The American media was "shocked" by the relationship between Pakistan and al-Qaeda, even though the Obama administration seemed less "astonished." As Washington prepared to attack Osama bin Laden's compound near a Pakistani military academy, it kept the details from the Pakistanis, fearing that they would warn the leader of al-Qaida and thus allow him to escape. Does anyone believe that this media knows everything, except the history of relations between Pakistan and the US itself, and the mujahideen who fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and after them al-Qaida? The American media has now recovered from the shock and begun to analyze, and try to explore the future of this relationship. Meanwhile, American Likudnik groups are demanding that assistance to Pakistan be halted as punishment for its "treachery." The most credible American report I have read, or the one closest to the truth, was a piece by Bruce Riedel in Newsweek. It was entitled "Pakistan Plays Hardball" and went back to the history of relations between the two countries. It spoke particularly of the dealings between the CIA and Pakistan's ISI, since the days of Ronald Reagan, and how Saudi Arabia and the United States gave money and weapons to the mujahideen in Afghanistan, but with a minimum level of direct dealings. Thus, Pakistan's chief of staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and the head of the ISI, General Shuja Pasha, want to revive the "Reagan rules" in dealings between the two sides, meaning the provision of money and weapons, without a direct role for the Americans. I will now mention information, some of which I published after the 11 September 2001 attacks, and for the same reasons; successive US administrations, along with the media, have covered up the American role in launching the Taliban movement, which embraced al-Qaeda with the supervision of Pakistani military intelligence. At the beginning of 1995 I met with Prince Turki al-Faisal, who was the head of Saudi Arabian intelligence at the time, as I had done ever since I met him at the beginning of the 1970s. He told me, as we were leaving his office in Jeddah, that we should notice a new group in Afghanistan called the Taliban. I had not heard the word before and I asked him what he meant. He said, "students of religion," and added that warlords in Afghanistan were Mafia dons, who were killing each other and were involved in drug dealing. He went on to say that Pakistani military intelligence had embraced the Taliban and introduced them to the Americans, who agreed on helping them, and that the Pakistanis and the Americans had discussed aiding the Taliban with the Saudis, who agreed. Months after this conversation, the men of the Taliban began to exit Qandahar, expanding the scope of their control. I sent a fax to Prince Turki with a request for more information about them. I received a three-page response that contained information that was revised by my colleague, Samir Saadawi, and was published in al-Hayat newspaper. Samir paid a lot of attention to the matter, and al-Hayat tasked him following up the topic in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He went there and wrote a series of articles after meeting with concerned officials, and the belligerents. He followed the trip by Pakistani intelligence officials to Washington and interviewed CIA officers at its famous headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Samir Saadawi returned to Pakistan after the terror attacks of 11 September 2001 and wrote, around the end of the year, another series of articles, which were reports from the field in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and a group of articles that reflected the expertise of an eyewitness, and which would serve as a reference for a researcher who would like to learn the truth. Does it make any sense that Samir Saadawi and I know more about the history of the rise of the Taliban and the relationship between the CIA and the ISI with this group than the American media? I am not vain enough to suggest such a thing, but I can say that American governments, since the horrific terror in New York and Washington, have very much played things down, or covered up the history of their relationship with the mujahideen, and then the Taliban. The traditional media has not tried to challenge the official version and I see no logical reason for this, other than that the Americans do not want to acknowledge their part in the short-sighted policy that ended with the rise of the Taliban and their embrace of al-Qaida, to launch its terror against the outside world, targeting Muslims themselves, along with Americans and others. Today, the American right is calling for punishing Pakistan and halting military assistance. Supporters of Israel are talking about the nuclear threat in Pakistan, and the US has never once offered assistance to Pakistan. The three billion dollars a year are paid by the US to help itself; it has no right to ask Pakistan for a "good conduct certificate" for the assistance to continue. If Washington wants to avoid a repeat of its previous errors, and their disastrous consequences, it will not happen if even bigger mistakes, with nuclear dangers, are made. [email protected]
