Posted on 05/28/2007 2:34:37 AM PDT by Arjun
Reagan administration let Pak go nuclear in return for support against Russians From our ANI Correspondent
Washington, May 4: A former CIA official has revealed that the Ronald Reagan administration allowed Pakistan to continue its nuclear programme because it "needed Islamabad's support" to fight the Russians in Afghanistan.
Richard Barlow, who worked as an analyst for the CIA, monitored Pakistan's nuclear programme during the Reagan era. In 1989, he moved over to the Pentagon, where he worked for then Secretary of Defence Richard Cheney.
Barlow said that he lost the job when he raised objections to his bosses about senior Pentagon officials allegedly lying to Congress concerning Pakistan's emerging nuclear programme.
When Barlow joined the CIA in 1985 as a counter-proliferation intelligence officer with particular expertise on Pakistan, he soon learned that US officials were aware of Pakistan's efforts to establish a weapon-cable nuclear programme but chose to ignore them, the Dawn quoted him as saying.
According to Barlow, individuals at the US State Department later "actively facilitated procurement", tipping off targets of sealed arrest warrants in undercover operations and illegally approving export licenses for restricted goods.
He said that in 1985 a Pakistani agent was arrested in the US for attempting to procure specialised switches for nuclear detonators. Following the arrest, the US Congress took steps to prevent Pakistan from developing nuclear weapons, passing bills that would cut off economic and military aid to Pakistan if it were found to be involved in nuclear activities.
"However, President Reagan wanted military and economic aid to continue flowing to Pakistan to ensure its ongoing support of his covert war against the Russians in Afghanistan," said Barlow.
In 1987, Barlow engineered the arrest of some of Pakistanis in the US as part of an undercover operation. He says the arrests came with the full support and knowledge of the highest levels of the CIA and the Reagan administration.
‘They sold out the world for an F-16 sale’
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/They_sold_out_world_for_F16_0426.html
hmmm, story coming out of India so theres no chance of bias here.
I’m sure he’s every bit as credible as Valerie Plame.
Yeah. I’m sure it couldn’t have had anything to do with it being impossible to stop Pakistan without risking kicking of open conflict with the USSR, or anything.
Nope. No way. No how. It had to be those eeveel Amerikkkans what did it for their own gain. Chomsky errmm...I mean that CIA guy said so.
In retrospect we should have let Russia do what it wanted in Afghanistan and done what we could have to keep nukes away from Muslim Pakistan
Hind sight being 20/20, I agee.
That, of course, discounts how heavily India was already leaning toward the soviet camp at that time as well. That would be sweet indeed, eh?
The USSR never having been stressed as it was by the Afghan defeat, Afghan, Pakistan and India in the Soviet fold. The USSR with free and easy access to multiple all season ports along the sub continental coast... Yeah. Interesting concept.
Too bad we dont have a real time travel machine so that we can see just how much better the other options would have turned out. After all, in this world, designed as it is in the rock, paper, scissors structures, there’s always a perfect solution to every possible issue and anything that didn’t come out absolutely perfect and pristine must have been a horrible mistake.
I wonder when his book will hit the stands?
Isn't that usually the next step?
The USSR never having been stressed as it was by the Afghan defeat, Afghan, Pakistan and India in the Soviet fold. The USSR with free and easy access to multiple all season ports along the sub continental coast... Yeah. Interesting concept.
My own projection is that Russia would not have pulled this off and if it did it would not have lasted very long. Too much rot within Russia with or without the Afghanistan defeat. Russia was plenty bogged down in Afghanistan without us giving the decisive edge to the Mujahadeen with stinger missiles etc. Now it's our turn to be bogged down, bled to death in Iraq by Mujahdeen. All because Jimmy Carter gave Iran to Khoumeni and Ronald Reagan f***** the Russians in Afghanistan
Jihad is eternal. Communism isn't. Jihad plus atom bombs is a larger menace than Russian warm water ports. Which would not have been sustainable anyway
You can only make the best and most informed decision you can at a particular time, as they did then, and as we try to in ours. Remember, in the early ‘80s, absent Israel, Saddam was the good guy in the Middle East, and was far more rational and reasonable to negotiate with than the profoundly Satanic Ayatalloh Khomeini. The Afghanistan situation “quagmire” helped bring about the end of the Soviet Empire, and that was the preeminent issue and goal then. If you had told our government 25 years ago that a bunch of rogue Mohammadans were the greatest threat to civilization over the Soviets, they’d have laughed in your face.
#1 It was undeniable mistake for Jimmy Carter to hand over Iran to the anti-Shah forces. The Shah was an anti-Soviet ally!
#2 Our actions in Afghanistan are more excusable. Too bad we didn’t understand how terrible Islam and Jihad is. Especially Jihad with nuclear weapons
I hear yeah. But we do need to keep in mind when playing the “what if” or shoulda games that there is no real way to test outcomes other than in imagination and all too often the games only serve to feed into the frustrations and dispare which in itself is an aide to the enemy.
I’m not saying I don’t do the same thing myself. But we do need to watch out for each other in our efforts to stand against the propaganda war.
The enemy has gained much ground and mostly by picking and prying at those things that naturally frustrate and playing their own woulda shouldas.
All that matters is standing hard and strong against the enemy, foreign and domestic.
Forgive me, I should’ve prefaced my remarks by stating they applied solely to the Reagan Administration. The older I get, the more I start to conclude that Carter seemed to have all the hallmarks of a paid foreign agent, whose sole mission was to maximize damage to the United States, economically (check), domestically (check), militarily (check), and internationally to its allies (check). I mean, I truly cannot name one positive thing that he did (and the hostage crisis resolution doesn’t count, because had he backed the Shah, it never would’ve happened) or anything else that was in the best interests of either our nation, or mankind itself. Like clockwork, he’s always on the wrong side or sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong (even Clinton didn’t trust him, and knew just how destructive he could be, and aside from his first run for Congress in 1974, his only other loss in 1980 was largely his having to pay for Carter’s sins). The question is, who has been backing him, or has he merely been selling himself to the highest bidder ?
All very well to say that Bill Clinton could have easily contained the Ben Laden problem, but there is always bound to be someone getting into power in the US who will not keep his eye on the ball all the time.
Even at the height of Indo-Soviet relations in the mid 70s,the Soviets were denied basing facilities at Indian ports,on both the East & West coasts of India.India was opposed to the Soviet invasion given the likelihood of Islamic extremism growing in Pakistan’s northern borders.The Soviets would never have dared to even think of taking on Pakistan given that it had 2 big powers backing it-The US & the PRC.The US could have afforded to let the Soviets rot in Afghanistan & they would have rotted anyway-if anything,a better place for covert assistance would have been Czechoslovakia when the Soviets crushed the 1968 uprising.
Unfortunately, we wont ever really know, other than guessing and postulating. We guess and postulate enough, though, and it will become assumed as true fact and used to prove even further that no one ever makes good decisions so why the heck even bother trying?
We see this going on today A LOT. Some degenerate moronite from the “moderate left” starts a whining fest on woulda couldas and before long, it’s taken up by a chorus of howling bobble heads and used as a further wedge in our confidence in our leadership.
We are in a propaganda war. We are, each and every one of us, the front line and the target in that war. We are each responsible to how well we resist the enemy’s efforts to beat us down, weaken us and make us doubt our own.
And all those that buy into the idiocy that this is a “rock, paper scissors” world where every possible situation has a perfectly appropriate counter and/or that since something isnt necessarily as hunky dory as we’d like it to be as quickly as we, in our grotesque egos, demand it should be, then someone must have made a horrible mistake and screwed up.
Listing to much,if not most, of the whining commentary it would seem many, even here, have our POTUS and SECDEF confused with rulers of a despotic fantasy kingdom where their every whim is law and all they have to do is wave the appropriate magic wand at a problem to make it go away.
I don’t think what’s happening with everyone is mere guesswork to draw up points to belittle Reagan or anyone.The fact is that the past throws up lessons-what was done/what could have been done better/shouldn’t have been done........these are as relevant for people today.
This is a universal trend & not just limited to the left as you say.Leftist icons in many parts of the world like India,Israel & elsewhere have seen their roles & achievements being dissected by future generations-to be bitterly criticised.
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