Remember the Kremlin Watchers of
yore during the height of the Cold War and their
bestsellers on the "evil empire"? And the scary stories
on communism they used to disseminate, and how the
newspaper columns of those days were filled with their
analyses. And the so-called classified documents of the
Soviet state and the Communist Party to which they
managed to have access and which they used liberally in
their writings and books.
And remember a
statement made by John Major, the then British prime
minister, in the House of Commons in response to a
question in the early 1990s shortly after the USSR had
collapsed and the Cold War had ended. He admitted that
many of these best-sellers of the so-called Kremlin
watchers had been supported by the British Foreign
Office.
What Major did not admit was that many
of these Kremlin watchers and their articles and
bestsellers had been sponsored and encouraged not by the
British Foreign Office , but by the disinformation
divisions of the British Secret Intelligence Service
(SIS -MI6) and the US's Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA). These Kremlin watchers, who were the equivalent
of today's embedded terrorism analysts, lapped up
whatever was fed to them by the disinformation divisions
and made it the focus of their analyses.
Since
September 11, we have witnessed the similar emergence of
a core of al-Qaeda watchers, whose writings and scare
stories remind you disturbingly of the Kremlin watchers
of yore. If you carefully examine their writings and
books, you notice that there is a sameness in their
analyses marked by: "I scare you; you scare me; and let
us scare the world together." The more scary the
writings, the greater the number of readers and the
greater the sales of their books. They are making hay
while al-Qaeda shines.
They quote and cite each
other and it is evident that many of them use without
the least qualms of conscience details of interrogation
reports of terrorists in the custody of the US in
Guantanamo Bay, Diego Garcia and Afghanistan. They are
not disturbed by the thought that if the intelligence
agencies of the US and the UK were capable of misleading
the world with carefully disseminated disinformation
regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and
Saddam Hussein's alleged links with al-Qaeda in order to
achieve their strategic objective, they should be
equally capable of misleading the world through scary
stories on terrorism in order to achieve their strategic
objectives in different areas, which are often unrelated
to the so-called "war on terrorism".
As I read
their analyses replete with references to information
obviously obtained from interrogation reports, I am
reminded of an experience in 1992. On the orders of the
then government in New Delhi, analysts of the
intelligence community prepared a detailed collation of
intelligence relating to Pakistan's sponsorship of
terrorism against India.
When we presented our
dossier to senior officials of the US and the UK, they
rejected it without even properly examining it, on the
ground that much of the information included in our
analyses was based on reports of interrogation of
suspected terrorists in Indian police custody. They told
us self-righteously: "Interrogation reports are no
empirical evidence. The terrorists could have been
tortured in police custody." When we produced
intelligence gathered from electronic intercepts, which
corroborated the interrogation reports, they asked: "How
do we know the intercepts are genuine?"
Take the
writings and bestsellers on al-Qaeda coming from these
al-Qaeda watchers and delete all information which
appears to be based on interrogation reports as shared
by the US with the writers or as carried by Western
media. What remains which one could call empirical
evidence or the insights, results from independent
inquiries and personal experience of these watchers?
Almost nothing.
Their writings are significant
not for the questions they pose, but for those they
don't pose. How come so many so-called al-Qaeda
documents, tapes, video recordings etc were discovered
from different places in Afghanistan at the height of
the US air strikes in 2001-02 by so-called intrepid
Western journalists and not by the security forces? When
the security forces reached the spots after the bombing,
they did not discover any documents etc, but when the
journalists went there they found a treasure trove of
documents, video-recordings etc. Were these really of
al-Qaeda, or were these planted by the disinformation
division of the CIA and discovered through compliant
journalists in the hope that they would enjoy greater
credibility if "discovered" and disseminated by
journalists than if they were by the intelligence
agencies.
The world knows the kind of torture
used by the Americans on suspected terrorists in their
custody. Even the International Committee of the Red
Cross has reportedly referred to the use of torture in
Guantanamo Bay. We have seen with our own eyes on our TV
screens the kind of methods used in Iraq. How can we
uncritically accept information obtained by the
Americans through such methods?
In respect of
all the captures of terrorists after September 11 -
whether of senior al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan or of
Hambali of the Jemaah Islamiyah in Thailand or of others
in the rest of the world - the Americans or other
Western intelligence agencies arrogated to themselves
the right of first interrogation, though they were
wanted for investigation and prosecution in other
countries. In many of these instances, what the world
has is the American or British version of the
interrogation. How can we accept it without questioning
and independent verification? Is it not the duty of
these al-Qaeda watchers to caution their readers on the
need to treat the information with reserve in view of
their origin?
Look at the way many of these
al-Qaeda watchers have shifted stance since September
11. Al-Qaeda was initially projected as a monolithic
organization with a massive strength of 42,000 spread in
many countries of the world. Then they started gradually
downplaying its strength till they came down to 500. Now
we are told that it has franchised or outsourced its
tasks to indigenous organizations in a number of Islamic
countries, providing them only with ideological support.
We were told that al-Qaeda was the name of the
organization. Then we were told it is actually the name
of the pan-Islamic ideology propagated by bin Laden and
accepted by the indigenous organizations.
When
acts of jihadi terrorism continued despite US claims of
success in neutralizing many of the so-called senior
operatives of al-Qaeda, we were told by these al-Qaeda
watchers that a new generation of terrorist leaders,
more dangerous than the past leadership, has emerged.
Nightmarish scenarios of maritime terrorism by al-Qaeda
were projected before the international community. Such
projections, consciously or unwittingly, served the
American strategic objective of bulldozing the reluctant
countries of the world to accept the intrusive
proliferation security initiative and the container
security initiative.
When it was pointed out
that till now there had been only two instances of
maritime terrorism attributable to al-Qaeda - the 2000
attack on the US naval ship USS Cole and the 2002 attack
on Limburg, the French oil tanker, both off Aden - we
were told by the watchers that just because al-Qaeda has
not so far indulged in a strategic act of maritime
terrorism to disrupt world trade and oil supplies, it
does not mean it would not do so in future. Does it
require a great intellectual or analyst to say this?
Even a schoolboy in one of the lower forms would have
known this. We are now told that al-Qaeda plans its
strikes months, if not years, in advance and should,
therefore, be presumed to be planning a September 11 on
the high seas.
I listened with utter amazement
and disbelief in 2002 when, at an international seminar,
a famous American watcher projected bin Laden in terms
which would have made him blush. Many of the things,
which are being written about bin Laden and al-Qaeda by
these watchers, must be news to them. We were told that
al-Qaeda was run by bin Laden on the basis of the
principles of corporate house management and that he
himself acted like a modern chief executive officer of a
private company. My foot.
I have expressed my
doubts whether bin Laden himself called his organization
al-Qaeda. The only name which he once used in
February,1998, is the International Islamic Front (IIF).
He has since stopped using that name too. He refers to
his followers in different countries simply as the
mujahideen. Recently, however, terrorists in Saudi
Arabia and Iraq have identified themselves as members of
al-Qaeda.
Once I asked a well-informed Pakistani
whether bin Laden called his organization al-Qaeda. He
replied: "No. The Americans first called it al-Qaeda. It
sounded sexy and made an impact on the minds of the
Muslim masses. So they, too, started calling themselves
al-Qaeda."
To my knowledge (I would be happy to
stand corrected, if wrong) most of the jihadi terrorist
organizations, which have been active for many years
now, came into existence long before bin Laden made his
appearance in Afghanistan in 1996. They did not owe
their existence or their following and capability in
their respective areas of operation to him. His
contribution was to bring them together in the IIF and
make them accept his pan-Islamic ideology and focus
their campaign against the Americans and the Jewish
people, whatever be their national objective.
Al-Qaeda, by whatever name it is called, exists.
Bin Laden and his followers and the jihadi terrorist
organizations supporting him continue to pose a serious
threat to peace and security and to the lives of
millions of innocent civilians all over the world. They
are ruthless and prepared to use any means to kill and
disrupt normal life.
While continuing to be on
guard against them and counter their activities, we
should avoid over-projecting them, which would only play
into their hands. We should maintain the independence of
our judgement and should not allow it to be distorted by
the analyses and projections of analysts playing the
American game.
Beware of al-Qaeda, but equally
beware of al-Qaeda watchers.
B Raman
is additional secretary (retired), cabinet secretariat,
government of India, New Delhi, and, presently,
director, Institute for Topical studies, Chennai, and
distinguished fellow and convenor, Observer Research
Foundation (ORF), Chennai Chapter. Email:
corde@vsnl.com
