Contemporary history
World of intrigue and deception
SHELLEY WALIA
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Powers explores the Cold War and Post-Cold War eras in Western history, the period of moles, spies and adversarial espionage.
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Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda, Thomas Powers, New York Review of Books, p.504, $16.95.
THE issue of secret intelligence has recently drawn attention to the failure of Western powers in discovering weapons of mass destruction. Whether it was a ploy for the military invasion of Iraq, which was already on the anvil, is an issue that will always intrigue analysts. Nevertheless, the work of the intelligence agencies is always suspect and often the findings are contrived for the justification of the foreign policy.
A history of intelligence
This is the task Thomas Powers sets himself in the book Intelligence Wars, a remarkable account of the history of intelligence spanning more than half a century, right up to the war against Al Qaeda and the failure to prevent the September 11 tragedy. The Cold War and Post-Cold War period in Western history is an eye opener to a world inhabited with double agents, with spies and moles out to subvert the opposite camp through coups and adversarial espionage that fitted neatly with the anti-communist strategies.
The main question before Powers is to find out whether the CIA can possibly overrule the White House and provide accurate information even if it opposes the politics of the state. A democratic society would always demand honourable action by the state government and not be led by the nose to lend support for a war or an economic policy that causes misery both at home and abroad.
Deceptive appearances
Seemingly, the United States is endeavouring to fight the enemies of democracy. A successful invasion of Afghanistan followed by the dethroning of Saddam Hussein in Iraq has not resulted in favourable world opinion. The credentials of the regime in the White House is suspect not only in the eyes of Al Qaeda, the Hezbollah and the Hamas, but among 70 per cent of Americans and millions around the world. In spite of this world-wide anger, America is ready to threaten Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran and North Korea, who it feels are the current sponsors of terrorism and suppliers of weapons of mass destruction.
Underneath this hard-line approach stands Richard Pearle, a member of the Pentagon Defence Policy and one of the main architects of U.S. war policy. As Powers writes, "to be hard-line involves the willingness to use force, realism about using money and power to get one's way, impatience with feel-good idealism, all-out backing for friends, and contempt for efforts to placate enemies. Hard-liners share an Old Testament view of the world, promise an eye for an eye, know what they want, and never forget an injury." Such an attitude springs from a feeling of military prowess and economic strength that justifiably must be used to chastise an enemy. Dialogue, negotiations and compromise do not figure in such an ideology. Pearle's infamous book, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror, to which Power draws the reader's attention, is replete with examples of enemies abroad and the reasons to be cautious of imminent dangers to the U.S. The intention obviously is to convince the public of the State's foreign policy. Add to this the operations of the CIA and you have a clear conspiracy to counter a world that hates America.
Long history
And it all started with the Bay of Pigs debacle. Probably the public had very little idea of the CIA until the failure of the overthrow of the Communist regime in Cuba by a rebel army, which the CIA believed would have to be disbanded if the invasion was to be aborted. The CIA had convinced President Kennedy of carrying out mass air attacks against Cuba, but had underestimated the mass support for Castro. At the last moment Kennedy chickened out, Castro survived and the CIA chief was sacked. The plan to assassinate Castro could have been one reason for the assassination of President Kennedy. The CIA's involvement in "dirty tricks" had finally become public knowledge. It was nothing but a nest of "unprincipled thugs, killers, torturers, coup-plotters, and second-story men". The agency caters to the wishes of the Presidents, may it be a coup to overthrow the government of Salvador Allende in Santiago or the instant overthrow of Castro through a revolution in Cuba, which the Kennedy brothers so intensely desired.
Sordid culture
The culture of spy-running, of assassination, of drug experiments on unwitting subjects and the overthrow of governments underpinned the intelligence wars. This is true not only of the CIA, but of the KGB, the British Secret Intelligence Service and the Israeli Mossad. They might have a distinct style of functioning, but undeniably they all are masters of deception, "often mount[ing] elaborate provocations, and [running] circles around too-trusting opponents... "
Acknowledging this and being aware of the workings of such secret agencies is essential for anyone who has some interest in international relations and the curse of war. It is also interesting to see how these espionage systems fail as we have recently seen in the attack on the Twin Towers where the CIA failed miserably to prevent it. To be able to succeed in putting a mole in Osama Bin Laden's camp is rather impossible, but not inconceivable. Nevertheless, military war and intelligence wars have been going on side by side in Afghanistan; the Taliban has been ousted and the Afghan people are used as co-operators "to render the opponents helpless".
Crucial role
In a similar case during the Second World War, argues Powers, the Allies successfully broke the German and Japanese codes and maintained the secrecy of their attack on German occupied Europe in 1944. But such success was never met in Korea or in the Persian Gulf or in Vietnam. The Americans failed to penetrate the enemy camp with spies where as the National Liberation Front in Vietnam had hundreds of agents in the South Vietnamese government. Thus a strong political organisation in Hanoi was enough to sap the onslaught of the U.S. forces. Conventional military warfare was not enough to subdue such a tenacious public. It was, Power writes, "the failure of intelligence, not of arms". This essentially is the lesson, that the U.S. has to become skilled in intelligence in its fight against Al-Qaeda.
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