Page 2 of 2 BOOK REVIEW
Behind the Afghan propaganda Invisible History: Afghanistan's Untold Story by Paul Fitzgerald and
Elizabeth Gould
Reviewed by Anthony Fenton
As alluded to above, one of the strengths of Invisible History is its
overview of the role of propaganda during this period: "Media coverage of the
events leading up to the Soviet invasion had been carefully managed to avoid
any hint of the plan at work. Vital to maintaining the illusion that the Soviet
action was purely the result of Soviet aggression and not in reaction to
American subversion, a ring of silence had been prophylactically applied." (p
177)
To this end, Fitzgerald and Gould discuss a revealing if self-congratulatory
book about US propaganda methods of the period
by former US Information Agency operative Alvin A Snyder, Warriors of
Disinformation: American Propaganda, Soviet Lies, and the Winning of the Cold
War (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1995). Snyder's book is "a cynical
account of why the US people never gained an accurate picture of the deluded
mind-set driving the decade-long Afghan conflict". (p 206)
As reported by US News and World Report in 1984, during the covert war against
the Soviets, the USIA was "transformed from a government backwater into the key
weapon in the battle of information and ideas that the Reagan administration
[was] waging with Russia". During the period, an unprecedented amount of money
was spent on propaganda with the intention of bringing down the Soviets. A
significant amount of this propaganda was, in spite of laws prohibiting it,
directed at the US public. As Gould told AToI, "The truth was the
disinformation actually did end up on American television."
Providing criticism of propaganda's role where Snyder omits it, Fitzgerald and
Gould describe how, following the departure of the Soviets, "left unsaid was
the overall effect of the Afghan propaganda campaign on the American media,
which had allowed themselves to miss the real war and been snowed under by the
make-believe struggle of good versus evil ... and an unholy alliance of liberal
democrats, neo-conservatives and right-wing Washington insiders". (p 207)
Among other effects of the propaganda of the period following the withdrawal of
the Soviets, most people were rendered incapable of understanding the ensuing
civil war and the rise of the Taliban, a period which resulted in tens of
thousands of civilian deaths. A chapter covering the fundamental role of
Pakistan in the creation and rise of the Taliban, "part of a grand plan"
carried out by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and CIA, closes
out the second section of Invisible History. Fitzgerald and Gould write:
In
addition to securing trade routes to and from Central Asia, Pakistan's generals
... saw the Taliban as a means of re-establishing Pashtun dominance in the
region, hoping the force would act to permanently neutralize the Durand line
issue. (p 223)
On this basis, the authors argue that it is
futile to negotiate with the Taliban as though they are an independent, Afghan
entity. "Never the indigenous force that they claimed to be, by 2001, they had
metamorphasized into a well-financed, agenda-driven vanguard of the Pakistani
military. Never just 'recruits' from the madrassas ... from the
beginning the Taliban were on the payroll of the ISI." (p 308)
Placing Pakistan at the heart of the problem, Fitzgerald and Gould contend that
the only way for Afghanistan to obtain its real independence is for it to be
freed from their domination. As such, they advocate strongly against
negotiating with the Taliban:
Well-meaning peace activists have
recommended reviving the practice of parsing between al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Some recommend engaging the Taliban as the [US] engaged the Soviet Union,
Communist China ... Aside from not delineating between Pakistani Taliban and
Afghan Taliban and that both use terrorist methods, such recommendations ignore
the reality that the Taliban were expressly created "as a kind of experimental
Frankenstein monster", by the CIA and Pakistani ISI to invade Afghanistan. That
mission has not changed. More importantly, such recommendations wrongly paint
the Taliban as an indigenous tribal force bent on bringing peace to a troubled
land. (p 323)
Far from negotiating with the Taliban, "If any
negotiations are to be conducted, they must begin with the state within the
state sponsors of this Taliban terror, Pakistan's army and its [ISI] branch. It
is this institution, which from 1973 on has played the key role in funding and
directing first the mujahideen battle plan and then the Taliban ... Nothing can
be accomplished without neutralizing them as a subversive influence and turning
them toward the task of nation building." (p 324)
The problem, as Fitzgerald and Gould note elsewhere, is that the US and its
NATO allies have, since the invasion of 2001, played a dual game where they
carry out "a policy whereby [Pakistan] pretends to hunt for extremists while
the US pretends to believe [them] ", (p 298) while at the same time providing
the Pakistani military with billions of dollars in aid. Meanwhile, everyone
knows that the ISI continues to provide support to the anti-occupation
insurgency.
Some of Invisible History's less than stellar moments appear in the
final section, which deals with the post-September 11, 2001, period. By
providing the reader with a strong analysis of the role of covert,
psychological warfare during the Cold War period, one might be disappointed to
find little in-depth analysis of the continuing trajectory of these methods
following 9/11 and the subsequent invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.
Anyone who is interested in how organizations such as Freedom House and the
Asia Foundation (not to mention the many “sister” organizations affiliated with
the National Endowment for Democracy) continue to operate, for example, as
(overt or covert) functionaries of US foreign policy in today's
counterinsurgency wars, may come away disappointed in that this type of
analysis was beyond the scope of Invisible History.
Anti-imperialist readers may also take issue with Fitzgerald and Gould's tacit
support for the US-led invasion of October 2001, which, with the culmination of
the December 2001 international donor's meeting in Bonn, Germany, they say led
to "a promising and rational beginning to the formulation of a new
Afghanistan". (p 251) Where Fitzgerald and Gould could have challenged the
combined "liberal imperialist" and neo-conservative backing of the initial
invasion, considered illegal by serious international law experts, instead they
appear to justify it.
By omitting a general analysis of the very organizations that the US has used
to meddle in the internal affairs of countries all over the globe under the
guise of nation-building, civil society building and democracy promotion,
Fitzgerald and Gould come off somewhat naively when, in their "recommendations
to the next president", (p 315-328) they advocate "counter[ing] the legacy of
foreign-supported extremism with an extended commitment to civil society and
nation-building". (p 324) While the US should pay reparations as a way to begin
compensating for past crimes, sadly no precedent exists for this and the US
record of “nation-building” has historically been a problem of imperialism,
rather than a solution to it.
Likewise, by supporting the expansion of NATO's footprint in Afghanistan (p
289-90, 305-06, 308) the authors fail to question NATO's otherwise-contested
transformation into a global imperial guard. Additionally, Fitzgerald and Gould
missed an opportunity to contextualize what can be seen as an emerging "Team B
redux" - a continuous flow of reports from prominent US think tanks and
"counter-insurgency experts" - arguing for an escalation of the war of the very
sort that would be delivered by George W Bush and Barack Obama in mid-2008 and
early 2009. (p 304-5) The authors should have known even by July 2008 (the date
of their most current footnote) that the Bush administration had already
announced an escalation of the war; and likewise, that Bush began implementing
Obama's (and John McCain's) campaign promises before the election was even
held.
One editorial oversight in the book may contribute to a mild feeling of
unfulfilled expectations for the reader. The title of Chapter 18, "What Can
President Barack Obama Do?" suggests that the authors will feature an analysis
of Obama's position on Afghanistan during the presidential campaign. However,
indicating a last-minute change on the part of the publishers, in the footnotes
Chapter 18 is more generically named, "What Can the Next US President Do?"
Clearly, the manuscript should have been left as it was.
In their interview with AToI, it was clear, however that Fitzgerald and Gould
are already disillusioned by the seeming trajectory of Obama's "surge". Said
Fitzgerald:
I think in many ways we are seeing the second term of the
Carter administration; we seem to do this kind of snake-like left-turn, right
turn towards the objective, but the objective remains the same. Carter himself
was very Obama-esque, promising to alter the whole trajectory of the United
States ... And I see a similar kind of thing right now, because these very
idealistic democrats get into office, and I sincerely believe that Obama
believes what he said he wants to do and the people who voted for him believe
that, but there is a machine at work here that was created, that perpetuates
itself. Andrew Bacevich calls it a self-licking ice cream cone. There's a
machine at work here that fuels itself, that creates incidents; it's this
crisis machine.
Returning to the strength of their analysis,
Fitzgerald and Gould do urge Obama to "re-open the national debate on US
identity and its future", arguing that "the roots of this [current] dilemma
stem from the reality-creation machine dreamed up by Dean Acheson, George
Kennan, Paul Nitze and James Foretal at the beginning of the Cold War." (p 326)
And as Fitzgerald warned in the interview, "It's going to dawn on Americans
that when we ask our government what exactly are they doing and the solution,
once again, is more troops, or a surge, it's not going to be enough of an
answer."
Although providing little analysis of the 21st century "brain trust", they also
presciently warn in conclusion, "If our government has no other purpose than to
serve the fantasies of its own defense intellectuals in their desire to create
new ways of making endless war, then we are in serious trouble and like the
Soviet Union, Afghanistan will be our final test." (p 328)
All told, Fitzgerald and Gould provide an important addition to the corpus of
accounts of Afghanistan and the Cold War period, which is at the heart of their
analysis. They also raise many useful questions for anti-imperialists,
progressives, "liberal imperialists" and neo-cons alike to consider as
independence and self-determination continue to elude the Afghan and Pashtun
people.
As such, it belongs on the bookshelf of anyone seriously interested in the
topic. This includes a Canadian audience, where the book is being reviewed. For
nearly eight years, the Canadian forces have helped occupy Afghanistan, closely
adhering to US strategy. Unlike in the US, Canadian media coverage of the war
saw a drastic uptick in mid-2006 when the Canadians took over a Provincial
Reconstruction Team in Kandahar province in the midst of the growing
insurgency. Similar to the US, however, Canadian coverage tends to be
propagandistic and ahistorical, and is in dire need of being grounded in the
sort of corrective offered by Invisible History.
Invisible History: Afghanistan's Untold Story by Paul Fitzgerald and
Elizabeth Gould. (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2009). ISBN-10: 0872864944.
Price US$18.95, 300 pages.
Anthony Fenton is a researcher and journalist in BC, Canada. For the past
three years, he's been researching and writing a book about the transformation
and integration of Canadian-US foreign policy. Fenton can be reached at
fenton@shaw.ca
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