Copyright: Eric S. Margolis, 2002
May 13, 2002
Gen. Sharon's habit of sending hit squads to kill people he deems enemies has caught on in Washington. It was just revealed that last Monday, CIA tried to assassinate my old acquaintance, the Afghan leader, Gulbadin Hekmatyar.
US forces and CIA have targeted senior members of al-Qaida and Taliban since October. But Hekmatyar belonged to neither group: he leads the well-established Hisbi-Islami Party, which played the leading role in the 1980's struggle to free Afghanistan from Soviet rule. He had nothing to do with al-Qiada or 9/11, and was an enemy of Taliban. But in Washington's eyes, Hekmatyar was marked for death because he opposed the US-installed regime in Kabul of Hamid Karzai, and was thus a `terrorist.'
I've know Hekmatyar since the mid-1980's, when we spent time together in Peshawar. Engineer Hekmatyar was the only mujahidin leader who did not come from a traditional tribal background: he was a raw and hated upstart who called for the end of tribalism and creation of an Islamic democracy.
Hekmatyar was also the most effective mujahidin leader. Among the seven guerilla groups, his Hisbi Islami was the leading recipient of US arms and money, and did the bulk of fighting against the Soviets. Gulbadin worked closely with CIA and Pakistan's once crack intelligence service, ISI. But at war's end, the US decided Hekmatyar and his fellow Islamists were a liability. Overnight, the CIA's closest Afghan ally, once hailed by Washington as a `freedom fighter,' was marked for termination.
Hekmatyar told me CIA tried to assassinate him by detonating a large truck bomb that killed scores of civilians, but missed him. In the early 1990's, Gulbadin served as prime minister of Afghanistan until it dissolved into civil war, in which Hekmatyar's Hisbi Islami was a major participant. Hekmatyar was no saint: his forces shelled Kabul and were deeply involved in the carnage that engulfed Afghanistan. Lately, Hekmatyar returned from exile in Iran and has been calling on Afghans to oust the US-installed Karzai regime, whom he calls a puppet under the control of foreigners.
A missile-armed Predator drone - CIA's new weapon of choice in assassinations - was sent to kill the troublesome Hekmatyar. The missles missed him, but, reportedly, killed a number of his companions. What makes this attack noteworthy - and deeply disturbing - is that Washington now seems to have decided to `liquidate' troublesome foreign political opponents, using unproven charges of `terrorism' as a handy pretext.
The White House and Pentagon have embarked on a campaign to rub out foes because of what they MIGHT do. It's called `preemption,' a favorite Israeli term. Iraq must be invaded because Saddam MIGHT at some distant future date have weapons of mass destruction that he MIGHT be crazy enough to use against the US and thus invite the vaporization of himself and his nation. Muslims across the US MIGHT get up to no good, so Grand Inquisitor cum Attorney General John Ashcroft has ordered they be rounded up and interrogated. Cuba might make germ weapons, so is a threat. Old ally Hekmatyar MIGHT cause trouble for America's puppet regime in Kabul, so he must be rubbed out.
The Bush Administration is so gripped by Sharonism that not one of its members has challenged CIA's attempted murder of Hekmatyar, though this misdeed could well constitute a crime under American law. In fact, George Bush's White House has shown an alarming lack of concern with domestic and international law. Not just in its crusade against Muslim foes, or in threatening the rights and liberties of Americans, but also by an arrogant unilateralism that has outraged friends abroad: crude rejection of the Kyoto Accords; spitting on the worthy idea of an international court to try war criminals; abrogating arms treaties with Russia; violating the laws and conventions of war in Bush's Guantanamo gulag; shielding and abetting Israel in its devastation of the Occupied West Bank.
General Sharon's mantra, `we are right and the rest of the world is wrong,' has become that of his acolyte and admirer, George W Bush.
US and British officials claim the `war' in Afghanistan is over. This is nonsense. Taliban and al-Qaida have blended back into the civilian population and are simply lying low -for now. The conflict costs US taxpayers over US $1 billion monthly; Bush just asked Congress for $14 billion more until year end. Each day the US is getting sucked deeper and deeper into Afghanistan, and, now, Pakistan.
CIA's attempted murder of Hekmatyar marks an ominous, new stage in America's involvement in the murky Afghan conflict. How long before CIA starts murdering political opponents of Pakistan's US-backed military leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf? Will Predators go after leaders of Pakistan's Islamic parties? Or all those irksome radical Arabs and Iranians? Or Cubans? CIA's missile-armed Predators are certainly a more effective murder weapon than the exploding cigar CIA once tried to send to Fidel Castro, who, by the way, still remains on Washington's hit list. Besides, in the US view, killing from the air is simply `bombing,' not really murder.
George Bush and his far-right Republicans think it's perfectly acceptable for the world's greatest democracy is act like Murder Inc. It is not.
<--full details.
