It is not unfamiliarity with the organisation that causes people to make unsound judgments on the ISI’s performance.
KARACHI: This is with reference to Asad Munir's article “Allegations against ISI” (Oct 30). It is not the unfamiliarity with the organisation and its functioning that causes people to make unsound and biased judgments on the ISI’s performance.
The ISI is judged and criticised for its failures as much as it is appreciated for its achievements. It is, in fact, the result of its failed strategy of engaging in proxy warfare that has harmed its image the most. The truth is that the ISI created the monster of Islamist extremism and the Taliban movement. Much of the funds and weapons supplied by the CIA were covertly used to support the Kashmir insurgency. The battle-hardened mujahideen who participated in this proxy war against the Indians under various extremist organisations could not have done so without the knowledge of the intelligence agency.
The marriage of convenience between the ISI and these extremists may have lasted longer had President Pervez Musharraf not taken his famous u-turn on our Kashmir policy. Today, secular India is seen as a responsible state, abiding by principles of international law and is hence reaping the reward for that. Its intelligence agency RAW may be supporting the insurgency in Balochistan but that does nothing really to paint India as an irresponsible state.
Today, our society is at the mercy of religious fanatics who punish innocent citizens of this country for their own aims and objectives, one of which seems to be to punish the state for being an ally of America.
In the new reality, the battle lines are quite ironically drawn between those who were once the mentors of the mujahideen and the mujahideen’s successors in the form of the Taliban.
The deep hole that the ISI has dug for itself and this country will take quite a few honest admissions and a long time to fill.
Lt-col (r) Muhammad Ali Ehsan
Published in The Express Tribune, November 1st, 2010.
