When CIA Met ISI
There are those who wrongly argue that the CIA has been “duped” by the ISI, Pakistan’s spy agency. The relationship between the ISI and the CIA, since 9/11, has been as complex as it has been tenuous. The issues include Pakistan’s outing of the CIA station chief for a second time within the past six months. They may have known where bin Laden was hiding. They have supported the Haqqani network, a terrorist organization hiding out in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
Just as in the Pakistani government, some in the ISI are friendly and supportive of the CIA. Some are rather antagonistic. Others are entirely opposed. Americans need to understand that the CIA needs to work with unreliable partners. The most radical elements of Pakistani society are becoming more and more dominant, and the ISI needs to take a tougher stand against them. Recognizing this, former CIA Director Michael Hayden has said that “the relationship between the CIA and ISI has been at the same time both challenging and necessary.”
Challenging? Pakistan has sided with some of America’s enemies. Lisa Curtis, an expert on Pakistan at the Heritage Foundation, agrees with Hayden, suggesting the ISI must demonstrate that “they want to end the ambiguity about their role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks or the harboring of bin Laden. The Pakistani leaders,” she says, “must take action to prove their counter-terrorism credentials.”
Necessary? Congressman Tom Rooney (R-Fla.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, called Pakistan the country that has helped the U.S. capture more al-Qaeda operatives than any other country.
And yet: the relationship appears to be going downhill very fast. A former CIA operative commented that “the relationship is not good right now. There are only a small number of people that we could work with on terrorism. The lack of cooperation is getting bigger. We never fully trust them because they operate according to their own perceived interests. However, we go into the relationship every day with our eyes wide open. Do I consider them a friend? No!” He pointed out that the Obama administration did not inform the ISI about the bin Laden operation because they would have compromised the mission. “I always say that if more than one person in the ISI knows about a secret, it probably is going to be leaked.”
So where do we go from here? Should Americans react by cutting off aid to Pakistan? Many feel that a public ultimatum will make the Pakistanis dig in their heels. Through diplomatic, military, and intelligence channels, America must underscore that there are consequences to Pakistan’s actions — while still keeping Islamabad on our side in the counter-terrorism fight. Former CIA station chief in Pakistan Robert Grenier sees the need to formulate a common plan in which “both sides” get “a hard dose of reality — particularly the Pakistanis.”
Curtis pointed out that withholding aid could be a double-edged sword. “We should not cut off the aid altogether,” she said, “but make it clear to the Pakistanis that we need some answers. Cutting aid comes at a price since they could cut off NATO supply lines into Afghanistan that run through Pakistani territory and kick U.S. intelligence officials out of the country. Moreover, having a relationship with Pakistan has allowed the U.S. to help ensure that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons stay out of terrorists’ hands.”
“…having a relationship with Pakistan has allowed the U.S. to help ensure that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons stay out of terrorists’ hands.”
When Pak nukes (financed by Saudi Arabia) finally detonate in American cities, will we then recognize Pakistan as a mad dog enemy? It is absurd to think that this vile nation of barbarians can secure its nukes, or that we can “ensure that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons stay out of terrorists’ hands.” This is an obscene lie which guarantees that those nukes WILL end up in terrorist hands, and further, that those a muslim terrorists WILL detonate them somewhere in the world. Pakistan must be destroyed along with it’s ideology.
As for the Saudis, I don’t know what it will take to make America recognize them for the poisonous mortal enemy that it is. Saudi Arabia and Iran are the two giant spiders sitting at the centers of the two global Islamo-nazi terror webs. But it’s hands-off with SA, and so far, I don’t see we’ve ever made any kind of serious dent in Iran either. And Iran is well on it’s way to nukes as well. If we’re within a decade of seeing nukes in at least Saudi and Iranian hands, how far behind can a nuclear 9/11 be? I think Islamic nukes are the most grievous existential threat America has ever faced, yet we continue to play paddy cake with the stinking Muslim pigs.
Pak’s America?
A/ Has anyone ever informed KSA (Kiss Some Ass)that one of those Paknukes could go off in Riyahd, or their equivalent of Qom?
Statesmen (not ~people or ~persons) have to think in hundreds of years terms. So does KSA have anyone of that caliber, or are they all inbred? What if KSA so agrieves a PakMan, or the latter is so lunatic anyway, that he gives to islam, what islam longs to give to The West?
The highups in PakManStan must be devout moslems, no? Could some schnook sneek in during prayer breaks, or when blood sugar level is low during ramadan? If the guardians are truly devout, they will help anyone wishing to harm Dar-al-Harb. They should have devout JesusPaks tending the warheads!
B/ Maybe Buraq O should let the tiniest hint fall, that should the ISI do something really egregious, and a long way short of a rogue nuke, that not only will all the PakAid $ go to India, but that the US will also assist India with improving its nuclear arsenal, and maybe even help them set up an anti-ballistic shield.
C/ How about outing some of the ISI people? In Waziristan? Say someone known to untrustworthy. Maybe the taliban’s system of protecting their own, will stumble at the local level.
I wouldn’t trust the Pakistani ISI as far as I could spit. Why? Well, not only because they lie, but because they are part of an unreliable and unstable government. So long as the Pakistani government cannot be trusted, neither can its intelligence agency. I would seriously start putting all of our efforts in trying to make India a better ally. We need India more than she needs us, but if we can build better relations with India it would go a long way in putting Pakistan in its place, even if Pakistan decides to build closer ties with China. Let China have Pakistan. Pakistan has been and always will be an economic basket case torn by radical Islam and a corrupt government. If China wants them, they can have them.
As for Pakistan preventing our supplies from going to our troops in Afghanistan, well, that’s just another reason to LEAVE Afghanistan now. Unless we plan on making Afghanistan the 51st state, we’re not going to do any better or win any more victories in Afghanistan. True, we could supply a single base in Afghanistan just to maintain a presence there and to launch occasional attacks against al Qaeda, just like we have a base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But the rest of the Afghanistan isn’t really worth our time or the lives of our troops anymore (and lets not even talk about the money). Time to start leaving that part of the world, not make it part of the United States.
It would be a very good thing if Pakistan did cut off NATO supply lines into Afghanistan, because then the pointless war would end.
This is a matter for the larger powers: either Pakistan accepts partition, or else.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/05/15/lawrence-solomon-pakistan-would-work-better-in-pieces/
Pakistan is an artificial country produced when the British had to leave India in some form or the other in 1947. The border between it and Afghanistan was established after the 1893 Durand Line Agreement between the Government of colonial British India and Afghan Amir Abdur Rahman Khan for fixing the limit of their spheres of influence. Pakistan’s borders like most of the borders of the third world are products of a 19th Century, European based “realpolitik” that have little basis in the reality of the 21st Century. I will now don the mantle of Vice President Joe Biden an propose partitioning Pakistan. The Norhtwest and Baluchistan got to Afghanistan and the Indus river Valley should be joined to Kashmir and let that be the new buffer between India and the Islamic block. This puts all the Pustuns/Pathans in one country which they can misrule to their hearts content. The Kashmiris and the Sinds who while Moslems, are less ready to hit the warpath. Kashmir is 80% moslem with a ruling class of Hindus who will have to make an accomodation to the new situation on the ground. They can ask the Israelis for advice.
Colin,
Kashmir is indeed close to 80% Muslim. However it is definitly not ruled by a “Hindu ruling class” and it never was since Indian indpendence from Britain. In spite of all the troubles of Kashmir, it was always ruled by democratically (often flawed) elected MUSLIM leaders.
#1 Morton Doodslag
“Relationship” indeed! The same relationship a flea has with my dog. We canines feed the flea as it continues to bite us, THAT ,my friend, is the US/Pakistan “relationship.
Dr. Shalit
Elise Cooper,
Pakistan is now what we fear Iran will become. A terrorist supporting, nuclear armed, failed state.
I wrote about that here:
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/21968.html
The bottom line fact is the only thing that unites the Muslim peoples of Pakistan is their hate for India.
This means that Kashmir’s and other terrorist activities aimed at India are a prerequisite activity for any Pakistani power faction attempting to gain dominant power there. Our interfering in that fact is a on-going threat to Pakistani domestic stability, such as it is.
The failing Pakistani state does not fit into Western ideas of what a state is and what a government of that state does. The Pakistani state is a vehicle by which the various Pakistani power factions/family-based groups extract resources from the Pakistani people and especially foreigners for their own purposes. It is the tool to vie for power and eliminate the other Pakistani factions.
The Pakistani government is primarily as a vehicle to deal with the outside world by keeping foreigners from invading and extracting money from gullible foreigners, primarily Westerners.
The Pakistani Army, chief among the Pakistani power factions, knows how to share the wealth in a better, less corrupt manner than Pakistani civilian politicians (who are very corrupt and have sharing issues) and the Jihadi nuts (who are on a mission from God).
This is why the Pakistani Army periodically takes over the Pakistani state, then cedes it back to the civilian politicians. It knows it can’t run everything and it needs civilian front men to get money from the West.
India’s immediate problems and the WORLD’s stem from Pakistan. It is the Disneyland of jihad and India is their neighbor. Outside Afghanistan, the rest of the world is escaping the mayhem because India is both next door and a soft target. And Abbottabad showed that distance is no barrier to Pakistani supported terrorists.
Pakistan does this because it can, and thanks to it’s nukes, the failed Pakistani state is safe to continue these policies. That isn’t “screwing the pooch,” “jumping the shark,” or “squeezing all the toothpaste out of the tube.” It is coldly rational from their point of view.
America, like India, can do whatever it wants internally to stop its current terrorist problem, but Pakistan will continue to sponsor terror.
There will always be some terrorist clique that one of the Pakistani state power factions — like the ISI — will have built up to start the terrorism cycle all over again.
India defeated the Punjab insurgency. Then Pakistan started Kashmir.
Then India, for all practical purposes defeated the Kashmir insurgency, and reduced it to a trickle, with Israeli technical assistance.
Pakistani terrorist then attacked soft targets inside India like Mumbai.
What Abbottabad showed is the Pakistanis did that “attacking of soft targets” to America first, on 9/11/2001, as well.
Now it is true America has some allies inside that failed state (CIA Patrons for ISI Clients) dealing with the more Islamist factions, but often times we cannot tell the Islamists from the “non-Islamist” because both our allies and the Islamists factions inside the Pakistani are Pakistani nationalists one and all. When it comes to Indian terrorism, there are indistinguishable.
And once you support any large Islamist terrorist group like the LeT, you support Islamist terrorists attacking America.
The truth we have to face is that there is no one there who can enforce peace over all the Pakistani factions, and turn ISI’s Islamist terrorists off, because Islamist hate — versus India or America — is the only thing that can rally popular support for the Pakistani State.
As a result, the Islamist factions inside the Pakistani state have more deniability for terrorist operations than the Mullah’s of Iran. To be blunt, the Pakistanis were playing a game of “Moderate Iranian Mullah” with us…until we found and killed Osama Bin Laden
Whatever their colorings, the members of the Pakistani state — civilian or military — are Pakistani nationalists. The only thing that unites the Muslim tribes, clans and family groups peopling Pakistani behind the state in any meaningful way is hate…and right now war with India is its focal point.
Every faction of the Pakistani state will use that hate card to stay in power domestically, whatever they are saying to the West. They will use our assistance from outside to count coup on other Pakistani state factions, but they all will lie to any and all outsiders about war and terrorism with India. They need it to much to maintain the Pakistani state in existence.
And their existence as a WMD armed, terrorist sponsoring, state is a threat to America.
This takes us to another harsh geo-political reality I spoke to in my linked Chicagoboyz post. The best defense against nation-state sponsored terrorist attacks is preemption. Eliminate terrorist bases and state support by eliminating the supporting governments.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened because America had the economy and the political will to both forge nuclear weapons and to use them to eliminate the threat. All it took was a Pearl Harbor to fatally enraging the American people.
Our Islamic terrorist foes in Pakistan are seeking to provide the Indian people with that same motivation to eliminate the threat a’la “Pakistan Delenda Est.”
And there is nothing America’s government can do to stop that.
In fact, if recent Rasmussen polling on the Osama Bin Laden raid is to be believed, the American public is well on its way to “Pakistan Delenda Est” without India. Where the American people go, perforce, the American government will follow.
The relationship with Pakistan is still an important relationship which still must be maintained with a wink and nod. I believe we realize what information we can share and when we can share this information. Despite their protests to the contrary which I believe are for local consumption, we need them as much as they need us.