Alright y'all welcome back.
It's anti-war radio and Eric Margulies is on the line foreign correspondent Eric Margulies Eric Margulies comm is the website spelled like Margolis and that's how to find what you're looking for there and We've got big news coming out of Pakistan I know Netanyahu is now speaking before the UN his response To Abbas's speech, but you'll just have to Tivo it because right now we got to talk about Afghanistan and Pakistan There are major accusations being leveled against the Pakistani government by the American one by the defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and The Pakistanis have angrily responded and something tells me that both sides are at least telling the truth a little bit anyway But welcome back to the show Eric.
What's going on over there?
Well, very worrisome stuff Scott, I think we're looking a lot more trouble the the the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen And Leon Panetta whose new CIA chief have just openly and directly accused Pakistan of Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI Interim Service Intelligence of having been behind and Staged a recent attacks inside Afghanistan including an attack on the US Embassy in Kabul and three other high-profile attacks It's a very serious Accusation considering that Pakistan is officially listed as a strategic ally by the State Department And it could be token Higher level of American military action against Pakistan That's what I don't like to hear Well, so this is all about the Haqqani Network what in the world is the Haqqani Network I Knew old man Haqqani who founded it back in the days when he was one of the leading figures in the anti-soviet Struggle or jihad as they called it.
That's remember when they were freedom fighters.
They were our freedom fighters fighting the godless communists Same people today are now called terrorists by the u.s Because they're fighting a different occupier of Afghanistan now, we're the godless communists Oh, yeah.
Yeah, you know, there's an old Daoist Chinese Daoist saying you become what you hate and in many ways We've come to resemble the old Soviet Union, which is very ironical Anyway back to the Haqqani Network.
It is Closely linked to Pakistani intelligence.
No doubt about it It's a Pashtun group.
That's based Primarily in Pakistan, but in the Pashtun area of Pakistan Pashtun tribes and also operates in Afghanistan It is not primarily anti-american, but it It has been you know fighting on at times alongside Taliban against the Western occupation If it's true, or if it is, I don't think it is true.
By the way I can't see why Pakistan's intelligence service would withstand the gain from attacking US targets inside of Afghanistan considering the US is giving billions of dollars every year to finance the Pakistani military of which ISI is a part But there's a lot of very divided very confusingly divided factions and loyalties over there I mean we've talked about in the past how the Pakistanis did support the the ISI Anyway, or parts of their government.
Anyway have supported the Afghan Taliban if that's not Part and parcel with the Haqqani Network then, you know, please discriminate between those things for us But they've supported the Afghan Taliban while supporting our war against the Pakistani Taliban at the very same time Well, it is a very murky situation.
No doubt Scott now the Pakistan's ISI certainly has close links with Taliban and with the Haqqani Network, which is within the Taliban alliance Why not?
They started Taliban That's a Pakistan sort of midwife the birth of Taliban is supplied with arms and Taliban was its closest ally and primary agent in side of Afghanistan and when the Americans in 2001 we According to general Sharif told me this and the former ISI Director-general told me this that the US put a gun he's they said you put a they put a US put a gun to our heads and Said either join the war against Taliban or we're going to bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age and so Pakistan had to bend its knee and cooperate but reluctantly because The forces again, we're 40 forcing it to fight against are actually Pakistan's allies and the Pakistanis know That the America is losing the war in Afghanistan and when America is finally gone Pakistan will again need Taliban I will need the Haqqani Network to advance its interest particularly now that the Indians are Making a full court press to push their influence into Afghanistan Well in America's been welcoming the Indians this whole time, right yeah and encouraging the Indians I think I remember reading some things where the Indians were kind of complaining that the pressure was on pretty strong And they wanted us to kind of back off their insistence that they join us in Afghanistan a little bit Well, the Indians refused wisely to to send troops Which us was trying to do but they are expanding their influence through intelligence and buying up local Warlords and this type thing and of course the Americans aren't trying to start a nuclear war over there They're just that stupid that they want to bring in Indian combat forces to Afghanistan to fight against the Taliban Isn't it amazing a two nuclear-armed buzz bull in a Chinese shop and shows the continuing stupidity?
I hate to use the word but I have to the stupidity in Washington and the ignorance of these people who are Pulling strings in South Asia that as you rightfully say could provoke a nuclear war Yeah, it's amazing that they would you know, I can see how imperialists want to finagle this that and the other thing but Really bringing the Indians in to fight against the Taliban and Afghanistan that seems like you know The average middle-ranking goofball over at the State Department ought to know better than that, right?
Well, they do you the State Department is well aware of these things and I have considerable respect for the State Department In fact, I almost joined the Foreign Service myself after Georgetown University, but Nobody's listening to the State Department They're listening to the Pentagon They're listening to the war party in Washington or the imperialists as they would have been called in in Britain in those days And they're listening to Special interest groups who have their own axe to grind not to the people know in the State Department for sure But now back to these specific charges You doubt sincerely that the Pakistani ISI would work with the Haqqani Network to Bomb the American Embassy in Kabul, right?
Correct.
It just it doesn't make sense to me And it to me this charge made by two of the highest-ranking security officials in Washington Says to me that America's tremendously frustrated over the war in Afghanistan Obama's panicking as he's going down the tubes, but he's humiliated Incredibly humiliated by by Netanyahu in Israel made Obama look like like a fool and a weak link He's now losing the war in Afghanistan in spite of all the rosy pronouncements from the US headquarters that are in our laughing stock ambassador in Kabul's just put there to make Chirpy pronouncements and So the US is now turning its wrath and frustration on Pakistan It's got to find some reason can't say that a bunch of people in turbans and light weapons is Defeating the mighty US Armed Forces and NATO So they've got to blame something more concrete Pakistan.
And as I said at the beginning of the broadcast, this is a harbinger I think the fact that u.s.
Is going to expand military operations into Pakistan and meaning ground attacks by special operations units against different Pashtun Organizations and more drone attacks possibly direct air attacks And this is probably going to provoke eventually outright fighting between the Pakistani military in the United States You know back again to you know middle ranking nobody faceless bureaucrat over there in DC somewhere foreign policy wonk or whatever They gotta have a rudimentary Understand, you know my level understanding of the situation in Pakistan that really the military is the only thing making Pakistan Pakistan and Holding that state together in the first place I just wonder how far these people think they can push that line before the country dissolves Maybe that's what they want a further intervention there and started talk us all the way up to the break We'll pick it up on the other side with Eric Margulies right after this All right, y'all welcome back to the show It's anti-war radio I'm Scott Horton Talking with Eric Margulies author of American Raj liberation or domination writes at Eric Margulies calm and I forget where we were on the other side of the break, but we meant to pick it up there.
We were talking about Afghanistan and Where were we?
Possibly my my view that the claims by Washington that The Pakistani link Takani Network in Afghanistan and Pakistan is behind the tax on the US Embassy in Kabul, all right We were talking about whether they were going to with their drone strikes go ahead and disintegrate the Pakistani State to the point where it escalates into the kind of thing where then they get to begin to escalate their intervention there Great will u.s.
Troops Become or special forces become actively involved in Pakistan Will they try as Pakistanis are now going to say they're going to try and grab Pakistan's nuclear arsenal Which is which is dispersed and heavily guarded.
I see many opportunities for direct clashes between Pakistani and US forces also Maybe this hasn't dawned yet on Washington that if they really start roughing up Pakistan Pakistan holds one ace and that Is that it can choke off?truck supply convoys from Karachi into Afghanistan that supply Almost all the fuel and heavy munitions and heavy materials for us and NATO forces operating there now When it comes to the story about Osama bin Laden, it seemed like it just went without saying that Ah the Pakistani government they were hiding from us and it seemed to me very plausible that at least say parts of the ISI were But I never bought the story that the Pakistani military was hiding in there I mean this guy Kiani and the others that run the military over there They're best buddies with the US Pentagon.
Is that not right?
That is right and with a CIA, too So I I find it and they had no use particularly for bin Laden.
I mean as a person they had Contempt and dislike from I can't Bring myself to blame the Pakistani military for that and if it was ISI that was hiding bin Laden Well, why didn't I hide him better?
The best place for him to have been secreted was in Karachi city of I don't know the 1012 14 million people Rather than pretty well out in the open in this relatively small city of Abbottabad That it's curious.
I don't understand it and well hiding in plain sight seemed to work for a pretty good while there though It did but eventually it would seem that he would be spotted and so he was It's a mystery and why You know Pakistan still claims it didn't know he was there.
I find it very hard to believe that Americans Washington's right when it says that Pakistan knew all along and was hiding bin Laden So their wheels within wheels here, but the Pakistanis are not the only people doing the serious things I mean, why did the u.s.
Kill him?
Why was he brought to trial?
Why was his body dumped secretly in the ocean?
This just feeds more speculation and rumors.
Yeah Well now with these recent accusations I mean because after all whatever double and triple games are going on between Afghanistan Pakistan and America over there They've been going on but now to have the Chairman the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense make these accusations against the Pakistanis at this point Is this to you a symbol of something to come that they're trying to basically prepare us along with that?
That the narrative about hiding bin Laden seems like there's a certain faction of the war party there that actually would like a full-scale Intervention against not just people inside the borders of Pakistan, but against Pakistan the state itself Yes, there is by the way.
I said Panetta was head of the CIA He's Gone over to the Pentagon as you correct me on that Have I got that right to play music But that has gone over to the Pentagon It definitely the war parties beating the war drums in Washington and it's over Pakistan's nuclear weapons I'm convinced, you know, it's very important that the Israeli foreign minister Lieberman Stated last year that That Pakistan's nuclear arsenal was one of the greatest threats to Israel This sort of went unnoticed in the US media, but amongst the neocons in Washington It set off alarm signals and it put moved Pakistan way up on the target list And the u.s.
Of course doesn't why you know is very worried about those nuclear weapons Even though it it closed the ties to them for a decade So there will be I think a move against Pakistan's weapons for the Pakistanis are nervous as wet hens about it well It's absolutely crazy, right?
I mean Even you know, I mean you look at the this is the military that carried off their airstrikes It's the decapitation strikes against Saddam Hussein and killed nothing but a bunch of women and children We're supposed to believe that they're gonna do, you know, 15 or a hundred different.
Who knows how many different Osama bin Laden style Sealed team six raids and and take every important component of all of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and I don't know one evening or something That's amazing that anyone could believe that that's probably not sure how to say if anything is going to get those nukes set off It seems to me it would be an attempt to seize them like that.
Yeah, that's the Well, they're dissembled to start with the most of them And they've all kinds of links and keys and things that have to be activated to use them But I think a more more probable that is that US Special Forces go in to attack a suspected nuclear site storage site to try and grab the weapons the helicopters come in and they clash with Pakistani security forces and more troops rush in and US aircraft come in and you have the makings of a of a of a war But when they have to hit all kinds of different facilities Uncountable different facilities at the same time.
Well, I would suspect at least between five and ten different locations not counting Pakistan's nuclear Weapons facilities where they're built.
I'm just talking about storage and probably some of the nuclear weapons are stored very close to some pack of Pakistan's air and Missile bases which are under particularly heavy Military guards, so that's a dangerous situation But what's happened in Washington, you know, you're saying why why are they would they risk this will be weak because we've got special operations forces crazy in Washington these you know, they Delta T Delta the Navy SEALs lethal They're the new golden-haired boys of the Pentagon the new commanders in the Pentagon come from that background They and they think they could do anything and after killing bin Laden Everybody's even doubly convinced of this now and they're going to be the new wonder weapon To be used against anybody who's who's on our in our black books Not only in Afghanistan, but in Pakistan and in Yemen and in East Africa and West Africa as well Yeah, they're calling it the Osama bin Laden doctrine.
Let's just go ahead and Admit and declare that America's is the world army and there is no state border that can stop us We'll go where we want.
We'll call a hot pursuit if we want or call it, whatever we want exactly amazing Well, you know, I guess it really is right what Henry Kissinger said that's more dangerous to be America's ally than our enemy Well, particularly when it's a forced ally to you know The basic problem is that Pakistan's and America's interests are diametrically opposed in Afghanistan and the u.s.
Is forcing Pakistan to do things that are wholly inimical Dangerous to its its own interests and at a time when polls in Pakistan show that 90% or more Pakistanis support Taliban there against the war in Afghanistan and they regard the United States now as Pakistan's number-one enemy the u.s.
Has surpassed India as enemy number one for four hundred and seventy or hundred eighty million Pakistanis Extremely dangerous because Pakistan wasn't it's going to be even more so an engine generating violent anti-american groups All right.
Now, I'm sorry.
We have so little time here, but does this assassination of the Prime Minister of Afghanistan Afghanistan is this a symbol of the hopelessness of America's cause over there?
In part but also the murderous nature of Pakistan's ethnic politics Former board and I routine Rabani was an old friend of mine I knew him from the early 1980s when they there was struggle against the Soviets started when they were freedom fighters not terrorists and And And he was the most important Tajik leader and he was a very fine man and scholar He was the one man I thought who could unite Tajiks and Uzbeks his murder this week is a tragedy for Afghanistan abodes ill for us Well and the story of it at least and you know officialdoms version of it here It's a absolutely amazing story of how it was done I guess I'll encourage people to go google that up and read about what happened there because we're a lot of time Thanks very much for yours Eric.
Cheers Scott Eric Margulies everybody Eric Margolis calm American Raj liberation or dominations the book
