To understand the present conflict, consider the past.

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To understand the present conflict, consider the past.

U.S. government involvement in Afghanistan is much easier to understand when all the events are considered. These seem to be the facts generally accepted by everyone who has studied U.S. involvement in the Middle East; nothing here is considered controversial.

The present conflict between the U.S. government and Arab countries began in 1953 in Iran. President Mossadegh of Iran and the Shah of Iran shared power, but President Mossadegh made the important decisions. President Mossadegh decided that the oil fields in Iran should be owned by Iran. He offered to pay the oil companies for their equipment. (Some people translate the Farsi language word for his name as Musaddiq or Moussadek. Farsi is the language spoken in Iran. It is about 70% the same as Arabic. Note that Iranians are mostly Persian and partly Arab in their culture. Their religion is mostly the Shia form of Islam.)

Instead, the oil company owners somehow got the CIA involved. President Mossadegh was removed from power, and the Shah, a very weak man, was encouraged to take sole power. One chapter of the book, The Ambiguities of Power: British Foreign Policy since 1945 [lobster-magazine.co.uk], tells the story:

In the 1950s the Anglo Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) -- later renamed British Petroleum -- which was managed from London and owned by the British government and British private citizens, controlled Iran's main source of income: oil.

Iranian nationalists objected to the fact that the AIOC not only made revenues from Iranian oil "greatly in excess of the revenues of the Persian government but [it] dominates the whole economic life of Persia, and therefore impairs her independence".

The Iranians, led by President Mossadegh, decided to take over their oil fields. The British and the CIA decided to overthrow Dr. Mossadegh.

On 18 March [1953] "the CIA was ready to discuss tactics in detail with us for the overthrow of Musaddiq" and it was formally agreed in April that General Zahidi was the acceptable candidate to replace him. By then, destabilisation other than by bribery was taking place and British and U.S. agents were also involved in plans to kidnap key officials and political personalities. In one instance the Chief of Police was abducted, and finally tortured and murdered.

(Note again that when there are stylistic differences, quotes are changed to the style used in this book. So, US [no periods] in a quoted story becomes U.S. [with periods] in this book. Other minor changes are made, also, such as removal of footnote numbers.)

A transcript at the Harvard University Center for Middle Eastern Studies tells more of the story. Stewart Rockwell, who served in the U.S. diplomatic service to Iran from 1960 to 1965, was interviewed for the Iranian Oral History Project [harvard.edu]. Here are several paragraphs of the transcript:

... what was perceived as an increasingly authoritarian regime denying to the Iranian people the possibility of a democratic participation in the political system of the country.

... there was a growing cooperation between the United States and Iran in the military field. This was coincident with the enormous growth in the Iranian income from the exploitation of Iranian oil.

The interviewer quotes U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower: "freedom could be lost if ‘basic aspirations of humanity were not served.' "

... obviously the U.S. did not have to permit the sale or the granting of military equipment to Iran ...

... No, there was no real problem with the [U.S.] military.

Interviewer: How knowledgeable was the Embassy about the assistance in training that the CIA was giving to SAVAK? Answer: Well, all we knew was that they were being sent to the States for training. Just exactly what kind of training they got we didn't know. I'm not sure that we inquired either. [SAVAK was the very violent Iranian secret police. The link is to the Federation of American Scientists web site, fas.org.]

[Amini] was appointed Prime Minister because at the time the Shah apparently concluded that it would please the United States.

The fact remains that almost every Iranian political [politician] thought that the solution to Iran's problems was more American assistance.

Interviewer: Bakhtiar was assassinated by SAVAK wasn't he? Mr. Rockwell: Yes, late 60's early 70's.

The book, Confronting the Third World: United States Foreign Policy 1945-1980 [thirdworldtraveler.com], says that Iran purchased one-quarter of all U.S. weapons sold outside the U.S. in the 1970-78 period.

The book also says, "Arms salesmen poured into Tehran after 1972 and paid huge commissions to officers who arranged the purchases of their wares, intensifying both corruption and conspicuous consumption."

These quotes show that the process by which the U.S. government interacts using secret agencies was then as it is today. The process usually has the same unvarying steps:

Business people in the U.S. realize they could make more profit if things were different in another country.
The business people complain to the U.S. government.
Moral-sounding statements are widely circulated: There are philosophical statements about democracy. There are sympathetic remarks about the political processes of the other country. Statements are made that things are so much better in the United States. Negative events caused by political problems in the other country are discussed sympathetically. (At present, statements about the rights of women are popular on U.S. television.)
Those ideas are used as a justification for being involved.
Mostly secret actions by U.S. government secret agencies attempt to influence events in the country. These actions are independent of any of the public agencies of the U.S. government, such as the U.S. Department of State.
Without any vote, U.S. taxpayer money, called "aid", is given to people in the other country. This money is partly or all taken for private gain.
The U.S. government gives or sells weapons made in the U.S. to at least one group in the other country. U.S. weapons makers profit. Usually weapons are part of the "aid". The weapons increase mistrust and de-stabilize an already unstable situation. Those who think that killing other people is an answer consider the new weapons as encouragement.
There are numerous diplomatic contacts and public pronouncements by U.S. state department officials and U.S. politicians. In the final analysis, these mean little. It is the secret agencies that have real control.
People die because of war or other disturbance. Other people lose their homes and property.
Secret agencies say that they were entirely unaware of the specific conditions that caused the disturbance, even though they were in the country all the time.
The secret actions cause bigger problems later, including a deep distrust of the U.S. government. They further de-stabilize an already unstable situation.
The business people get what they want: more money.
The total cost to the U.S. taxpayer of the secret actions and their consequences over the years is far, far higher than the extra profit made by the business people.
Sometimes, after the secret agencies have made a real mess, the U.S. military is called in to help. Huge amounts of money are spent on "defense". A few soldiers lose their lives. The military action is used as justification for the purchase of more weapons. This means more profit for the U.S. weapons makers.

This process might be called "destroying government for profit". In the past, these activities of the U.S. government did not cause U.S. citizens to be unsafe. Now it does. In the past the people being victimized by the secret agencies were too poor and too disorganized to retaliate in the United States.

Continuing with the history that leads to present events: The Shah of Iran was in some ways a good ruler, but he was not aware of, or much interested, in the thoughts and needs of his people. He was very westernized in his behavior, and this alienated many people from his culture. As time went on, the Shah more and more used SAVAK to keep power. Stewart Rockwell said above that the SAVAK police were trained by the CIA. SAVAK was involved in "the torture and execution of thousands of political prisoners".

There was intense unhappiness because the Shah of Iran was a weak man who many Iranians felt was kept in power only by the U.S. government. Eventually, he was overthrown. There was celebrating in the streets. There was a feeling in Iran that anything was possible again.

Unfortunately, the person who took power was the Ayatollah Khomeini, a religious leader. The entire Khomeini government was very hostile toward the United States government, calling it the "great Satan". There began to be a dictatorship run by religious men who had no idea how to run the Iranian businesses they took over. The country was plunged into economic distress.

Saying that it wanted to weaken the power of Iran, the U.S. government began supporting Saddam Hussein of Iraq. U.S. weapons makers sold weapons to Iraq. A war between Iraq and Iran killed and maimed millions of people.

Saddam Hussein of Iraq, now much stronger after years of military assistance from the U.S., decided to invade Kuwait. The U.S. government started a war with Iraq that was known in the U.S. as the Gulf War. During the preparations by the U.S. government for the Gulf war, U.S. weapons makers were still completing previously signed contracts to sell weapons to Saddam Hussein's government.

Years before, in largely secret deals, the U.S. government had been arming Saudi Arabia. What happened during this time between the U.S. government and the regime of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia has been kept mostly secret. Whatever it was, it had the effect of strengthening a violent, repressive, anti-democratic dictatorship. Many Saudi citizens resented that the U.S. government was preventing needed social change in Saudi Arabia. This resentment began with U.S. government involvement many years ago, long before the Gulf War.

For the Gulf War, Saudi Arabia allowed the U.S. government to put more military people and weapons on Saudi land. The city of Mecca is in Saudi Arabia. This city is very important in the Muslim religion. Many people felt that non-Muslims should not be putting soldiers and weapons in a Muslim country to fight Muslims. There was, and is, great resentment about this. The additional military buildup of weapons and soldiers in Saudi Arabia had the effect of making the dictatorship there even stronger, and the chance of achieving representative government even less.

The U.S. government military people and aircraft never completely left Saudi Arabia. They are still there, and they still fly over and bomb Iraq from bases in Saudi Arabia.

There is considerable resentment in the Arab world that U.S. government efforts toward Iraq are preventing normal economic activity. As a result, people are dying in Iraq due to malnutrition and lack of medicine. These problems are largely caused by the foolish dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, but U.S. government involvement causes resentment toward the United States.

In a second sequence of events, in 1980 the CIA began to be involved in Afghanistan. As was mentioned, there is an interest in building a gas pipeline [house.gov] through Afghanistan. Such a pipeline would be very lucrative, because it would deliver gas from gas fields in a sparsely populated area inland to Pakistan and India, where there is a huge demand. (See more about this in the earlier chapter, The CIA trained Osama bin Laden. )

In 1979, the government of the former Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan. The CIA became involved in fighting against the Soviet Union. For reasons said to be connected with this, the CIA began strengthening the dictatorship in Pakistan. This caused problems: 1) Pakistan is a largely Muslim country. Many Muslims resented U.S. government involvement. 2) The Pakistan government is sometimes very anti-democratic. 3) Pakistan has nuclear weapons; the U.S. government is therefore supporting the proliferation of nuclear weapons under control of an unstable government. 4) Pakistan is against India, the world's largest democracy.

So, the secret agencies of the U.S. government were (and are) spending money from U.S. taxpayers to support involvement that is very much against what most U.S. taxpayers believe.

The U.S. government spent billions of dollars to buy arms from U.S. weapons manufacturers to give to those fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan is 21 years old, not a few days old, as many U.S. citizens think.

In a third sequence of events, the U.S. government began to be involved in supplying weapons to the Israelis to fight against Arabs in the region around Israel. The arrangement is very direct: The U.S. government appropriates the money. The money is given to the Israelis. However, the Israelis are told they must spend most of the money to buy weapons from U.S. weapons manufacturers. Probably the money never leaves the United States, but goes from the U.S. government almost directly to U.S. weapons makers. Senators and representatives from the states and districts in which weapons makers are located sometimes influence the U.S. Congress to give Israel more money for "defense". The Israelis use the weapons to kill Arabs and destroy their property.

The result of all of this involvement is that many Arabs feel that the U.S. government is a destructive force in their region. Some Arabs are disturbed enough to become violent in return.

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