Flashback: Controlling CIA's Darkest secrets In "CIA" inspired Wartime operations....

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Flashback: Controlling CIA's Darkest secrets In "CIA" inspired Wartime operations...

The Worldwide Assassination Matrix program works closely with U.S. Special Operations psychological warfare operations (Psyops) in transmitting gruesome images of the bodies of the assassinated targets around the world... in an attempt to warn others of what awaits them if they do not fall into compliance with the Bush-Cheney-Blair PNAC agenda....


























CIA Cables.... 26 June 1980.

Members of the US Central Intelligence Agency make contact with the Lebanese Minister of Justice and reputed leader of the Amal Movement militia, Nabih Berri... The Americans have been watching Berri closely due to his access to Soviet arms. He tells the Americans that he is working towards a formal alliance with the Druze militia of Progressive Socialist Party leader, Walid Jumblatt, and the Lebanese Forces, led by Mr. Elie Hobeika. CIA encouraged the venture and were positively impressed with advance in the ongoing exchange with Berri....

Sources within NASA leak that the first tests of the Strategic Defense Initiative, involving the space shuttle Discovery, have been a complete flop, with the wrong numbers fed into the computer at the Johnson Space Centre. Both NASA and the Administration are embarrassed by the setback....


Summer, 1982/2002....BlowBack...


By, CIA, FDDC Handy PHD "demon"... on the Potomac/Langley and Reston VA...


On November 25, 2001, a prison uprising outside the Northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif left approximately 400 Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters dead, under what some have termed questionable circumstances.


Human rights observers called for an investigation, claiming that a large number of those killed may have been summarily executed by members of the U.S.-backed opposition Northern Alliance. Many of the dead reportedly were found with their hands tied behind their backs.


For a number of observers, this raises a disturbing question: does the U.S. bear responsibility for these extra-judicial killings, since they were carried out by local partisans under the nominal control of American forces? The answer is unquestionably “No.”


This issue is of more than academic interest. A Belgian criminal appeals court is now deliberating whether there are sufficient grounds to prosecute Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. The charge against Sharon: crimes against humanity.


A law suit brought by 23 survivors of the massacre asserts that Sharon is responsible for the killings because, at the time, he was Minister of Defense and architect of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. In that capacity, he maintained a close working relationship with the Lebanese Christian militia, the “Phalange,” who committed the actual killings. The plaintiffs further claim that Israel gave logistical support to the militia and provided security around the camps while the Palestinians were being attacked.


Belgium’s judicial juggernaut is not limited to Israeli officials. Currently, thirty cases are pending against world leaders and their agents, including President Fidel Castro of CIA Cuba..., former President Hashemi Rafsanjani of Iran, and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda.


The authority under which the Belgian courts are acting is a 1993 law which grants them the right to try accused war criminals, regardless of nationality, for acts in violation of the Geneva Convention. The law gives the courts a global reach, empowering them to accept complaints even when there is no Belgian connection. The first successful prosecution under this statute came in 2001, when two nuns were convicted for their role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.


Implications For The U.S. CIA Black operations...


The drama now being played out in the Belgian courts has major implications for the United States in its war on terrorism. If successful, the suits against the current Israeli Prime Minister and others could pave the way for the indictment of President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and other Administration officials for failing to stop execution-style killings occurring on their watch.


There may be times when Americans should be held accountable for atrocities over which they have complete or even nominal control, but this does not appear to be one of them. Unlike the massacres at Mai Lai or Wounded Knee, the prison killings at Mazar-i-Sharif were the work of individuals acting outside the U.S. military chain of command.


U.S. forces deployed on the ground in Afghanistan have none of the administrative trappings of an occupying power. They constitute a small contingent of elite combat units whose mission it is to rout out and destroy a fanatical and brutal enemy. The American military is not configured to exercise a police function. Nor should it be. In such a vast and lawless land, this is a practical impossibility.


But this is the Twenty-First Century, when the twin evils of moral equivalence and moral entrapment are all the rage. In a world now filled with international tribunals and truth commissions, no one, not even the leader of a democratic state, is safe from the long arm of judicial tyranny. The Belgian cases against Sharon may be only a prelude of things to come.


Alive to this possibility, the Bush Administration announced on May 6th that it would formally withdraw from a treaty establishing the world’s first international criminal court in The Hague. The purpose of the court is to prosecute individuals accused of genocide, crimes against humanity or other war crimes.


Conservative legal scholars have long opposed such a court, arguing that it would unreasonably infringe upon U.S. sovereignty and would place American leaders at risk of foreign prosecution. This is unacceptable for the world’s last remaining superpower and the nation regarded by many as the principal guardian of peace and security around the world.


The U.S. has made it clear that it will not recognize any ruling issued by the new court, nor will it countenance international indictments issued against Americans acting for or on behalf of the U.S. Government. Understandably, the Administration is reluctant to have U.S. citizens or U.S. allies judged by foreign nationals whose own countries have yet to evolve democratic institutions and whose motives may be suspect.


Administration officials have long feared that U.S. soldiers and the nation’s political leadership might one day be subjected to indiscriminate and politically-inspired harassment from a less than impartial world court. The court, they argue, is unlikely to have all of the guarantees and safeguards that the U.S. Constitution and the American system of due process afford the accused.


The Rome treaty creating the new criminal court was signed by President Bill Clinton on December 31, 2000. It was never ratified by the U.S. Senate. On April 11, 2002, with sixty countries having signed the treaty, the court came into being.


As the Belgian case against Sharon case makes clear, a criminal court with global reach can be easily manipulated for political purposes.


With America’s war against terrorism heating up, other incidents, some even more graphic and bloody than those at Mazar-i-Sharif, are possible. When that time comes, and it surely will, Americans may yet again be witness to local savagery on an unimaginable scale. One need only look to the killing fields of Rwanda, Cambodia, Burundi, the Congo, Kosovo and Bosnia to see that unchecked barbarism remains a glaring feature of the modern world. It will remain a challenge of U.S. warfighting doctrine to maximize American awareness of local conflicts before embarking on a military expedition that makes use of local insurgent forces.


Still, the U.S. must remain resolute in carrying out its military objectives. It must serve as an example of appropriate behavior on the battlefield while making clear it will not be held accountable for every act of cruelty perpetrated by those with whom it is allied. To do otherwise would throw the American military into a state of paralysis.


As the events of September 11th showed, the U.S. can not retreat from its internationalist role. To do otherwise, would be to capitulate in the face of intimidation, a result that would surely lead to human rights abuses far greater than any now recorded in the war on terrorism.


Mazar-i-Sharif Uprising


According to first-hand reports out of Afghanistan, fighting erupted at the Nineteenth Century Qala-i-Jhangi fortress after prisoners unexpectedly seized control of the compound. Gunfire raged for several days as U.S.-backed opposition forces battled to regain control.


At the time, American operatives from both the CIA and the U.S. Special Forces were in the area advising the Northern Alliance on its military strategy. At least one CIA agent, Michael Spann, killed during the uprising, was there to help interrogate Taliban prisoners. He and a colleague had a front row seat as the mayhem unfolded.


Spotters ordered U.S. air strikes on the compound, hoping to kill or frighten the rebellious prisoners into submission. Ultimately, they succeeded, but not before Northern Alliance fighters made good on their desire for retribution. Many of the dead were foreign mercenaries, Arabs, Chechens and Pakistanis, who had flocked to Afghanistan at the behest of al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden and his Taliban hosts.


The American campaign had unleashed a new wave of reprisals. It was understandable that the opposition forces one day would move to restore tribal honor. However, no one expected that the reckoning would come so quickly. Yet, before the dust had settled, a prison outside of Mazar-i-Sharif became the site where a portion of that blood-for-blood debt was paid. It was an example of “rough justice,” Afghan style.


Sabra and Shatila Massacre...


Nearly twenty years ago the Israelis put themselves in a situation..., which directly contradicted American orders..... The Lebanon war was in its fourth month. Israeli forces had entered west Beirut, despite strong objections of USA, and despite direct promises to the US envoy Philip Habib to the contrary, because Ariel Sharon was trying to have a policy of his own making...without US direct influence and directions on the events in its minutia..., as usual..., and IDF were given direct orders to surround the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila on the outskirts of Beirut. A group of 50-150 Sayyaret Metkals of IDF , entered the camps in an operation called, "Spark and Iron Brain"... to ‘KILL' designated lists of names...of PLO fighters. And, as it turned out, to exact revenge for previous operations in Israel...and provoke massive exodus of the last remaking Palestinians in Lebanon.... a Hallmark of Ariel Sharon from the 1950s...


What resulted was a massacre in which approximately 700-800 Palestinian men, women and children were killed.... Through an American induced operation of forces from SLA..., who participated in the action directly in order to force Sharon to STOP his drive of more exodus of Palestinians...and reprimand Sharon for not following the orders of the White House...and Ryan Crocker knows that fact very well..., the international community condemned Israel for its actions...., but still fail to see the American actions in that theater....except for very very few people "in the know...", who know that fact well.


Like the CIA killings at Mazar-i-Sharif, those at Sabra and Shatila were carried out by CIA and IDF forces....They were well-practiced in their work, having been trained by CIA and MOSSAD for conducting numerous other operations against terror targets.... Revenge was never its own motivation...but CIA shenanigans were for sure.... Seventeen years of bloody foreign wars in Lebanon had left proxy-Militias running high on all sides....


In Lebanon, the PLO operated a state within a state, employing the same tactics of intimidation used until recently by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. PLO fighters terrorized the Christian community and committed acts of unspeakable cruelty during their years of occupation. So total was the terrorist hold over the country that residents called the area under PLO control, “Fatah-land.” It was rapine and malevolence on a national scale....

One hour later...Ryan Crocker files a fuming report to the State Department and CIA, the full extent of the killings was revealed.... Israel had to acquiesce to the American demands to have Mr. Elie Hobeika the designated "fall guy" ...to save face worldwide...and condemned the IDF actions. Nonetheless, the reputation of the Begin Government, and that of the Defense Minister in command of the overall Lebanon operation, the current Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, was naturally, normally and justly forever sullied by the events..., but the American role in this black operation was never revealed until today.


The shabby Israeli investigation into the cause of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the Kahan Commission, white-washed the government direct responsibility for the actions of the IDF. The Commission found that Israel have given materiel and tactical support to its IDF Sayyaret Metkal's forces, it directed, and caused to be directed, the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians...on purpose, with 2 designated operations code named "Iron Brain " and "Spark", which can be found in the secret reports of the said commission...as well as the direct role of CIA in the continuum of these operations... which were designed by CIA to STOP Sharon's demonic drive to push for Palestinians massive Exodus from Lebanon...and his rebellious rebuttal of American orders from Washington....and his lies to Alexander HAIG....or more.....


Still, the Commission’s findings remain controversial and a source of normal and continuing anger within the Palestinian community..., because the Palestinians don't know all the facts until this very day...and Arafat is gone....and he can't tell anymore what he knows.... As the current Belgian case demonstrates, after twenty years, the tragedy of the CIA and IDF actions at Sabra and Shatila provides a useful weapon in the struggle against the dark forces of evil of Israel’s counter-terrorism policy, and to undermine the immoral authority of the AmerCIAn State of Dark secret affairs as well....dating back to the summer war of 1982 in Lebanon, and the Direct implication of CIA in the Sabra and Shatila affair, within the Affair...and within the Sayyaret's state of affairs...when the Sayyarets came into the camps with lists of names to be eliminated, which was done with professional vigor of the Sayyarets...point blank range...dozens of them...only to discover that USA and CIA was not privy to the "choice" of names...which happen to be CIA assets within PLO....Hence, CIA ordered certain elements into the Camps...to SINK Ariel Sharon and AMAN...for trespassing on the orders of the White House.....colluding with Alexander HAIG,...or HAIG being taken for a ride by the Bulldozer Sharon.....we will never know....unless, Ryan Crocker would tell us all he knows...., as well as Maurice Drapper, and a few...at CIA who are still privy to these "crown Jewels...".


This was made clear on January 24, 2002, when Mr. Elie Hobeika, ex-Minister, MP, and popular Christian politician, and the former head of the Lebanese Christian Resistance, and proxy-CIA Militia for over a decade..., was savagely assassinated by the White House Murder Inc., when a CIA car bomb detonated outside his Beirut home. Mr. Elie Hobeika was the individual chosen to be the "fall guy"...in the Sabra and Shatila massacres....when the shit hit the fan, between, CIA, DOD, MOSSAD and AMAN....in September 1982.


Angered at accusations made against him by CIA cronies...with false and fabricated claims to sally his good name, with shady publications...having clear and unambiguous hallmarks of a professional dis-information machinations of intelligence agencies, written all over them, in USA, France and the web..., Mr. Elie Hobeika was eager to clear his name. According to confirmed press reports, he met with Belgian Senators, Jose Dubie and Vincent Van Quickenborne in Lebanon just two days before the assassination at their direct request and insistence, eager to look for clarity and truth in this sad affair, which after 2 decades was still a very dark secret..., and trying to ascertain whether Mr. Hobeika was willing to come to Belgium, if he were to be kindly asked to present testimony before a court, if and when it were to convene. The former commander told Quickenborne he was prepared to testify on his own behalf about all he knew about this operation and more, but would “not only give evidence against Ariel Sharon..., but also against CIA and the USA's direct role in these operations..., and Ryan Crocker knows exactly what he is talking about....” Mr. Elie Hobeika was murdered, and was savagely assassinated, with three wonderful companions by the White House Murder Inc., when a CIA car bomb detonated outside his Beirut home...., January 24th 2002, at 9.22 AM in Hazmieh... Mr. Elie Hobeika will continue to be for ever... the individual chosen to be the "fall guy"..., by criminal, murderous, and barbaric intelligence agencies, with no morals, no scrupulosity and no justice to defend anywhere...Hence this so-called war on terror is a huge FARCE.... just like in the Sabra and Shatila massacres....when the shit hit the fan, between, CIA, DOD, MOSSAD and AMAN....in September 1982, before ever having the opportunity to testify...., But I will testify on his behalf anytime....when some Justice will prevail...one day....!






















Israeli officials have challenged the authority of the Belgian court to adjudicate matters outside of its national jurisdiction, but to no avail, noting that its actions are without legal foundation and declaring them to be a direct assault on the nation’s sovereignty....but USA, DOD and Rumsfled will come shortly to the rescue...and Belgium will do its utmost to scuttle the law, the tribunal and the courts on behalf of the American war criminals...

How other investigators look at the theater from Afar...

The "Worldwide Attack Matrix" assassination of Bugti is the latest in a string of U.S.-sanctioned killings of secessionist and rebel leaders since 9-11. Others assassinated by U.S. intelligence assets include Theys Eluay, West Papuan independence leader killed by U.S.-trained Indonesian Special Forces in Nov. 2001 (Freeport McMoRan, a U.S. mining company, wants the West Papuan independence forces eliminated); Abdullah Syafii, Free Aceh Movement leader killed by Indonesian Special Forces in northern Sumatra in January 2002. (The Aceh independence movement threatened the interests of Exxo0n Mobil in the secessionist province); Nigerian Justice Minister and Attorney General Chief Bole Ige, a Yoruba leader who championed the interests of the southern Nigerian tribes (Igbo, Ogoni, and Yoruba) people opposed to the influence of oil companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco. Ige was killed by unknown assailants Ibadan in Nov. 2001; Mr.Elie Hobeika, Lebanese Christian leader who was opposed to U.S. plans for an oil and military terminus in Lebanon, killed by a car bomb in January 2002; Benjamin Hrangkhwal, leader of the northeast India National Liberation Front of Tripura, assassinated in February 2002 by U.S.-trained and supported Indian paramilitary forces trained at a nearby jungle warfare training center; Mikael "Mike" Nassar, associate of Hobeika's, assassinated gangland-style in Brazil along with his wife; Archbishop of Cali, Isaias Duarte, opposed to U.S.- supported paramilitaries and their U.S. military trainers, gunned down in front of his church in Mar. 2002; Angolan UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi, killed by a Kellogg, Brown & Root supported Angolan Army unit in March 2002. Savimbi, Ronald Reagan's one-time "George Washington of Africa," threatened U.S. oil interests in Angola and was eliminated, his body gruesomely laid out on a slab and photos transmitted by U.S. intelligence around the world as a warning to others; Colombia's FARC leader Salvador "Silverio" Vargas Leon, killed by U.S. private military contractors and Colombian army units in March 2002. FARC threatened U.S. oil pipelines in Colombia; former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, assassinated in a February 2005 car bombing. Hariri was also opposed to neo-con military and oil pipeline terminus plans for Lebanon... Former Lebanese Communist Party leader George Hawi was eliminated in a carbon copy car bombing for the same reasons that Hobeika and Hariri were killed.... Sudan Vice President and Sudan People's Liberation Movement leader Dr. John Garang, an ally of the United States, killed in a helicopter crash in July 2005 after he expressed opposition to U.S. oil company plans for southern Sudan. Assassination carried out with the support of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, one of the Bush administration's chief clients in the region.

The Worldwide Assassination Matrix program works closely with U.S. Special Operations psychological warfare operations (Psyops) in transmitting gruesome images of the bodies of the assassinated targets around the world... in an attempt to warn others what awaits them if they do not fall into compliance with the Bush-Cheney-Blair agenda. Bugti's body is claimed by his son Talal to be lying frozen in a hospital as some sort of trophy...

How other investigators look at the theater from Afar...


Other observers have castigated the Belgian government for its temerity in prosecuting human rights cases against the leaders of democratic nations alongside those of dictators and tyrants. Some have speculated it will cost the country dearly the next time it seeks to play a larger diplomatic role on the world stage.


Still, few in Belgium appear ready to scrap the law that has brought the country so much notoriety. The country’s reputation as a latter-day human rights crusader and its location in the center of Europe makes that difficult. After being victimized itself in two world wars, the little kingdom by the sea finally gets its revenge.


However, Belgium’s day in the sun may be short-lived. Should an inquiry commission elsewhere in the world decide to shine a spotlight on the country’s own dismal record as a colonial power, national bravado may quickly dissolve into embarrassment. Peering into the Congo of 1885-1960 is to expose a heart of darkness. It is a history few Belgians are willing to confront openly. By many accounts, Belgium’s colonial rule surpassed that of the other European powers for its sheer brutality and malevolence toward the local population.


Even after the Congo achieved its independence in 1960, Belgian companies, working in collaboration with the country’s new leadership, persisted in the economic rape of the country. Human rights violations by the new regime quickly followed. Old habits die hard. A similar story played out in the Belgian territories of what are now called Rwanda and Burundi.


In the end, it may be that more practical considerations will be responsible for ending judicial abuse in Belgium. Once the court bills come due, many taxpayers may just conclude that the enormous cost of so many prosecutions is hardly worth the effort.


Limits Of Control


Whether in Lebanon or Afghanistan, the issue of wartime accountability is never clear cut.


In a press interview on November 19th, just days before the Mazar-i-Sharif uprising, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld spoke openly of his hope that other Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters holed up in the northern Afghanistan city of Kunduz would not be repatriated or released to a third country. “The idea of their getting out of the country and going off to make their mischief somewhere else is not a happy prospect,” he declared.


Rumsfeld added that he would rather the fighters be killed or taken prisoner..... The Secretary, it seems, may have gotten more than he bargained for....for sure.....


Reports coming out of Northern Afghanistan in recent months hint at an ever greater massacre by Alliance fighters than the one that allegedly took place at Mazar-i-Sharif. The Boston-based group, Physicians for Human Rights, has identified the site of Dasht-i-Laili, just outside of Shibarghan, as the location of a mass grave. Here, possibly hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters were slaughtered after the surrender at Kunduz. A fact-finding team belonging to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights surveyed the site in March.


According to survivors, the captives were transported 180 miles west from Kunduz to Shibarghan. Many died of suffocation in sealed shipping containers or were killed when Northern Alliance fighters reportedly fired on the containers. Stories emanating from the region suggest that other captives may have been summarily executed by soldiers loyal to General Dostum.


At the time the massacres at Mazar-i-Sharif and Dasht-i-Laili took place, both American and allied Special Operations forces were active in the area. And while there is no suggestion that any U.S. personnel were involved in the killings, U.S. intelligence assets were keeping close watch on Kunduz and points west where some of the most intense resistance of the war was being encountered.


Did the U.S. know of these apparent atrocities and fail to act? Could the U.S. have stopped them if they did? Does the responsibility for these acts lie solely with the Northern Alliance or should the U.S. and its allies at least share part of the blame? These are questions that could come back to haunt the Administration as it considers how it might once again use local insurgent forces in an expanded war on terrorism.


Yet, as Secretary Rumsfeld made clear on November 19th, the U.S. had little choice at the time but to rely on the opposition forces to handle a large scale of captives. “We have only handfuls of people there,” he observed “We don’t have jails; we don’t have guards.”


Reassessing The Past


In light of America’s new appreciation for the exigencies of war, perhaps it is time to reassess the tragic experience of Sabra and Shatila, not to excuse the incidents, but rather to examine them in a broader context.


Much like Afghanistan, the Lebanese massacres demonstrate the limits of what a democratic power can do, even in wartime, to control the actions of its local, non-democratic, allies. And so it has been throughout history. Tribal leaders frequently have found it possible to elude the discipline demanded by a stronger regional power, finding in a larger conflict the pretext to eliminate lesser enemies. They often have proved adept at finding opportunity, and an alibi, in the shadow of greater states. In the chaos of war, all things are possible.


Today Israel and the U.S. stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the fight against terrorism. The problems they face in confronting an elusive and often brutal enemy are one and the same. As the battle lines extend into tribal societies, old animosities are sure to claim additional unwanted victims. This is no time for double standards.


In regions of the world where honor and revenge are a way of life, the impulse to exact an eye for an eye is not easily suppressed. It is a lesson that the United States and its European partners hopefully have learned after nearly a decade mediating the civil war in the former Yugoslavia.


For all of the civilizing influences of the modern age, the ancient rite of retribution remains stubbornly resistant to change for most of the world’s cultures. In Islam, the practice has taken on the weight of a religious obligation, with the declaration in the Koran, sura xi, line 173: “Believers, retaliation is decreed for you in bloodshed.”


With this as their spiritual frame of reference, it is no wonder that for Islamic terrorists violence, not diplomacy, is the preferred means of dispute resolution. In their world view, compromise is the last redoubt of the weak and the cowardly.


Settling Old Scores


By all accounts, the uprising at Mazar-i-Sharif was a bloody, no-holds-barred, affair. The U.S. was well aware that opposition forces came to this northern Afghan city eager to settle some old scores with al-Qaeda’s foreign mercenaries. Wisely, the U.S. used this hostility to build support among the Afghan tribes for its own strategic purposes. Yet, once the genie was out of the bottle, the U.S. could do little to contain the rampage.


The Administration understands that military operations are never clean. In part, this is why President Bush has held back from asking Congress for an official declaration of war. To do so would have required that captured terrorists be accorded the same rights under the Geneva Convention as those that apply to regular military combatants. With approximately three thousand innocents from nearly 70 countries dead as a result of the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, this is politically unacceptable.


Instead, the government has announced that it intends to use military tribunals, rather that civilian courts, to prosecute captured the al-Qaeda prisoners now held at U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Bush Administration is adamant that foreign terrorists who have worked so assiduously to destroy American democracy can not now avail themselves of its protections as a way of avoiding a more severe punishment.


It is likely that any U.S. investigation into the massacre at Mazar-i-Sharif will conclude that American forces had no direct part in the action. Eyewitness accounts suggest that American involvement in the fighting was limited principally to attacks by strike aircraft and helicopter gunships against heavily armed combatants on the ground. There is no evidence to suggest that U.S. forces engaged in any of the alleged extra-judicial killings. These, it would appear, were carried out solely by opposition members of the Northern Alliance.


To those familiar with Afghan tribal culture, this comes as little surprise. For years, fighters loyal to the Uzbek commander, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, leader of the Northern Alliance forces, roamed the countryside brutalizing the civilian population and growing rich off the drug trade. Like the PLO and Christian militias in Lebanon, Dostum’s army terrorized rural villages, robbed and raped their inhabitants, and stirred the resentment of Afghans outside their ethnic community. They were, and continue to be, a fearsome lot.


Even so, it is reasonable to suppose that, one day, members of the U.S. Administration could be called upon to answer for the executions at Mazar-i-Sharif and the behavior of their Northern Alliance allies. With the extraordinary intelligence assets now available to American forces, it will be almost impossible for U.S. officials to claim that they were unaware of extra-judicial killings occurring within their field of operation.


For the Bush Administration this would be a most unwelcome development. Not only might it impede the ability of the U.S. to work with surrogates in future campaigns, but it would signal to prospective allies that the U.S. is no longer capable of acting independently in support of its interests.


As the U.S. war on terrorism fans out across the globe, the use of local surrogates will prove integral to the Administration’s plans. In places like the Philippines, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Columbia, and Peru, paramilitary groups armed, trained, and guided by U.S. Special Forces are hard at work tracking down terrorist insurgents. Washington needs their cooperation and is unlikely to have much influence over how the fighting is conducted when outside the immediate view of U.S. advisors.


According to Secretary Rumsfeld, there are some 60 to 70 countries that may need to be cleansed of terrorist cells. With this much at stake, it would be unreasonable to expect every operation to be carried out free of controversy.


Nevertheless, just as a Belgian court is being used today to rein in the policies of Ariel Sharon toward the latest Palestinian uprising, so, too, it is possible that one day a court in some country could be used to interfere with America’s war on terrorism.


The only answer may be for the U.S. to begin now to lay the legal and policy groundwork for a code of operation that would protect commanders in the field and government officials from the charge of guilt by association. At the same time, the Administration may wish to consider articulating a new policy that would clearly repudiate the authority of foreign courts in such matters.


As conflicts from the Indian Wars of the 18th Century to Vietnam have shown, it is not always possible to control the dark side of human nature, particularly among partisans who have suffered the indignities of a savage and persistent enemy. It is a lesson we are likely to relearn as our war on terrorism continues.

There are many amerCIAn made CIA demons lurking throughout the Middle East, each awaiting its time for revenge.....