Directorate S
The same narrative is repeated that Washington’s troubles in Afghanistan are due to the ISI
The writer can be reached at imran.jan@gmail.com. Twitter @Imran_Jan
Steve Coll is a meticulous researcher, a seasoned journalist, an articulate author. In his latest book, which is a sequel to Ghost Wars, which focused on the background that led to 9/11, is called Directorate S.
It has the same Coll style of telling a story with perspective, stunning and relevant details, chilling facts, and entertaining like an espionage novel. However, despite my respect for Coll’s work, I was left disappointed with his bias. The same narrative is repeated that Washington’s troubles in Afghanistan are due to the ISI. Almost every time I walk into a book store in America, I watch on front display some kind of non-fiction with titles like Pakistan — the most dangerous country or Pakistan — an enemy not a friend.
In the introduction chapter, Coll talks that in 2004 “It seemed evident that ISI was, once again, interfering secretly in Afghanistan, exploiting the country’s fault lines, and that the US government, including the CIA, was again unable to forestall an incubating disaster.” While Coll comfortably calls ISI’s actions ‘interference’, I wonder if he would think of invading an entire country with dubious and changing war aims as a bigger crime? He doesn’t say so.
In the same chapter, he makes an unsuccessful attempt at appearing neutral by saying “Its [Afghanistan’s] several decades of civil war since that invasion [Soviet invasion] have been fueled again and again by outside interference, primarily by Pakistan, but certainly including the United States and Europe, which have remade Afghanistan with billions of dollars…” Again, interference is done ‘primarily’ by Pakistan, if we are to deeply internalise this concept that invasion doesn’t count as interference. Then he states that “If the army and ISI did not misrule Pakistan, in alliance with corrupt political cronies, the country’s potential to lift up its own population and contribute positively to the international system might today rival India’s.” What does contributing “positively to the international system” mean? Is that a code word for obeying Washington’s orders?
Further, in the chapter ‘Friends Like These’, Coll asserts that one factor due to which Pakistan supported the Taliban was because “Pakistan’s India-obsessed generals” wanted to intimidate India. Indian media never gets tired of tarnishing Pakistan and the ISI. They never leave any stone unturned to lobby in Washington against Pakistan. The book even mentions the basing rights India offered to President Bush for attacking Afghanistan and asserted that Pakistan was behind 9/11. I am sure even conspiracy theory lovers might have died laughing. Yet, it is Pakistan’s generals who are India obsessed in Coll’s mind.
Many American friends told me how 20 years ago nobody even knew what Pakistan was. Today, grab any political magazine or any newspaper copy in America and you’ll see detailed descriptions of streets of Peshawar. Grab any book written about Pakistan and you’ll find a grim description of the ISI’s old and new buildings. I was born and raised in Pakistan and I didn’t know there were old and new buildings. That written work can be used as a GPS if one plans on visiting Pakistan. That’s what I call being obsessed.
Coll doesn’t shy from speaking the truth about other issues. However, the changing war aims in Afghanistan, the super weak and dubious pretext for Afghanistan invasion, the illegal and inhuman Guantanamo Bay imprisonment and the refusal to obey the imperial nation’s orders receives the following treatment from Coll: “Under the emerging Bush doctrine, Omar’s refusal to cooperate in Bin Laden’s arrest condemned the Taliban to mass slaughter and indefinite imprisonment as enemy combatants. And the Taliban leader declined to yield.” Hypocrisy is when one refuses to apply to oneself the same standards one applies to others. Coll can find that definition in the Holy Bible.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 27th, 2018.
It has the same Coll style of telling a story with perspective, stunning and relevant details, chilling facts, and entertaining like an espionage novel. However, despite my respect for Coll’s work, I was left disappointed with his bias. The same narrative is repeated that Washington’s troubles in Afghanistan are due to the ISI. Almost every time I walk into a book store in America, I watch on front display some kind of non-fiction with titles like Pakistan — the most dangerous country or Pakistan — an enemy not a friend.
In the introduction chapter, Coll talks that in 2004 “It seemed evident that ISI was, once again, interfering secretly in Afghanistan, exploiting the country’s fault lines, and that the US government, including the CIA, was again unable to forestall an incubating disaster.” While Coll comfortably calls ISI’s actions ‘interference’, I wonder if he would think of invading an entire country with dubious and changing war aims as a bigger crime? He doesn’t say so.
In the same chapter, he makes an unsuccessful attempt at appearing neutral by saying “Its [Afghanistan’s] several decades of civil war since that invasion [Soviet invasion] have been fueled again and again by outside interference, primarily by Pakistan, but certainly including the United States and Europe, which have remade Afghanistan with billions of dollars…” Again, interference is done ‘primarily’ by Pakistan, if we are to deeply internalise this concept that invasion doesn’t count as interference. Then he states that “If the army and ISI did not misrule Pakistan, in alliance with corrupt political cronies, the country’s potential to lift up its own population and contribute positively to the international system might today rival India’s.” What does contributing “positively to the international system” mean? Is that a code word for obeying Washington’s orders?
Further, in the chapter ‘Friends Like These’, Coll asserts that one factor due to which Pakistan supported the Taliban was because “Pakistan’s India-obsessed generals” wanted to intimidate India. Indian media never gets tired of tarnishing Pakistan and the ISI. They never leave any stone unturned to lobby in Washington against Pakistan. The book even mentions the basing rights India offered to President Bush for attacking Afghanistan and asserted that Pakistan was behind 9/11. I am sure even conspiracy theory lovers might have died laughing. Yet, it is Pakistan’s generals who are India obsessed in Coll’s mind.
Many American friends told me how 20 years ago nobody even knew what Pakistan was. Today, grab any political magazine or any newspaper copy in America and you’ll see detailed descriptions of streets of Peshawar. Grab any book written about Pakistan and you’ll find a grim description of the ISI’s old and new buildings. I was born and raised in Pakistan and I didn’t know there were old and new buildings. That written work can be used as a GPS if one plans on visiting Pakistan. That’s what I call being obsessed.
Coll doesn’t shy from speaking the truth about other issues. However, the changing war aims in Afghanistan, the super weak and dubious pretext for Afghanistan invasion, the illegal and inhuman Guantanamo Bay imprisonment and the refusal to obey the imperial nation’s orders receives the following treatment from Coll: “Under the emerging Bush doctrine, Omar’s refusal to cooperate in Bin Laden’s arrest condemned the Taliban to mass slaughter and indefinite imprisonment as enemy combatants. And the Taliban leader declined to yield.” Hypocrisy is when one refuses to apply to oneself the same standards one applies to others. Coll can find that definition in the Holy Bible.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 27th, 2018.