikileak pointing a finger at a 73 year old ex ISI intelligence director who is basically saying that Mossad, among other groups, are responsible for fueling the Taliban along the Pakistan border and that the US is complicit in fueling the burgeoning Afghan drug trade. No, I can't see any reason for wanting to single this man out!
It almost reads like they want to make Gul out to be a new terrorist boogie man - on par with the late Osama Bin Laden. Perhaps they figure that they can't prop up Osama's dead corpse forever and with widening the war with Pakistan on the agenda, they need a new scratching post.
As Prouty said, telling truth from lies and fact from fiction is no easy task in the murky underworld that surrounds intelligence groups.
… In every case, the chance for complete information is very small, and the hope that in time researchers, students, and historians will be able to ferret out truth from untruth, real from unreal, and story from cover story is at best a very slim one. Certainly, history teaches us that one truth will add to and enhance another; but let us not forget that one lie added to another lie will demolish everything. This is the important point.[1]
Important point indeed, especially in light of the recent Afghan War Diaries.
References:
1.) L. Fletcher Prouty,
The Secret Team: The CIA and its Allies in Control of the United States and the World
2.) _http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/25/afghanistan-civilian-deaths-rules-engagement
3.) _http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/25/pakistan-isi-accused-taliban-afghanistan
4.) http://www.sott.net/articles/show/191238-Ex-ISI-Chief-Says-New-Afghan-Intelligence-Agency-RAMA-Created-to-destabilize-Pakistan-
