Terrorism: Stop Blaming CIA, ISI Or RAW

It is not that the spy agencies of the USA, Pakistan and India have abolished their “dirty tricks” departments. The reason we should stop blaming CIA, ISI and RAW is simple. For too long we have blamed our “hands” for cutting someone else’s throat, while absolving the “heads”.

The photo above is self explanatory. President Bush, or for that matter Pakistan’s Asif Zardari or India’s Manmohan Singh, stand right at the middle and must squarely bear the responsibility for the acts of omission and commission of the intelligence outfits.

Spies, like our “hands”, do their jobs at the behest of the “heads” — their political/bureaucratic/military big bosses. Intelligence gathering is a legitimate activity in international relations. But when it becomes subservient to the myopic and greedy policies of the political/military leadership, all hell breaks loose.

Why I say all this is that for too long politicians and the media have been blaming the “rogue” elements, especially within Pakistan’s ISI for collaborating with the militants/terrorists, and getting away with it.

Intelligence guys are doomed if they provide correct inputs, and are doomed if they do not. In recent years these guys are increasingly expected to supply information that their political/bureaucratic masters desire, not what their professional job requires.

My question is: Is anyone interested in ending militancy/terrorism? There is a growing suspicion that owing to the unreasonable demands of “business/financial interests” there does not seem to be a remote chance of terrorism coming to an end in the near future.

If militancy/terrorism ends what would happen to arms suppliers, said to be the biggest business after drugs. Pakistan is the biggest buyer of American arms. Then there are drug barons and their links with powerful top guys.

Take for example the case of mafia don and drug baron Dawood Ibrahim. He has flourished in all these years although there is incontrovertible evidence of his gang’s hand in a number of terror attacks in India. He lives in Pakistan and Dubai and
nobody dare reach him — including the mighty arm of the USA. More here… And here…

The trouble begins when these very rogues, thugs and terrorists turn against their very handlers. It was the same story with Saddam Hussein, Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Now it is Pakistan’s ISI. They were the pillars of strength for the USA, oblique CIA, during the Cold War.

Few realize that cohabiting with criminals always boomerangs. Ultimately, they devour their funders/handlers. Pray where were the billions of American taxpayers dollars going when they went unaccounted to Pakistan?

Instead of taking the path of diplomacy the US administration opted for the easier, but deadlier/dangerous, path of using/funding criminals and outlaws to meet its geopolitical/business ambitions.

The criminals were funded with American taxpayers money, and the media and a majority of people kept silent. The propaganda machines went into an overdrive to confuse the public and media was very obliging in this nefarious game.

However, we cannot go on blaming CIA, ISI or RAW. There are also very honest and professional people working for these agencies. But they work under the command of top political/military leaders and have to follow their policies/diktats.

Now we have reached a time when we should begin to talk about the real/serious issues that imperil world peace as a consequences of the crazy policies during the past decade.

The embedded journalists in Iraq and Afghanistan had made us believe that the “war on terror’ had been won. Leading think-tanks in America and elsewhere made us believe that US and CIA would rid the world of the “axis of evil”.

The hair-splitting will not help. The CIA has operated for decades through state-actors in different countries, and who, in turn, operate through criminals (branded conveniently as terrorists). One feels sad that young Pakistanis and Indians, being brain-washed by these criminals, are getting killed and thus devastating their poor families.

Some people within the State-actors have developed a vested interest in the continuation of the so-called terrorism because a lot of taxpayers money can be diverted to lineup their pockets.

This has been clearly emerging since 9/11. India has a pile of evidence dating back to decades. But the Indian government has always shied away fearing the collapse of US-India relations if the shadowy story of CIA was made public.

I am afraid that the cat may be out of the bag this time because the rich business community has been affected during the Mumbai attack. Even the rich were affected by a similar attack on a five-star hotel in Pakistan.

The Indian politicians could play ball with American politicians so long ordinary people were being killed in India in terrorist attacks. It may not be possible now…