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WHAT GOES AROUND
In the Anglo-American view, chemical and biological weapons were fine - so long as they were used to kill or maim Iranian Muslims who opposed western interests. Such monstrous weapons, it seems, are only associated with terrorism when used against westerners. My view: what goes around, comes around.
Second, Abdul Haq. A leading mujahedin leader during the great jihad, or holy struggle, of the 1980s against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Haq was a burly, colourful, intense man - one of the most charismatic Pashtun leaders and a CIA favourite.
I was with Abdul Haq and his men both in Peshawar and inside Afghanistan. Haq, and his brother, Hadji Kadir, gave me the hospitality of their home and their badly needed protection during the important battle for Jalalabad.
When the Afghan Communist regime offered $50,000 to Afridi tribesmen around the Khyber Pass to capture me, two truckloads of Haq's warriors ensured I was not kidnapped and sent to be tortured and executed in Kabul.
After Sept. 11, the CIA resumed contacts with its old ally Abdul Haq that were broken off in 1989. When it became clear in recent weeks that the Russian-created Northern Alliance would be unable to take over Afghanistan from the Pashtun Taliban, the CIA sought an anti-Taliban Pashtun leader, and naturally called the renowned Abdul Haq.
Two weeks ago, the CIA sent Haq and a handful of supporters into Afghanistan with bags of dollars to bribe Pashtun tribal leaders away from the Taliban. Haq, who was headstrong and impulsive, foolishly went along with this hasty, poorly concocted scheme.
Like the CIA's unbroken record of bloody fiascos in Iraq, this amateurish venture also failed disastrously. Forewarned by sympathizers in Peshawar, the Taliban surrounded Haq's party. Haq, who had lost a foot to a Soviet mine, tried to flee on horseback. The CIA bungled an attempt to rescue him, though two of its agents who had been with with Haq managed to escape on U.S. helicopters. My old friend was captured and summarily executed by the Taliban as a warning to any potential defectors.
The life of one of the heroes of the great jihad against Soviet oppression was thus thrown away in a botched, amateur mission in an unnecessary war. Another CIA "expendable asset" had been expended.
Ten days before his fatal mission, Abdul Haq urged the U.S. not to bomb Afghanistan, warning doing so would only rally Afghans to the Taliban, inflict massive new suffering on an already tortured nation and plunge Afghanistan into disintegration and chaos.
No one in war-fevered Washington listened to Abdul Haq.
Eric can be reached by e-mail at
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