What does the 90,000-plus leaked classified documents on Afghan War show? Two things are most obvious-one, the Americans have lost the script in Afghanistan and two, Pakistan has emerged as a full-fledged terrorist State, supporting and sustaining terrorist groups that today pose a threat to the entire world.
Even a cursory reading of some of the relevant documents can reveal that the US lost the war in Afghanistan when it decided to make Pakistan first its ‘strategic ally’, then its ‘non-Nato ally’ to hunt Osama bin Laden and his deputies. President George Bush, blinded by his own vision of being a swashbuckling General, found a partner in the roguishly charming Pervez Musharraf, who spoke the right words and did all that could be wrong. Musharraf played to the galleries in Washington and elsewhere in the western world, charmed his way to the treasuries and back home talked peace with terrorists, helped them to find a sanctuary in Waziristan and nearby tribal areas along the Durand Line.
The leaked classified documents from the battlefield during Musharraf’s tenure (2003-2006) showed how desperate the men and officers of the US military were in keeping up the charade played by their President and his advisors in the White House. When Musharraf and his Generals, including Kayani, were being hosted and feted in the White House, their proxies were raining death on the American soldiers.
An obvious inference that cannot be missed by the American public is that their government funded the most audacious sponsors of terrorism in the world. In many ways, the leaked documents showed how criminally dim-witted the leaders in Washington were in courting Pakistan. Perhaps, for the public, the only way to compensate the losses they suffered in the past decade is to try, most of all, President Pervez Musharraf, as a war criminal. He is singularly responsible for creating and sustaining the bigger terrorist sanctuary in the world within his country. He is not only responsible for the death of several hundreds of American soldiers but also that of Pakistani soldiers who were pushed into the battlefield unprepared.
The world must act on the damning evidence provided by these documents about Pakistan’s terrorist intentions and activities which are clearly detrimental to peace and stability in the world. Documents after documents reveal how Pakistan and its military not only supported terrorist groups but also guided, armed and provoked them to carry out terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and India. This is not the first time that such revelations have come about but unlike in the past the sheer volume of evidence makes it impossible to deny Pakistan’s role in endangering the world.
The US must declare Pakistan a terrorist State. There have been occasions in the past when the US government came close to making such a declaration but shied away from it due to the powerful lobby groups employed by Pakistan. Such a step is now imperative to protect the US homeland from terrorist attacks originating from Pakistan. Pakistan’s terrorist leanings are not only a threat to the US but to the entire world. By supporting terrorist groups like the Taliban and al-Qaeda and its various allies and proxies, Pakistan has created a global syndicate of terror that is not easy to dismantle or contain. The world will pay for the follies committed by successive US governments.
One of the most alarming bits of information hidden in the leaked documents is the interest shown by the Taliban to acquire a radioactive material to configure bombs. One of the commanders, the document showed, had succeeded in locating a possible seller of uranium in Lahore; the deal fell through on price.
The document dated July 23, 2008, (when General Ashfaq Kayani was the chief), said one “Dr Mohammad” was quite keen on making chemically-enhanced munitions for the Taliban to fight the US forces in Afghanistan. The Taliban also was interested in procuring uranium for this purpose. The document said: “The uranium was allegedly available from an unspecified factory in Lahore, Punjab province, Pakistan, at a cost of approximately 35,000 Pakistani rupees for ten grams. ($538.)” The said ‘Dr’ had reportedly learnt his nuclear skills from AQ Khan. This group had several members from Pakistan’s tribal areas who were aligned with a radical Sunni group, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), which was instrumental in helping the Taliban-al-Qaeda elements to escape and find shelter in Pakistan when the US began bombing their hideouts following the September 11 attack. This single document is enough to show how dangerous a country Pakistan has become under the leadership of Musharraf first and then Kayani.
Another ominous inference that becomes obvious from the documents is the role played by General Kayani in supporting and sustaining groups inimical to the US-led forces in Afghanistan. The Obama administration’s courting of Kayani is therefore littered with perils both known and unknown. The Obama-Kayani relationship is no different from that of Bush-Musharraf nexus in running a disastrous global war on terror. The Obama-Kayani duo’s disastrous Af-Pak war has been so effectively exposed by the documents made public of Wikileaks. The references to ISI in hundreds of documents point to the role played by Kayani as the ISI chief. He promoted anti-US forces led by terrorist syndicates run by Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbudin Hekmatyr.
The Haqqani clan is instrumental in killing more American soldiers than any other terrorist group in Afghanistan. The Haqqanis are the protégé of Pakistan Army and are protected by Kayani and ISI chief Shuja Pasha, both of whom managed to wrangle extensions with the help of the Americans from a weak-kneed, divided political leadership in Islamabad. Kayani’s refusal to part ways with terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) reveals his mindset and the dangers such policies could pose to region, and more importantly to the US.
Since the Afghans, even Pashtuns, have no lost for Pakistanis whom they consider as `Punjabis`, Kayani and his men can at best trigger only a bloody civil war to keep not only India but rest of the world away from Afghanistan, creating in the process a much bigger terrorist sanctuary or `emirate` than his predecessor, Musharraf, carved out of the tribal areas.
The leaked documents are a foretaste of grave dangers created by a blundering American policy in Afghanistan and its dependence on the terrorist-sponsor State, Pakistan, to bail it out of a lost war.
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