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Charlie's war, act
two
By William Fisher
NEW YORK - Today's media have all but
forgotten that the emergence of Afghanistan's
Taliban can be largely attributed to the policies
of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a
hard-drinking, party-loving Texas congressman who
helped funnel billions of dollars in arms to
"freedom fighters" like Osama bin Laden and
Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
In the 1980s,
Charles Wilson, a colorful and powerful Democrat
from the East Texas Bible Belt, was a member of a
Congressional appropriations sub-committee. From
that position of power he funneled billions of
dollars in secret funding to the CIA, which used
the money to purchase weapons to help the
mujahideen drive the Soviet Union out of
Afghanistan.
In those days, the mujahideen
were viewed by the US as "freedom fighters" and
were so-named by then-president Ronald Reagan, who
praised them for "defending principles of
independence and freedom that form the basis of
global security and stability".
In that
Cold War environment, chasing the Russians out of
the country trumped all other considerations.
Among the weapons funded by Congress were hundreds
of Stinger missile systems that mujahideen forces
used to counter the Russians' lethal Mi-24 Hind
helicopter gunships.
And there were also
tens of thousands of automatic weapons, antitank
guns, and satellite intelligence maps. According
to author George Crile, Wilson even brought his
own belly dancer from Texas to Cairo to entertain
the Egyptian defense minister, who was secretly
supplying the mujahideen with millions of rounds
of ammunition for the AK-47s the CIA was smuggling
into Afghanistan.
From a few million
dollars in the early 1980s, support for the
resistance grew to about $750 million a year by
the end of the decade. Decisions were made in
secret by Wilson and other lawmakers on the
appropriations committee.
To help make his
case, Wilson exploited one of the decade's
scandals, the Iran-Contra affair, arguing that
Democrats who were voting to cut off funding for
the Contras in Nicaragua could demonstrate their
willingness to stand up to the Soviet empire by
approving more money for the Afghan fighters.
Many Muslims from other countries
volunteered to assist various mujahideen groups in
Afghanistan, and gained significant experience in
guerrilla warfare. Some of these veterans have
been significant factors in more recent conflicts
in and around the Muslim world.
The effort
was successful. On February 15, 1989, General
Boris Gromov, commander of the Soviets' 40th Army,
walked across Friendship Bridge as the last
Russian to leave Afghanistan. The CIA cable from
its Islamabad station to the agency's headquarters
said, "We won." Wilson's own note said simply, "We
did it."
Pakistan's president at the time,
General Zia ul-Haq, who had allowed the weapons to
move through his country on CIA-purchased mules,
credited Wilson with the defeat of the Russians in
Afghanistan. "Charlie did it," he said.
Thus, the largest covert operation in CIA
history ended with Russia's humiliating withdrawal
from Afghanistan.
But in Charlie
Wilson's War (2003 Grove/Atlantic), Crile
notes that the US-financed war against the Soviets
in Afghanistan also helped create the political
vacuum that was filled by the Taliban and Islamic
extremists, who turned their deadly terrorism
against the US on September 11.
After the
Soviet withdrawal, the CIA tried to buy back the
weapons they had supplied, but were largely
unsuccessful.
Until Wilson's retirement
from the House in 1996, he enjoyed a reputation as
a relentless womanizer, perpetual partier and
borderline drunk.
But Wilson's
questionable reputation proved to be a brilliant
cover for his passionate anti-communism. He was
also an ambitious politician, perfectly willing to
vote for military contracts in his colleagues'
districts in return for votes to support the
mujahideen.
When the Soviet Union pulled
its troops out, however, the mujahideen could not
establish a united government and its members
broke into several factions. In the ensuing bloody
civil war for control of the country, the
squabbling mujahideen were ousted from power by
the Taliban in 1996.
The mujahideen
regrouped as the Northern Alliance and in 2001,
with US and international military aid, ousted the
Taliban and formed a new government.
A
wealthy Saudi named Osama bin Laden was a
prominent mujahideen organizer and financier; his
Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK, meaning Office of
Services) funneled money, arms and Muslim fighters
from around the world into Afghanistan, with the
assistance and support of the US, Pakistani and
Saudi governments. Bin Laden broke away from the
MAK in 1988, and the rest, as they say, is
history.
In the US invasion of Afghanistan
following September 11 - to hunt down bin Laden -
the Taliban theocracy was effectively defeated -
or at least dispersed. But its remnants
nevertheless continue to battle the US and its
coalition partners, and spell trouble for the
fragile government of US-backed President Hamid
Karzai, which is struggling to deal with the
fragmented, warlord-based nature of Afghan society
and the devastation of years of war and
deprivation.
In the 1980s, opposition to
the Soviet Union and communism was widespread
among the US public. But many believe the Wilson
story is a perfect illustration of good intentions
resulting in bad consequences.
Wilson's
war succeeded in leading to the conditions for the
arming of the very people responsible for the
terrorist attacks in the US on September 11, and
who now shoot at US and coalition troops.
Professor Abdullahi An-Naim of Emory
University Law School, told Inter Press Service,
"Good intentions are not good enough, and we
should always be humble and accept the possibility
of being wrong. The lesson of the law of
'unintended consequences' of our previous policies
is to realize in our current policies that ends
never justify the means.
"Pragmatic
reasons for any policy must always be consistent
with moral rationale. If bad means appear to
achieve good ends in the short term, then it is
simply that we have failed to appreciate the real
costs which in fact outweigh the presumed
benefits."
According to a review of
Crile's book on the Acorn, a popular Indian blog,
"Charlie Wilson's most dangerous legacy is a
nuclear-armed Pakistan brought about by US
governments closing one eye on Pakistan's covert
nuclear program in the 1980s. By the way, Charlie
Wilson's PR firm is still retained by the Pakistan
government to lobby its interests in Washington,"
the article concludes.
(Inter Press
Service) |
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