         |
|
||||
| Writings: Essays | |||||
|
"The CIA not only helped train and equip the mujahedeen to fight the then Soviet Union but “taught bin Laden and his associates a host of skills, including how to move money to fund their operations from country to country.” (Pallo Jordan: November 6 2001)."
|
Operation Freedom or Modern Day Colonisation Story? Seeking More of the Truth post September 11 Please Note: Mention in this essay of the United States or US is in reference to the United States Government and its primary decision makers, and not the American people who by and large are not included in major governmental and military decision making processes. The official reason for the current war on terrorism is that it is a necessary battle defending freedom and democracy, protecting the lives of Americans and their allies from potential future attacks. (Bush Address: Sep 20 2001). However to many people around the globe who have been touched by the hand of this ruling global power it is yet another display of the United States exercising its military might over a country with the kind of behaviour that arguably offers a possible motive for the September 11 attack. All the while they are justifying their actions with reasons that seem increasingly questionable. Further investigation of the background behind the attack, and an exploration of the historical context, particularly regarding US involvement in the Afghan war with the Soviet Union in the 1980’s, raise further questions as to the underlying motives behind their current and past actions. The September 11 attack on America was allegedly planned and perpetrated by a “collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda” (Bush Address: September 20 2001). According to US President George W Bush their goal is to ‘remake the world’, “imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.” (Bush Address: September 20 2001). In his post-attack Address to the Nation, President Bush identified the leader of al Qaeda as “a person named Osama bin Laden”. What Bush neglected to mention in his speech is that bin Laden was a one time ally of the United States, receiving “security training from the CIA itself”, according to Middle Eastern analyst Hazhir Teimourian (BBC: September 18 2001). Bin Laden is an immensely wealthy man thanks to the multi-billion dollar bin Laden family business started by his father. Incidentally and interestingly, George W Bush Senior, an ex-President and former Director of the CIA, and other prominent Republicans work for the bin Laden family through their international consulting firm the Carlyle Group, of which the bin Laden family are major investors. (Judicial Watch: September 28 2001). Perhaps driven by a more hands-on higher calling, bin Laden left his native Saudi Arabia in 1979 to deliver arms and aid to Afghanistan in support of their fight against the Soviet invasion. The fight was backed by the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The CIA’s “military and financial support for the Afghan rebels indirectly helped build the camps” that ironically the US are now bombing (Weiner: August 24 1998). As a result of the Soviet occupation bin Laden opened a guesthouse in Peshawar, Pakistan, “a stopping-off point for Arab mujahedeen (holy warriors)” (BBC: September 18 2001). Eventually, their numbers became so large that bin Laden built camps for them inside Afghanistan. He gave the umbrella group for his guesthouse and camps a name: al-Qaeda, Arabic for "the base". (BBC: September 18 2001). From these camps the mujahedeen kept up a ‘decadelong siege’ of the Soviet-supported garrison town of Khost. Milt Bearden, the man who ran the CIA’s side of the war from 1986-1989, describes Khost as the “most fiercely contested piece of real estate in the 10-year Afghan war” (Weiner: August 24 1998). This area holds a set of six encampments. US officials now refer to this area as a kind of “terrorist university” (Weiner: August 24 1998) preparing mujahedeen for jihad or ‘holy war’ against the US and its allies. However the US previously recognised them as ally training camps. Here the mujahedeen were trained by the CIA who were keen to teach Afghans ‘the techniques of urban terrorism...so that they could strike at the Russians in major towns.” Here they “learned to make bombs with CIA-supplied plastic explosives and detonators.” (Pallo Jordan: November 6 2001). William Casey, then Director of the CIA, made a secret visit to these training camps in 1984, proposing that they take the Afghan war into enemy territory - into the Soviet Union itself. 'We can do a lot of damage to the Soviet Union,' Casey said, according to Mohammed Yousaf, a Pakistani general who attended the meeting. (Pallo Jordan: November 6 2001). According to Western officials, Casey's visit was a “prelude to a secret Reagan administration decision in March 1985 to sharply escalate U.S. covert action in Afghanistan.” (Pallo Jordan: November 6 2001). The Reagan team decided secretly to blast the battlefield with “an array of U.S. high technology and military expertise in an effort to hit and demoralize Soviet commanders and soldiers.” The goal being to strike at an “overextended, potentially vulnerable Soviet empire." (Pallo Jordan: November 6 2001). Many analysts of US foreign policy and investigators of hidden motives behind US involvement in conflict, believe that Osama bin Laden and his network of mujahedeen are largely “a creation of the virulently anti-Communist elements in the U.S. establishment” (Pallo Jordan: November 6 2001), suiting their mainly secret purposes. The US have plenty of motive for their enthusiastic encouragement against the Soviet, including financial, military, geographical and political. Russia is “spectacularly large, with incalculable wealth, mostly untapped”. (Israel, Rozoff & Varkevisser: September 18 2001). They are also the only “world-class nuclear power besides the U.S. Contrary to popular opinion, Russia’s military might have not been destroyed.” (Israel, Rozoff & Varkevisser: September 18 2001). Geographically it borders Turkey and the Balkans, the edge of Asia, and Mongolia and China. Under NATO’s current doctrine, they are allowed to intervene in states bordering NATO members, so it is in their great interest to gain control of certain territories and thus make them members. According to the article by Israel, Rozoff and Varkevisser, ‘Why Washington wants Afghanistan’, “If the US can break up Russia and the other former Soviet Republics into weak territories, dominated by NATO, Washington would have a free hand to exploit Russia’s great wealth and do whatever it wanted elsewhere without fear of Russian power.” The CIA not only helped train and equip the mujahedeen to fight the then Soviet Union but “taught bin Laden and his associates a host of skills, including how to move money to fund their operations from country to country.” (Pallo Jordan: November 6 2001). Milt Bearden admits that “bin Laden brought in $20-$25 million per month (during the Afghan war)....and that is a lot of money.” Relations between bin Laden and the US turned sour once the Soviet finally withdrew, and he “quickly became disillusioned by the lack of recognition for his achievements.” (BBC: September 18 2001). This turned to anger during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, when he offered to defend Saudi Arabia with his army of mujahedeen. His offer was turned down, and instead “half a million US soldiers were invited onto Saudi soil.” This was seen as “ a historic betrayal in bin Laden’s eyes”. (BBC: September 18 2001). Bin Laden began to direct his efforts “against the US and its allies in the Middle East” (BBC: September 19 2001) including his home country Saudi Arabia. In 1991 he was stripped of his Saudi citizenship, and supposedly disowned by his family. Bin Laden based himself in Sudan for the next five years, however US pressure forced the Sudanese Government to expel him, and in 1996 he was taken in by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. In 1998 he issued a fatwah (religious ruling) against the US, declaring jihad. The Taliban was originally an “anti-modernist rebellion against a left-wing government”, armed and inspired by it’s “US New Right” allies (Pallo Jordan: November 6 2001). Z. Pallo Jordan, Member of Parliament for the African National Congress, has uncovered a “remarkable convergence of views” between the Taliban and the US New Right, including a “fundamentalist reading” of their respective scriptures, “opposition to women controlling their own fertility”, “restoration of patriarchal values in the family” and a “retributive penal system and the death penalty”. The view of Israel, Rozoff and Varkevisser, supported by many observers from the region, is that “Washington ordered Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to fund the Taliban so the Taliban could do a job: consolidate control over Afghanistan and ...destabilize the former Soviet Central Asian Republics on its borders.” However, the Taliban has failed, and it is a widely held belief that the September 11 attack has given veto to the US to kick out the incompetent Taliban and carry out their plans themselves, under the guise of “Operation Freedom”. Israel, Rozoff and Varkevisser report that Afghanistan is strategically placed, sharing borders with the Central Asian Republics of the former Soviet Union. Those in turn border Kazakhstan which borders Russia. They believe that Central Asia is strategic not only for its vast deposits of oil, but more important for its strategic position. “If the US had control over these republics NATO would have military bases in the following key areas: the Baltic region, the Balkans and Turkey, and these Republics, effectively constituting a noose around Russia’s neck.” To support the view that the US has ulterior motives with their bombing of Afghanistan one only has to look at the facts. Bombing has continued for a month without any resulting arrests or capture of alleged terrorists. There has only been destruction of homes, electrical and water plants, two Red Cross Hospitals, and the murder, or “collateral damage”, of an as yet unconfirmed number of innocent people including Afghan citizens and four UN workers. Former NATO supreme commander, military analyst for CNN and retired Army General Wesley Clark explains that the US need to continue the bombing until they have destroyed the Taliban’s control, and in the words of George W Bush ‘smoked Osama bin Laden out of his cave’. However, bin Laden and the mujahedeen are survivors and experts of their terrain. The nine-year occupation by the Soviets demonstrated that “neither carpet bombing nor commandos drove the Afghan holy warriors from the mountains.” The Soviets “threw almost every weapon (they) had, short of nuclear bombs, at the Afghan camps” and failed to defeat them. (Weiner: August 24 1998). So what are the US trying to achieve with a bombing campaign that is into its fifth week at time of writing? If this truly is a war on terrorism, why is their sole target Afghanistan? According to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld there is evidence of terrorist cells in “up to 60 countries” (Israel, Rozoff & Varkevisser: September 18 2001) including the United States. Why are they not bombing themselves if their true purpose is to ‘flush out’ terrorists and those countries who harbour them? Why is so much money and man-power being spent on terrorising Afghanistan, a country that has already been impoverished by a decade worth of fighting? Meanwhile, the countries who “collaborated to create the Taliban” and continue to pour financial aid into their coffers, who “trained and financed” the mujahedeen, namely Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States itself have not been placed on the “we’ve got to get them” list (Israel, Rozoff & Varkevisser: September 18 2001). Is the campaign really for the sake of catching one man, who by the US’s own admission never spends more than two nights in the one place? Intelligence officials also admitted years ago that his communications infrastructure is “based on portable satellite telephones not a centralized command-and-control system that can be destroyed with a missile” (Weiner: August 24 1998). Is this really a war on terrorism or a war of terrorism? Are we watching yet another edition of the United States’ colonization story, the modern version? Bob Djurdjevic, founder of Truth in Media.Org concurs with this theory and the ideas expressed by Israel, Rozoff & Varkevisser, writing “The new world order exports a neo-colonialism under the guise of democracy and nation-building.” (Djurdjevic: Feb 1 1998). Djurdjevic believes the US have a foreign policy that runs along the lines of “First destroy them, then take over and rebuild them”. (Djurdjevic: February 1 1998). He views the US and its “New World Order” allies as “industrial-financial elite enriching themselves on the backs of other fellow-humans’ pain and suffering.” (Djurdjevic: February 1 1998). Wall Street Journal commentator Max Boot also remarks on the similarities between current events and the colonial campaigns of the 19th century by “self-confident Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets”. He notes that in the 1990’s East Timor, Cambodia, Kosovo and Bosnia all became “wards of the international community” (Cambodia only temporarily). (Boot: October 15 2001). Boot writes that “unilateral US rule may no longer be an option...but the US can lead an international occupation force under UN auspices, with the cooperation of some Muslim nations.” He sees this move as an improvement for lands like Afghanistan and Iraq. Boot justifies this saying “unlike the 19th century European colonists, US rule should not be imposed permanently.” According to Boot’s theory, occupation would allow for the people to ‘get back on their feet’ until a “responsible, human, preferably democratic government takes over”. This however isn’t compatible with past US interventions. In the 1950’s in Iran the US helped depose a democratically elected government that was threatening western oil profits. In the 1970’s CIA operatives helped overthrow a democratically elected leader in Chile, creating the Chilean people’s long nightmare of Pinochet’s rule. In 1998 NATO helped usher in newly “elected” Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik, ‘whose party had won only 2 out of the 83 seats in the Bosnian Serb Republic’s parliament’ in elections allegedly engineered by NATO. Meanwhile disenfranchising ‘60% of the electorate’ who had voted for the two Serbian nationalist parties. (Djurdjevic: February 1 1998). The US was also in opposition to the late 1970’s left-wing government in Afghanistan, led by Babrak Karmal, who aimed to bring his country to the standards of the rest of Asia. Karmal’s goals included the building of modern schools, the secularization of society and the construction of modern infrastructure, ‘ending Afghanistan’s isolation and narrowing the distance between it’s people and the modern era’. (Pallo Jordan: November 6 2001). Karmal had the support of the Soviet Union, and his close association with it led to a cycle of “murderous coups”. It was in the wake of a counter-coup that the Soviets intervened in support of Karmal. The US have proven time and again that neither democratically elected governments nor the desires of a nation’s people are upheld or respected by them if they conflict with their own aims. Sanctions imposed by the United States in Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, Somalia and Sudan have resulted in millions of deaths. Ironically, President Bush has told the American public that the terrorists “hate us” because of “our freedoms”, because of “our democratically elected government”, and because their own leaders are “self-appointed” (the words self-appointed are arguable in light of evidence supporting US involvement in instating the Taliban and aiding the removal of Karmal). In ways he is right. It makes sense that these are partly the reasons the ‘terrorists’ so hate the US. The US represents modernity, freedom and democracy, all the things that they and so many other countries do not have. However what Bush failed to say is that many people believe these things have been denied them, or taken from them, due to either direct or indirect US involvement, and understandably there is only so long such resentment and repression can last without an explosion. US occupation and intervention in a country should be strongly questioned, particularly where their actions are serving their own interests rather than the interests of the people they claim to be defending. This is a time in history where it is becoming more and more difficult to hide any secret agendas as the technology of the internet allows us to attempt to uncover their real actions and motives, and share this information with others. As global citizens, it is our responsibility to stay vigilant, to question actions that clearly violate the rights of innocent people, and to hold those accountable who continue to pursue their goals even if it means destroying people’s lives to do so. On the surface the events of September 11 may seem as if they are a random attack by a group of extremist radicals. However when exploring the issue further, and uncovering some of the historical background leading up to the current events, it is clear that US foreign policy and their tendency to become involved in the majority of global conflicts, namely in this case the Afghan war, uncovers perhaps some explanation for the attack. It also raises questions as to the underlying purpose and motives behind this tendency, and behind their actions, both past and current. If indeed they are endeavouring to increase their stranglehold on the world’s nations in a modern-day colonisation story, it would be wise to heed the words of anti-New World Order activist Bob Djurdjevic, “If we don’t speak up now against such a New World Order....when we hear a bell toll, we should know that it tolls for thee.....it will toll for you and I and our lost liberty and national sovereignty.” Bibliography
|
||||
 |
|||||
| © Copyright 2006 Dana. Site Development + Design: Lelfly | |||||
