Once Upon a Time a General"
Once upon a time there was an Afghani general named Abdul Rahim Wardak. He had studied in both US and Egyptian military schools before joining the army in Afghanistan. In the 1980s, a few years after he joined the army, he decided to defect and joined the Mujahideen movement. We don't know exactly who in the United States gave him the order to defect, because no one is willing to go on record. However, we know very well that due to their fight against the Communist Soviet Union, the Mujahideen were significantly financed, armed, and trained by the CIA, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, along with several other not as significant nations. We also know that back then, when we were supporting, financing, training and cheering for the Mujahideen as ˜freedom fighters,' those labeled today as terrorist evil-doer radicals, Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban, were viewed and treated as our allies and entourage.
Now, back to our General. He joined the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan arm of the Mujahideen and fought against the Soviets. Interestingly, during those years, the mid to late 80s, our general Wardak was brought to the United States and coached to testify before the US Congress; not once but several times. He was even flown to the US once to receive medical treatment for a wound he received from a scud missile. I am sure you are savvy enough to know that this was considered ˜highly special' treatment for a Mujahideen fighter in Afghanistan. Our general was truly loved when it came to our CIA and certain high-level people within the Reagan Administration.
So how good of a military officer was Mr. Wardak? Not a good one " and this assessment seems to be pretty much unanimous. In fact, this is how he's been known in that part of the world: "" in the 1980's, he had garnered a reputation as one of the least accomplished commanders of the American-backed Mujahideen resistance to Soviet occupation forces. If you enter the circles within the Washington DC Afghani diaspora, and if you get close enough to hear the hushed comments, you'd be able to make out words like ˜corrupt,' ˜ties to drug-running warlords,' or ˜Afghan mafia.' But for some ˜mysterious' reasons our Central Intelligence Agency and hard-core Neocons within our foreign policy arena had deemed this general ultra special and important"
*And the story continues"
Once Upon a Time a Godmother of Neocons"
Once Upon a time there was a woman named Jeane Kirkpatrick, who didn't really look like a woman but it never mattered, in fact it may have helped her. Jeane was a Democrat, and then, later, she became a Republican. She was on President Reagan's National Security Council, on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and of course the Defense Policy Review Board. She became the US Ambassador to the United Nations; appointed by President Reagan. Ms. Kirkpatrick was a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). She was a hard-core anti-communist, and she was a hawk. But most importantly, she was the woman whom people considered and labeled the Godmother of Neocons.
Ms. Kirkpatrick died in 2006, and here is a widely witnessed account of those who shed the most tears:
"Until the end, she was a cherished mentor to the neo-conservatives. John Bolton " Bush's outgoing ambassador to the UN and of all her successors there the one who most closely resembled her " publicly wept as he paid tribute to her last week. Perhaps the tears were at the rubble of his President's Iraq policy, but also for a remarkable woman.
Before her death, her final ˜known' government mission was to help pave the way for our preemptive attack on Iraq in 2002:
""in a final mission, kept secret until her death, to meet Arab envoys in Geneva in 2003 to win them over to the impending invasion of Iraq. Her instructions were to argue that pre-emptive war was justified. But Kirkpatrick knew it wouldn't work. Instead she made the case that Saddam Hussein had flouted the UN too long and too often.
Jeane Kirkpatrick, true to her Grand Neocon title, was a strong believer of ˜the end justifies the means.' She vehemently disagreed with Secretary of State George Schultz on the Iran-Contra affair, in which she supported skimming money off arms sales to fund the Contras. Everything was kosher to her, whether drugs or illegal arms sales, as long as these means served what she considered to be the goal; an imperial US.
Ms. Kirkpatrick similarly, in fact more vehemently, supported our operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 80s where we backed and trained the Mujahideen against the Soviets. Just like what we sanctioned in Nicaragua, in Afghanistan all deals, no matter how insane or unsavory, were means' to justify the end. This was one of her mottos most cherished by the hawks and the neocons:
"Traditional authoritarian governments are less repressive than revolutionary autocracies.
What went unsaid in that quote, but meant and practiced was: Radical Islam, the Taliban, their Madrasas, their terrorizing of women, their heroin business"are perfectly all right, as long as they are on our side, in our camp, on our payroll, instead of on the other side.
Following her ˜direct' government career, she returned to academia at Georgetown University where for some reason many well-known Neocons, such as James Woolsey and Douglas Feith, chose to flock. And very characteristically our Jeane Patrick continued her contribution to the practice of Neocon-ism"
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