Dirty ISI Stalks Poor CIA, Again

A dirty program is underway in Afghanistan where poor elements within Pakistani religious groups are recruited to conduct senseless mass murders and bombings in Pakistani cities. Terror outposts in South Waziristan are used as conduits but the puppeteers hide inside outposts along the Afghan border.

A Washington Post story today, titled, 'CIA and Pakistan locked in aggressive spy battles', accuses ISI of trying to penetrate CIA outposts inside Pakistan.

The thrust is that Pakistan and ISI are paranoid and that the poor CIA agents are doing nothing wrong and yet are being harassed [remember the US media stories last year about Pakistan 'harassing' US diplomats? Well, now we're harassing CIA agents!].

But there is, however, a self-serving half-sentence innocently buried in the 1,467-word report. This half-sentence is supposed to provide a reason for Pakistani suspicions. 

That half-line says, 'The CIA has repeatedly tried to penetrate the ISI and learn more about Pakistan's nuclear program.'

That's all. The tone of the author of the report is that it is ok for the CIA to try to penetrate ISI and 'learn' about Pakistan's nuclear program but that it is wrong for the ISI to counter this unwarranted meddling and protect Pakistan's interests.

Rest of the report is a sap story about how the bad ISI is trying to spy on CIA.

This is not the first report of its kind published by the US media. There have been several stories like this during the past three years. They coincided with rising voices in Pakistan about CIA playing double games with Pakistan. In plain words, CIA has been deceiving Pakistan from the start of Washington's 2002 Afghan adventure, courting Pakistan while empowering anti-Pakistan forces in the region.

This attack against ISI is part of an effort to drown out Pakistani complaints. The United States has shown that it is adept at managing media and info wars. Pakistan is no match.

The truth is that ISI cooperated honestly with CIA after 9/11 but the Americans played a double game with Pakistan and turned the Afghan soil into 'Anti-Pakistan Central' and generally made life miserable for Pakistan and Pakistanis in their own neighborhood. And now when Washington's game is up the Americans are trying to atone for their sins through aid programs and generous public praise. 

Nevertheless, dirty American games against Pakistan continue unabated. Terrorists claiming to represent Pakistani Baloch continue to find safe havens in Kabul and Kandahar, and money and weapons continue to flow from Afghanistan to terrorists who use them to kill Pakistanis by the dozens. There is also a dirty program underway in Afghanistan where poor elements within Pakistani religious groups are recruited to conduct senseless mass murders and bombings in Pakistani cities. Terror outposts in South Waziristan are used as conduits but the puppeteers hide inside outposts along the Afghan border. These bombings are then linked to the Afghan Taliban and the Kashmiri groups. And if that doesn't fly the Americans and their allies inside the Pakistani government link the terrorists to low-level Pakistani sectarian groups in order to justify a military operation in areas of the Punjab province where pro-Kashmiri groups are based. 

The net result of all this is to pressure Pakistan into stopping the promotion of its vital interests in Afghanistan and Indian-occupied Kashmir.

The list of Pakistani grievances against US activities in Afghanistan is long. Reports such as the one published by WashPost will not browbeat the Pakistanis and ISI into submission. They will only serve to make Pakistan more inhospitable for the US government than it is today.

Here is the point that Washington's overt and covert media managers are missing: These kinds of reports might help you win international sympathy, but inside Pakistan each report like this one increases hostility for the US presence. For the first time in Pakistan's modern history, disapproval of US actions and presence has seeped into the upper echelons of the Pakistani ruling elite. This has never happened before.  In the period between 2004 and 2010, Washington has probably lost all of the goodwill it created in this nation since our indepenedence in 1947. The reason is that Pakistanis can see through the fog of propaganda and no amount of WashPost and WSJ reports portraying CIA as the aggrieved party will do.

To cut a long story short, US actions are so detrimental and hostile to Pakistani interests that their cumulative effect amounts to conducting a war against Pakistan in small parts and over an extended period of time.

So while reading the story, remember this:

1. The entire story complains about ISI but devotes only one innocent line to CIA's objectionable work inside Pakistan.

2. Pakistan is right in viewing CIA's activities in Pakistan with suspicion considering how CIA cooperated with the Indians inside Afghanistan in supporting terror inside Pakistan.

3. CIA started the dirty games by empowering anti-Pakistan elements in Afghanistan after 2001 despite Pakistan's sincere and full cooperation.

Postscript 1: Before some schmuck in the US media, or inside the US Embassy in Islamabad, accuses me of 'spreading anti-Americanism' [Yes it happened. One US diplomat even threatened me directly of 'reporting' me to president Musharraf when he was in power!] So before someone does that, let me just wish the good American people a happy 4th of July and tell them this: Don't believe your government and its propaganda machinery. We Pakistanis like the Americans. Ask all those ordinarly Americans -- non military and nonofficial -- who visited Pakistan recently and they will tell you about the legendary Pakistani hospitality. There is no anti-Americanism in Pakistan, only anti-US-meddling and anti-US doublespeak.

Postcript 2: American contradictions: A US think-tank with links to US government dubs Pakistan the world's most dangerous country and a failed state. At the same time a US newspaper publishes a mushy feel-good report on how US ambassador Anne Patterson is rushing through US cities to convince businessmen to invest in Pakistan. The irony is that while the Americans bomb Pakistan, they want their businessmen to invest here and not run away scared. Enough of this hypocrisy, Madam Patterson!