The Airlift of Evil
Why did we let Pakistan pull volunteers out of Kunduz?
by Michael Moran
MSNBC
November 29, 2001
NEW YORK, Nov. 29, 2001 The United States took the unprecedented step
this week of demanding that foreign airlines provide information on passengers
boarding planes for America. Yet in the past week, a half dozen or more Pakistani
air force cargo planes landed in the Taliban-held city of Kunduz and evacuated
to Pakistan hundreds of non-Afghan soldiers who fought alongside the Taliban
and even al-Qaida against the United States. Whats wrong with this picture?
The Pentagon, whose satellites and drones are able to detect sleeping guerrillas
in subterranean caverns, claims it knows nothing of these flights. When asked
about the mysterious airlift at a recent Pentagon briefing, Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
denied knowledge of such flights. Myers backpedaled a bit, saying that, given
the severe geography of the country, it might be possible to duck in and out
of mountain valleys and conduct such an airlift undetected.
But Rumsfeld intervened. With his talent for being blunt and ambiguous at the
same time, he said: I have received absolutely no information that would
verify or validate statements about airplanes moving in or out. I doubt them.
SEE NO EVIL
Western reporters actually in Kunduz in the days after it fell this week found
much to dispel that doubt. Reports first appeared in the Indian press, quoting
intelligence sources who cited unusual radar contacts and an airlift of Pakistani
troops out of the city. Their presence among the enemy may shock
some readers, but not those who have paid attention to Afghanistan. Pakistan
had hundreds of military advisers in Afghanistan before Sept. 11 helping the
Taliban fight the Northern Alliance. Hundreds more former soldiers actively
joined Taliban regiments, and many Pakistani volunteers were among the non-Afghan
legions of al-Qaida.
Last Saturday, The New York Times picked up the scent, quoting Northern Alliance
soldiers in a Page 1 story describing a two-day airlift by Pakistani aircraft,
complete with witnesses describing groups of armed men awaiting evacuation at
the airfield, then still in Taliban hands.
Another report, this in the Times of London, quotes an alliance soldier angrily
denouncing the flights, which he reasonably assumed were conducted with Americas
blessing.
We had decided to kill all of them, and we are not happy with America
for letting the planes come, said the soldier, Mahmud Shah.
IN DENIAL
The credibility gap between these reports from the field and the no comments
from the U.S. administration are large enough to drive a Marine Expeditionary
Unit through. Calls by MSNBC.com and NBC News to U.S. military and intelligence
officials shed no light on the evacuation reports, though they clearly were
a hot topic of conversation. Oh, you mean Operation Evil Airlift?
one military source joked. Look, I cant confirm anything about those
reports. As far as I know, they just arent happening. Three other
military and defense sources simply denied any knowledge.
Something is up. It certainly appears to any reasonable observer that aircraft
of some kind or another were taking off and landing in Kunduzs final hours
in Taliban hands. Among the many questions that grow out of this reality:
Was the passenger manifest on these aircraft limited to Pakistani military and
intelligence men, or did it include some of the more prominent zealots Pakistan
contributed to the ranks of the Taliban and al-Qaida?
What kind of deal was struck between the United States and Pakistan to allow
this?
What safeguards did the United States demand to ensure the evacuated Pakistanis
did not include men who will come back to haunt us?
What was done with the civilian volunteers once they arrived home in Pakistan?
Where they arrested? Debriefed? Taken to safe houses? Or a state banquet?
WHY NOT ADMIT IT
The answers remain elusive. If the passengers were simply Pakistani military
and intelligence men, and not civilian extremists, what possible motive is there
for concealing the truth about their evacuation? Pakistan may believe that no
one has noticed the warmth of its intelligence ties to the Taliban and even
al-Qaida, but surely the Pentagon isnt operating under this illusion,
is it? This news organization has quoted U.S. intelligence sources as far back
as 1997 as saying that ties between Pakistans intelligence service and
al-Qaida, and links to the Taliban a movement nurtured by Pakistan
are undeniable.
Furthermore, the United States can easily explain why it would have allowed
a military ruler under intense pressure at home to adopt an unpopular pro-American
stance in this war to evacuate some elite intelligence and military forces from
a chaotic battlefield. But only if, in fact, the planes were limited to evacuating
those people.
The lack of a forthright answer to this question suggests otherwise, and that
is a great shame. The history of American policy in Southwest Asia, from the
shah of Iran to Saddam Hussein to Afghanistan and Pakistan, is marred by one
example after another of short-term decisions that stored up enormous trouble
for later. We failed for decades to find common ground with the worlds
largest democracy, India. We failed to temper the shahs domestic abuses
in Iran in the name of anti-communism and wound up with the ayatollahs. We decided
not to rile our Gulf War coalition allies by pushing onto to Baghdad and find
ourselves a decade later wondering how to deal with Saddam Hussein. We pumped
Afghanistan and Pakistan with billions of dollars worth of weapons and military
know-how to fight the Soviet invasion, but then adopted the Pontius Pilate approach
in victory, washing our hands of these struggling nations as soon as Moscow
withdrew.
Now, are we careening down the same road with a nuclear-armed Pakistan? Are
we allowing an army of anti-American zealots to live and fight another day for
the sake of our convenient marriage with Pakistans current dictator? I
wish I could quote Rumsfeld. I wish I could say I doubt it. I cant.
Copyright 2001
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