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Read other letters about this article
If you go back and read Coll, he goes into detail as to why the Agency favored Hekmatyr over Massoud, not the least of which he notes that Massoud often would not uphold his agreements to attack at agreed times and would in fact sometimes make deals with the Soviets....
Masoud was no fool.
One of the reasons the CIA "favoured" Hekmatyar was that they bowed to ISI wishes. Rabbani was also on the favoured list.
... We didn’t “let” the aid get funneled through the ISI, the ISI and Zia insisted that all training and funds go through them, that was a prerequisite that held from Carter and through the Reagan, Bush and Clinton terms....
I don't seen how you can call that anything else than acquiescence (even if the CIA did do some small stuff, unauthorised, through back channels).
... In fact, no American “advisors” trained any Afghans on Stingers, instead they trained the ISI, who in turn trained the Afghans. Massoud if my memory serves me right got 8.
Sounds about right. As I said, we let the ISI run the show.
[Arne]: “We gave up after the Russians left, and just let the ISI do what they wanted. Many people (including in the CIA) were quite upset about that. So were others who were trying to forge a republican Afghanistan, perhaps of a federal nature. The U.S. sat on the sidelines and let the Taliban take over and consolidate their position ... with immense help from the ISI.”
Obviously the US made a serious mistake in walking away from Afghanistan when it did. But you over simplify the case of what would’ve been necessary to bring down the ISI and it’s full on sponsorship and direction from the Pakistani government...
True. I don't say there was no downside. The powers-that-be thought that Pakistan was worth appeasing, even as it moved towards dictatorship and fundamentalism (and started developing nuclear weapons). MAybe they thought that appeasement was necessary because of these developments. But that hardly changes the fact that our policy resulted -- predictably -- in the strengthening of the Islamic hard-liners.
... Plus we haven’t even begun to speak of the heroin trade that fuels so much of the former and current crisis....
Hey, look, any way to make a buck. And when you don't get millions from the CIA, you have to buy your weapons (and friends) somehow.
One thing we could have done is stop our stoopid "War on Drugs", and treat it as the medical problem it is. Morphine is in fact an amasing drug. We turn it into Evil Incarnate simply by designating it so ... as we do with any illicit drugs (and that includes alcohol).
... I’ve been aware of the ISI and their myriad of deceit since 1987, so I don’t need any lessons in their underhanded dealings....
I'm glad. I'm not trying to lecture you.
... We’ll see if Panetta has what it takes to take these guys on, but most likely he’ll be too busy cleaning house. You and Glenn still haven’t’ addressed the question of why the DCIA would have to come from the DO instead of another branch of the intel community.
I didn't say they should. I've laid out the "argument" for such, but I don't subscribe to that, in part because the CIA has been so incompetent in its covert operations for so long that I don't see the utility of covert ops (particularly of the militaristic kind as opposed to cloak'n'dagger skulking). As Weiner recounts, over the decades (even in the heady Helms/Colby years), the vast majority of CA agents (not officers, but some there too) have simply been caught and killed (in part, thanks to double agents and moles, but, for instance in China insertions, simply through incompetence).
Then there's the Iran fiasco....
Cheers,
