Critical Triangle continues ......

By mid-1984 a deadlock had emerged in Afghanistan and a Vietnam like pattern had established itself—classic guerrilla combat. The Soviets would capture and sanitise areas, only to have the mujahideen claim the territory back when the soviets withdrew. The CIA reached the conclusion that Soviets simply could not succeed owing to the fact that “the Afghans were bloodthirsty and cruel fighters who simply refused to give up.”

At the same time, the US doubted that the mujahideen could drive out the Soviets by themselves. Thus far, the Soviets had been able to keep the lines of communications and cities out of rebel control.

By this time, however, the US was also getting worried about how exactly US aid was being spent. The first was corruption; the ISI was diverting funds for Pakistani requirements not related to Afghanistan as well as for personal gain. The second issue was that the largest dispersals of ISI largesse were to the most rabidly fanatical groups—especially Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. These two were to be critical factors for India and the US respectively. The diversion of funds was used to foment the Punjab insurgency within India, which by the mid-1980s had reached its peak (the siege of the Golden Temple had happened in 1984).

This in turn would lead to India’s Operation Brass-tacks, a military exercise that preceded an Indo-Pakistani crisis, that Pakistan would use to buttress its longstanding claims of Indian designs and ultimately to justify its further development of nuclear weapons.

The funding of extremist insurgents was equally fateful and would ultimately impact the US. At any rate the CIA brushed aside concerns. Fund diversions were glossed over claiming that indicators like black market prices of weapons were suggesting no significant diversion of funds, while the charge of arming particularly obscurantis and anti-American insurgents was offset by claims that “they were all brutal, fierce, bloodthirsty and basically fundamentalist.”

To be continued.....