Allies or Enemies – Part II

by Jack Lee

A leaked NATO report includes claims by insurgents that the Taliban continues to work closely with Pakistan’s spy service and is poised to regain control of Afghanistan once Western forces withdraw, British news organizations reported.

The classified report’s authenticity was confirmed Wednesday by spokesmen for NATO-led forces in Kabul. But the military officials cautioned that the document — said to be based on 27,000 separate interrogations of 4,000 captured insurgents — is essentially a summary of what the detainees said, not a corroboration of their views.

We’ve known about this Taliban connection since the Russian’s were in Afghanistan ( 1979-88 ). The Taliban didn’t even exist until the Pakistani ISI or Inter-Services Intelligence created them to fight the Soviets. They have been providing training, money and weapons to the Taliban ever since.

Pakistan has a split personality: They have, with some reservation, helped the US take out Al Qaeda terrorists and training camps located near the Afghan border inside Pakistan, but only when it suits their purpose, but they still keep their “offspring” the Taliban supplied.

When 9/11 happened, President Bush gave his famous speech where he declared open season on the “friends of terrorists” and Pakistan’s regime decided they better respect America’s power and they wisely declared “We’re with you!” but, it was more out of self preservation than anything love for us or justice for terrorists.

However, in reality they were really never quite with us. They continued to play both sides. This was due mostly because a majority of their population are strongly anti-US and just as strongly, pro-Taliban. We can thank the Islamic Wahhabi style schools in Pakistan for creating a large part of this indoctrinated attitude. So it was a precarious role for Pakistan’s government.

Pakistan was playing both sides and hoping to buy time for stability.

The duality of serving two masters proved too difficult for Gen. Pervez Musharraf (President/Prime Minister). He genuinely wanted to fight the growing terrorism by radicals inside his own country and he became too close to the Americans for his own good. He was eventually impeached in 2009 and replaced by President Zardari and a new parliament in 2010, under the pretext of restoring order. The term restoring order was actually an effort to appease Pakistan’s growing militant Muslims. This has degraded US-Pakistan relations almost to the point where we really have no relationship, except for the millions of aide money we still provide them.

(Davis shown on left soon after his arrest) The CIA had been working with India’s intelligence service and it was strongly suspected that the ISI was responsible for the recent terrorists bombings and murder rampages inside India, including the Mumbai bombings. CIA’s counter-terrorism expert and field agent, Raymond Davis, was working out of the US Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capitol. His inquiries into the Mumbai attack was becoming known to the ISI and the agents who helped plan it. If Davis exposed them it could be a disaster on many levels for Pakistan, not to mention those directly involved in the conspiracy to commit terrorism.

Raymond Davis had to be neutralized.

The order was given from on high, presumably within the top ranks of the ISI or higher… take him out! The plan was to make it look like a robbery gone bad. On the afternoon of January 27th Davis was driving through the city of Lahore when two men, armed with hand guns, drove up next to him on a motorcycle. They tried to force him to pull over,

unfortunately the exact details of what happened next are still sketchy. But, we do know an exchange of gunfire erupted and the two armed men were shot dead by Davis.

Davis immediately called for an extraction vehicle and specially armored SUV sped his way. They too were intercepted and a 3rd Pakistani was killed, this part is rarely mentioned. Davis was grabbed by the police before the rescue vehicle arrived.

Despite having diplomatic immunity the Pakistani’s held Davis in isolation for nearly a year. The U.S. has since determined that the Pakistani’s that were killed were working as agents for the ISI. As noted in the previous part I, Allies or Enemies, we paid a bribe to get him out.

The report released yesterday confirms what Davis had suspected all along, the ISI were definitely working with terrorists and the Taliban and if this was true, then its quite probable the information he had on them being behind the Mumbai attack was true. But, it didn’t stop there, this would also connect Pakistan to a series of bombings inside Kabul during the last 3 years.

The US is not ready to write off Pakistan as an enemy nation, so we still play the game, pretending they are our friends in this so-called war on terrorism. In the process we use them and they take our money. It’s a stupid charade because there is no end to this game. While the deception goes on, we’re creating many more enemies than we eliminate.