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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 6/1/11

The Mysterious Robert Gates

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So, in telling reporters in 2009 that the United States had abandoned the Afghan cause in 1989, Gates was at best dissembling, playing to a popular myth that he knew to be false but that supported his case that the Obama administration must escalate to "win" the Afghan War.

Besides shedding light on his integrity, Gates' deceptive comments also showed that he had failed to absorb the real lesson of 1989 -- that a misguided determination for total victory in Afghanistan only makes matters worse and harms U.S. national security.

Instead of accepting Gorbachev's olive branch in 1989 and seeking a negotiated peace among Afghanistan's warring parties, President George H.W. Bush embraced Gates' hard-line strategy and adopted a triumphalist approach to the complicated Afghan civil war.

By the time it became apparent to Bush that the Gates-CIA scenario of a quick mujahedeen victory was an illusion, Gorbachev was no longer in a position to broker an Afghan peace deal. He was fighting for his own political survival against hard-line communists in Moscow. [Gates and his politicized CIA analytical division also missed the coming collapse of the Soviet Union.]

It was not until late 1991 after Gorbachev's government had disappeared -- along with the Soviet Union -- that Russia's new president, Boris Yelsin, and the United States finally stepped back from the Afghan quagmire.

Najibullah's belated fall in 1992 brought an end to his communist regime, but it didn't stop the war. The capital of Kabul came under the control of a relatively moderate rebel force led by Ahmad Shah Massoud, an Islamist but not a fanatic. But Massoud, a Tajik, was not favored by Pakistan's ISI that backed more extreme Pashtun elements of the mujahedeen.

The various Afghan warlords battled for another four years as the ISI readied its own army of Islamic extremists drawn from Pashtun refugee camps inside Pakistan. With the ISI's backing, this group, known as the Taliban, entered Afghanistan with the promise of restoring order.

The Taliban seized the capital of Kabul in September 1996, driving Massoud into a northward retreat. The ousted communist leader Najibullah, who had stayed in Kabul, sought shelter in the United Nations compound, but was captured.

The Taliban tortured, castrated and killed him, his mutilated body hung from a light pole, just as CIA hardliners had envisioned seven years earlier.

The triumphant Taliban imposed harsh Islamic law on Afghanistan. Their rule was especially devastating to women who had made gains toward equal rights under the communists, but were forced by the Taliban to live under highly restrictive rules, to cover themselves when in public, and to forgo schooling.

The Taliban also granted refuge to Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, who had fought with the Afghan mujahedeen against the Soviets in the 1980s. Bin Laden then used Afghanistan as the base of operations for his terrorist organization, al-Qaeda, setting the stage for the next Afghan War in 2001.

So, in summary, Robert Gates, today's newly minted "wise man," had been wrong on nearly every major point about Afghanistan (and the Soviet Union), but he sidestepped the fallout of his miscalculations, remaining a favorite of President George H.W. Bush who rewarded him with his dream job in 1991, the post of CIA director.

A Bush Family Favorite

After losing the CIA position when President Bill Clinton took over in 1993, Gates retreated to Washington State (to work on his memoir) and then moved to Texas (to serve as Texas A&M president). Meanwhile, his past service to the Bush family kept him in good stead with the national security establishment.

Yet, how Gates originally earned his status as a Bush family favorite -- how he managed to clamber so quickly up the ladder of Washington power -- has remained a mystery, concealed by the fog that has enveloped the dubious origins and hazy corners of the Iran-Contra scandal.

The key question has always been: Did Gates do some extraordinary favors for the senior Bush and the Reagan administration that guaranteed his rise?

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Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at
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