Peter Chamberlin
With a welcome return of their last military dictator, the politicians of Pakistan are playing the roles assigned them, helping the CIA reform its corrupt image and the Pakistani people to forget all of their own Establishment’s previous lies. The “Islamist” politicians, along with all of the co-opted religious and secular wannabes, are all singing the same CIA-written song, dancing to the latest tunes being piped by the American pipers, agreeing to whatever it takes to throw open the doors of the country to an American re-invasion, in order to receive another thirty years of American and Arab largesse. The Pak politicians are tasked with a dual dilemma–not only are they faced with winning their chosen electoral contests, but they must do so in ways which help the American overlords to overcome the immediate hurdles which have been mistakenly erected, in order to resume total CIA control of Pakistani politics.
In the American view, the next Pak leaders will have to fill Zardari’s shoes, ready to effectively become Washington’s next puppets, fully prepared to parrot all of the latest lies, taking America’s side against any unanticipated Army roadblocks. (Most, if not all, of those roadblocks have been erected because of inter-Army miscalculations, or because of the bloodthirsty zeal of the CIA in eliminating its old terrorist-trainees.) Like Zardari, the new incumbants too, must be willing and able to help the Pentagon psywar masters (by helping the ISI), as they submit to becoming the next generation of fake adversaries to the Pakistani generals, who are the fake adversaries to America’s generals. Like Zardari, they must be ready to publicly take the American side and symbolically oppose the Army in future pretend confrontations between the two armies, across the Durand Line. The only differences between the Pakistani and the American generals are pseudo-differences that have been manufactured for the benefit of the American and Pakistani publics, pure psychological warfare, intended to manipulate popular opinion to accept the latest lies.
The latest installment of these serial lies comes from the CIA’s principle “mouthpiece,” the NY Times. The bastards at Langley want everybody to get past popular outrage over the illegal, extremely unethical, drone assassination program, before it ends-up in the courts, or the UN Security Council. Their desire is that everyone simply continues to passively accept these acts of American and Pakistani state terrorism, helping both peoples, as well as the court of world opinion, to get past the rapidly-building popular outrage over collateral deaths and the apparent abrogation by UAV of Pakistani sovereignty. The CIA/Times is hoping to ease that transition in popular opinion, with their so-called “investigative report,” which effectively rewrites the history of the first murder by drone, the assassination of Nek Muhammad, while he slept soundly in his own bed in Wana. Most drone murders have taken place at night, a pattern of merciless brutality, set by US Special Forces and their murderous night raids.
The CIA/Times is seeking to buttress the lie that the drones have always operated in Pakistan by mutual consent, a precedent-setting Army to Army compromise, which has cleared the way for heavily armed UAV drones to kill militant adversaries of the CIA all over the world. when, In reality, Musharraf surrendered control over Pakistan’s sovereignty when he asked Bush to kill Nek Muhammad for him. Since then, there have been no other known cases of the Pentagon or the CIA willingly using their drones to eliminate any of the malicious “miscreants” of Pakistan. (Baitullah Mehsud was mistakenly killed as a result of ISI cunning in their manipulation of CIA spies on the ground in S. Waziristan, accomplished by tricking one of them into planting an American tracking chip on Baitullah. The CIA did not consciously kill the Mehsud warlord.)
Even though Musharraf consciously surrendered every Pakistani citizens’ right to be safe from foreign airborne assault in exchange for that one militant kill and Bush obtained those coveted basing and overflight rights for America’s drones, there was no agreement made for Pakistani compliance with American demands for military operations in FATA. The Pakistani dictator decided to follow the pacification through development plan put forth by the Army negotiator of the Shakai agreement, Peshawar Corps Commander Lt-Gen Safdar Hussain (the man who praised Baitullah Mehsud in 2005). His plan hinged upon militant cooperation with the government campaign to get all foreign fighters registered, in a reconciliation/amnesty program.
The registration of foreigners was also the “fly in the ointment” of the Shakai Agreement, the element which neither side would compromise on (SEE: No deal on foreigners’ registration: Nek Muhammad). Pakistan’s security operations have hence proceeded to fulfill their promises of Waziristan development, while they sought-out a militant element amenable to their plans. America’s plans have all been focused upon overcoming Pakistan’s plans for militant “reconciliation, primarily by killing all the identifiable militant leaders who are considered to be cooperative with the Pak Army.
Nek Muhammad was a teenager in Wana, during the epoch anti-Soviet jihad, when the town was swarming with CIA and ISI agents. In the early 1980s, during Nek’s formative years, Wana served as the staging area for mujahedeen attacks into Afghanistan. Nek ran a store owner in Wana, where he operated within this world of covert operations, accommodating all sides of the burgeoning resistance. After the Soviets were forced-out, he was enlisted in the Taliban war against the Northern Alliance, where he earned enormous Pashtun respect as a fierce, fearless fighter. After the Taliban victory, he returned to Wana, where he built a very large militant following, based upon his exploits in Afghanistan, taking advantage of his historical ties to both intelligence agencies.
When the Taliban began to regroup in Waziristan in 2003, Nek Muhammad rejoined the Afghan mujahedeen, taking his forces to war against the American occupiers of Afghanistan. When “Busharraf” sent his forces into Wana, in an attempt to block Nek from his anti-American “jihad,” Nek fought the Pak Army to a standstill, finally ending the contest with the “Shakhai Agreement.” That was the moment that Wana’s real troubles began, and the moment when Nek Muhammad’s death warrant was signed. Musharraf’s choice to stray from the American-written script for Pakistan, by pursuing peace treaties with militants, instead of total war within the Tribal Regions, inspired the CIA to begin a campaign of leader assassinations. The American intent was to kill every Pakistani militant leader who makes peace with the Pak Army, in effect, forging a determined plan to sabotage all of Pakistan’s ill-advised peace efforts.
Where the Pentagon/CIA was determined to eliminate all “Taliban” and “al-Qaeda” within Pakistan, Musharraf managed to shift the debate with Washington by calling the Uzbeks around Wana, “al-Qaeda. Using this approach, Mush was able to enlist the support of the local tribes in a manhunt to find and eliminate the trouble-making “foreign militants,” reporting all of those foreign militants who were killed or captured as “al-Qaeda.” This enabled Musharraf to buy enough time and assistance from Washington attempt to recapture the tribal agreement signed at Shakhai, by fulfilling the promised economic development program as the basis for a agency-wide reconciliation agreement. The problem with this approach is that the Americans keep killing the militant leaders like Mullah Nazir who work with Pakistan on this futile plan for peace (SEE: India/Pakistani Detente’ Went Into the Ground with Mullah Nazir).
In the end, one side will triumph completely–Either Obama will turn America away from his present murderous path, or the new Pakistani government will turn Pakistan back into the totally, submissive American slave that Washington is used to ordering around.
therearenosunglasses@hotmail.com
A Secret Deal on Drones, Sealed in Blood
Nek Muhammad, center, was a Pashtun militant who was killed in 2004, in the first C.I.A. drone strike in Pakistan.
By MARK MAZZETTI
Nek Muhammad knew he was being followed.
“On a hot day in June 2004, the Pashtun tribesman was lounging inside a mud compound in South Waziristan, speaking by satellite phone to one of the many reporters who regularly interviewed him on how he had fought and humbled Pakistan’s army in the country’s western mountains. He asked one of his followers about the strange, metallic bird hovering above him.
Less than 24 hours later, a missile tore through the compound, severing Mr. Muhammad’s left leg and killing him and several others, including two boys, ages 10 and 16. A Pakistani military spokesman was quick to claim responsibility for the attack, saying that Pakistani forces had fired at the compound.
That was a lie.
Mr. Muhammad and his followers had been killed by the C.I.A., the first time it had deployed a Predator drone in Pakistan to carry out a “targeted killing.” The target was not a top operative of Al Qaeda, but a Pakistani ally of the Taliban who led a tribal rebellion and was marked by Pakistan as an enemy of the state. In a secret deal, the C.I.A. had agreed to kill him in exchange for access to airspace it had long sought so it could use drones to hunt down its own enemies.
That back-room bargain, described in detail for the first time in interviews with more than a dozen officials in Pakistan and the United States, is critical to understanding the origins of a covert drone war that began under the Bush administration, was embraced and expanded by President Obama, and is now the subject of fierce debate. The deal, a month after a blistering internal report about abuses in the C.I.A.’s network of secret prisons, paved the way for the C.I.A. to change its focus from capturing terrorists to killing them, and helped transform an agency that began as a cold war espionage service into a paramilitary organization.
The C.I.A. has since conducted hundreds of drone strikes in Pakistan that have killed thousands of people, Pakistanis and Arabs, militants and civilians alike. While it was not the first country where the United States used drones, it became the laboratory for the targeted killing operations that have come to define a new American way of fighting, blurring the line between soldiers and spies and short-circuiting the normal mechanisms by which the United States as a nation goes to war.
Neither American nor Pakistani officials have ever publicly acknowledged what really happened to Mr. Muhammad — details of the strike that killed him, along with those of other secret strikes, are still hidden in classified government databases. But in recent months, calls for transparency from members of Congress and critics on both the right and left have put pressure on Mr. Obama and his new C.I.A. director, John O. Brennan, to offer a fuller explanation of the goals and operation of the drone program, and of the agency’s role.”
Peter Chamberlin can be reached at therearenosunglasses@hotmail.com
Peter’s blog: http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com