More Tools For Terrorism

This link takes you to a Daily Kos diary by the blogger “ademption” who reports on a recent interview Wolf Blitzer conducted with Sy Hersh, who wrote an article called “Up In The Air” in the most recent issue of “The New Yorker.” I just finished reading it, and all I can say is thank God that this type of reporting is still out there so we can be informed without the corporate stamp of approval we would get from other publications (subscribing to The New Yorker and dropping Time has been one of the best moves we’ve ever made).

As I read the article and had the same reaction as “ademption,” I had that feeling of “déjà vu all over again,” as Yogi Berra once said. It seemed to me that, with this current plan of helping the Iraqis to select targets for the air bombing that will escalate as our ground forces depart, we’re teaching new technologies to yet another group of people who may use it to attack us one day with it.

(I also shared the reaction of “ademption” to the news of Dubya’s isolation and retreat from reality. I try not to contemplate that too much because the implications truly are terrifying. This is more of a reason to impeach Bush now!)

Just to remind anyone who may have forgotten about the group I’m comparing the Iraqis to, here is a history lesson from the “Third World Traveller” web site.

In March 1985, the Reagan administration issued National Security Decision Directive 166,29, a secret plan to escalate covert action in Afghanistan dramatically.

Abandoning a policy of simple harassment of Soviet occupiers, the Reagan team decided secretly to let loose on the Afghan battlefield an array of U.S. high technology and military expertise in an effort to hit and demoralize Soviet commanders and soldiers.

Beginning in 1985, the CIA supplied mujahedeen rebels with extensive satellite reconnaissance data of Soviet targets on the Afghan battlefield, plans for military operations based on the satellite intelligence, intercepts of Soviet communications, secret communications networks for the rebels, delayed timing devices for tons of C-4 plastic explosives for urban sabotage, and sophisticated guerrilla attacks, long-range sniper rifles, a targeting device for mortars that was linked to a U.S. Navy satellite, wire-guided anti-tank missiles, and other equipment.

Between 1986 and 1989, the mujahedeen were also provided with more than 1,000 state-of-the-art, shoulder-fired Stinger antiaircraft missiles.

By 1987, the annual supply of arms had reached 65,000 tons, and a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and Pentagon officials were visiting Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) headquarters in Rawalpindi and helping to plan mujahedeen operations.

At any one time during the Afghan fighting season, as many as 11 ISI teams trained and supplied by the CIA accompanied mujahedeen across the border to supervise attacks, according to Yousaf and Western sources. The teams attacked airports, railroads, fuel depots, electricity pylons, bridges and roads.

CIA operations officers helped Pakistani trainers establish schools for the mujahedeen in secure communications, guerrilla warfare, urban sabotage and heavy weapons.

Although the CIA claimed that the purpose was to attack military targets, mujahedeen trained in these techniques, and using chemical and electronic-delay bomb timers supplied by the U.S., carried out numerous car bombings and assassination attacks in Kabul itself.

Somehow, I neglected to mention earlier that the person who benefited the most from acquiring all of this knowledge from us was a particular mujahedeen member, a former Saudi engineer from a prominent family named Osama bin Laden.

To be fair, I should point out that our intervention in Afghanistan officially began in 1979 under the administration of Jimmy Carter, but it escalated greatly under Reagan.

Yes, we should do whatever we can to help our people get out of there, particularly when it comes to transitioning military responsibilities. However, let’s not deceive ourselves into thinking that there will be no future cost that we will be called upon to bear for this.