by Dennis Green
Only glancingly alluded to by President Obama in his speech at West Point last week was the U.S. War in Pakistan. It isn’t talked about openly, because it’s being carried out by the CIA and private contractor BlackWater in a covert operation involving tracking al Qaeda and Taliban leaders and assassinating them with Predator drones.
Of course, our CIA has conducted many secret and covert operations in other countries over the years — in El Salvador, Columbia, Peru, Libya and even in Iran. Rarely are these ops unknown or ignored by the “host” countries, but no matter how much they protest, we simply deny the mission ever existed.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently visited Pakistan, and was sorely taken to task by questions from her audience members about those drone attacks. Several speakers told her that the killing of innocent civilians by those drones has many Pakistanis very upset and angry with the U.S. Her response: “Well, I can’t talk about those specifics, but we all know that we’re at war…”
If al Qaeda and the Taliban are now in western Pakistan, why don’t we simply send in our troops and openly bombard them from the air? Well, we haven’t been invited in, and Pakistan has nukes, so we tend to respect their sovereignty, as we didn’t respect the sovereignty of Afghanistan or Iraq. After all, we weren’t invited to invade those countries either.
Aye, there’s the rub. We tell Iran it can’t have nukes, but they know full well they are more vulnerable to being attacked by the U.S. or by Israel if they don’t get nuclear weapons. That’s the contradiction in non-proliferation — it’s a loser’s game.
And under the Bush Administration, the CIA was very active in Iran, encouraging insurgency groups, funding opposition to the regime, spying on Iranian incursions into Iraq or the shipments of arms to Iraqi insurgents. Some of this intelligence was leaked to the press, and at least one in-depth article about U.S. attempts at regime change in Iran was printed in the New Yorker Magazine, June, 2008 by Seymour Hersh.
These charges were denied by the Bush Administration and by Fox News, but the Hersh report cites many sources, and explains that Iranian belligerence toward the U.S. was inspired in large part by such covert CIA operations, viewed as part of long-standing interference in their internal affairs going back to the U.S. support of the Shah. Likewise, an important alliance with Pakistan is now threatened by such covert operations there. Among the various intelligence organizations worldwide, the American CIA is regarded as one of the most clumsy and inept at gaining “human” intelligence, or in keeping its covert operations truly covert.
Any kid knows that “Do as I say, not as I do,” doesn’t cut it in the real world of honorable or moral actions. And yet, that’s been American foreign policy for many years. Respect our sovereignty, but to hell with yours! But the CIA and Pentagon are so entrenched in our government, society and even in our culture that I doubt such hypocrisy will ever cease to taint our reputation.
As decorated Vietnam War vet and filmmaker Oliver Stone says, “War is the biggest racket of all. Al Capone owned ten blocks in Chicago, but we have troops in 120 countries. And somebody is getting rich off the proceeds.” Well, it’s not the troops doing the fighting and the dying.
Tomorrow: "Good Vibrations"
©2009 Dennis Green
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