The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 41 (43)

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Transcript

0:09 Okay, welcome to another edition, part 41 of Safe for Democracy. Welcome back, SR71. Thank you, Colonel. It's good to be back, although I'm missing New Zealand already, and Shelley, of course. How was your vacation? Everything I had hoped for, Colonel. Awesome.

0:37 Awesome. I'm trying to decide whether I'm going to start calling you RS71. Anyway, I'm glad. It's all done with love, Colonel, so it's okay. Absolutely. Absolutely. It just confused everybody, though. It'll be our inside little joke. Well, I'm glad you enjoyed yourself, and I'm glad you had the opportunity to travel.

1:09 And there's Shelly, ha ha ha, over on Rumble. So let's get started. We are on page 479, Safe for Democracy. The chapter is called The Mountains of Allah, and we're talking about Afghanistan. Divisions.

1:38 in the administration over the numbers and kinds of weapons to furnish the Mujahideen, perhaps making the solicitation important. Doesn't really matter because they're all going to be filtered through the ISI in Pakistan and they're going to decide what weapons gets to the Mujahideen. This was true even at Langley where

2:04 William Casey, a true believer, never actually made his mind up on the goals of the operation. Well, we know what the goal was. It was to basically take over the opium production, but you can't actually acknowledge that. John McMahon supported the covert project, but doubted the U.S. could achieve anything unless it had a diplomatic policy to encourage the Soviet withdrawal.

2:34 him against those who wanted to make Afghanistan, Russians, Vietnam. A group that sometimes included William Casey or those who wanted outright victory, including some in the Pentagon Congress and on the CIA's Project Task Force. We don't fight wars for victory anymore until Trump come along.

2:59 According to Robert Gates, there was also those who feared greater effort would trigger a massive Soviet response and a slaughter. Existing findings made the project a harassment effort. And that was what the Congress committees were told. Intelligence reports estimated that Moscow spent $40 for every $1 the CIA spent.

3:28 That was just made up out of whole air. They have no idea whether that was true or not. Analysts in the Directorate for Intelligence told that the project could not achieve more than a disruptive effect. But Bob Gates, its chief from 82 to 86, did not. Gates repeatedly sent reports to be reworked with additional argumentation on pitfalls for the Soviets in the war. You know.

3:59 Beef that part up. Thus, in April 1983, analysis by the intelligence Near East and South Asia office that found the Mujahideen incapable of expelling or defeating the Russians made Gates furious. Again, not independent intelligence analyst. Say what we want you to say.

4:30 or we're going to get mad at you. Officials outside the CIA, including Vernon Walters, now ambassador to the UN, and Fred Eichel, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, rejected the limited vision of Afghan prospects. Richard Perle, his deputy, supported efforts by his assistant, Eli Karakowski, to seize control of the issue.

5:02 which was far outside of their portfolio. Krakowski recalled the Pentagon's goal as withdrawal of the Soviet forces and establishment of a quote-unquote stable Afghan government. Frank Carlucci, now Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Nestor Sanchez, whom he had taken with him in the International Security Affairs Bill, gave helpful advice, though Sanchez would be

5:31 especially useful on Central America. Pentagon efforts to carve out a policy role were simplified by President Reagan, who consistently refused to rule on the differences among his subordinates. Langley's people did not see themselves as holding back the Afghan project. They had a full plate. Beyond the planning and weapons buying, options had...

5:58 to be cleared with General Zia of Pakistan, the Saudis, and others. Chuck Cogan recalls an adrenaline rush when William Casey took over from Stan Turner. But to some degree, escalation had to be incremental simply because the foundations needed to be laid. He feels that no one at the CIA initially looked at Afghanistan as a bleeding ground.

6:27 a Soviet Vietnam, but they did. That might have been the idea at the White House, and it was. When Howard Hart replaced John Reagan as station chief in Islamabad, Casey's instructions were simply to go out and kill Russians. Hart had won the intelligence star for his part in the Iran hostage rescue mission.

6:57 and had led the Near East branch for Pakistan and Afghanistan at the inception of the project. Kogan selected him to lead the station on the basis of their shared experience. A regional conference among station chiefs occurred in late 1981. Hart convinced the Near East chief to back the first of many escalations.

7:23 Hart cabled Langley on January 14, 1982, to put this on the table. Director Casey took the question to Reagan's special group, now called, again a name change, National Security Planning Group. They met in February, according to Robert Gates, despite support from Frank Carlucci and Casper Weinberger at the Pentagon.

7:50 and from the State Department, not to mention Kogan's Near East area, the beefed up project went nowhere. This means this seems possible only if William Casey did not back it. Only after Casey and Zia meeting that featured a new map overlay, which took place in April, did Casey really get behind the idea. Casey and Zia met.

8:19 Again, in late 1982, when the Pakistani leader again lectured Casey on his view of Russian objectives. The Gates memoir leaves the impression that Zia had to convince Casey. I'm sure it does. In addition, Gates quotes Casey as saying that Zia's gold centered on action to keep the pot boiling, but don't let it boil over.

8:51 To the degree that William Casey was in this, it put him in the camp of bleeding the Russians, which again is the whole purpose that they used in Vietnam. Progress did not satisfy the activists. Outside lobbyists reinforced those who sought victory. Several congressmen took up the mantle and pressed for legislation in favor of

9:20 the Afghan resistance. Democrat Congressman Charles Wilson of Texas waged what amounted to his own covert campaign against officials he thought insufficiently committed to the Afghan rebels. He fastened on to his agenda Chuck Cogan and Howard Hart. They made repeated trips to Pakistan.

9:54 Wilson forged his own links to top Pakistani leaders, including General Zia. He used these to encourage the Pakistanis to demand more than the CIA had authorized them as far as money goes and to demand more weapons and better ones. You get the impression that this is kind of what was going on in Ukraine in 2014. Hart had good relations with Akhtar.

10:26 of ISI. But by 1983, they were being eclipsed as Wilson got more friendly with Zia. Budget levels on the covert program were affected by the lobbying. Reagan administration permitted itself to be moved even further. Reagan doubled what Carter had spent in Afghanistan. Congress, if anything, stayed ahead of the White House.

10:59 trying to give them more money. CIA would ask for a couple of million and Congress would give them 25. Charlie Wilson began being a spark plug to this effort. The numbers only grew larger. In 83, 30 million in CIA money ballooned to more than 40 million. Senior diplomat Nicholas Veliatis, Chuck Cogan's

11:29 counterpart at State Department recalled that colleagues handling the program had real worries about what they were going to do with all this money. The diplomatic policy for the deputy CIA director, McMahon, craved to, that doesn't make any sense.

11:55 McMahon saw the CIA paramilitary effort as the fulcrum to open a door to an agreement. The more we spend, the more likely the Soviet Union is to buckle. The UN mediation effort under Diego Cordova's begun early. In 1983, it came to a near breakthrough with the UN drafting the agreement text.

12:24 The Russians suggesting that they were amenable to a conditional withdrawal and the Reagan White House preoccupied with Lebanon permitting events to take their course. Instead, the Pakistani and Afghan rebels all objected because they're getting rich on our money. Diego Cordova suspects that William Casey may have encouraged them to object.

12:55 Meyer, Edward Meyer, told Cordova later that William Casey would say he wanted them out, but he actually wanted them to send more and more Russians down there to take casualties. By the time the Secretary of State, George Shultz, made his first visit to Pakistan in July 1983, the diplomatic initiative had stopped.

13:21 We had the opportunity early on to have negotiations, but we don't have control of all of the opium yet. So we're just going to keep going and kill a bunch of Russians. Big money combined with funneling aid through third parties led a number of difficulties for the secret warriors. In 1984, when the CIA program was again pumped up with 50 more million dollars, the agency sought

13:52 Huge amounts of weapons. Pakistani sources report that CIA logisticians suddenly produced 100,000 old Lee-Enfield rifles. Apparently, they got this bunch from India. Howard Hart had championed the Lee-Enfield weapons. These guns put something in rebel hands quickly and enabled the warlords to expand as fast as they could recruit fighters.

14:21 The ISI protested. It had not requested the weapons and lacked storage for them. The agency merely answered that the shipment would be in advance on supplies that was in the pipeline. Of course, that made ammunition an issue, and the Pakistani arms dealer got the CIA to buy 30 million rifle bullets at a premium. It turned out he procured the ammo from Pakistan's own stock.

14:52 put it on a boat, sell the ship around, and made it appear as if it came from somewhere else. Again, making tons of money off of our money. Soon, enough of the ISI discovered Pakistani army stampings on the bullets, which then had to be remanufactured to eliminate the engravings, which cost millions more dollars.

15:22 The CIA project had nearly ended before the last bullet was ready. The Mujahideen had long since switched to automatic weapons instead of these ancient bolt-action rifles. In 1984, William Casey needed a new team. Beset by problems from covert operations, Casey changed the deputy director of operations, moving Claire George over to lead the clandestine service.

15:52 George, in turn, persuaded William Casey to approve a comrade from the African division, Burt Dunn, to head the Near East. Then came the matter of a task force chief. Alan Friars, the lead candidate, still had a few months to run on a tour as the station chief in Saudi Arabia. Friars had his detractors in the Near East tribe. Meanwhile, acting chief Gust Avratosis.

16:22 had been deputy to Mac Gaffin from the early days and knew all the players, but he was on the wrong side of the new boss, Claire George. Abratosis, Kutos, campaigned for the position, and one day when George was out of town, convinced Associate Deputy D.O. to appoint him, shutting out fires. William Casey sent fires

16:52 to lead his Central American Task Force. COTOS then had ties to Charlie Wilson, so they got along great. During George Shultz's 1983 Pakistani visit, Zia had Akhtar of the ISI brief the visiting party on the status of operation. Akhtar reported that the resistance could control, at will, any portion of Afghanistan.

17:28 And that it dominated the Afghan-Soviet border, inflicting heavy losses on Russians. The reporting cable must have pleased the people at CIA. There was no proof that that was true because, again, the CIA is running this from Pakistan. In spite of their losses, the Soviets appeared prepared to continue their occupation indefinitely.

17:58 In 1984, no part of Afghanistan was safe from the Mujahideen. Even Kabul, where KHAD headquarters was subjected to rocket attacks, the defense ministry had been bombed. The DRA officers kidnapped right off the street. The constant menace of rocket attacks led the Russians and the Democratic Republic Army to push a security perimeter out from the city.

18:28 But in 1984, the CIA got a hold of Chinese rockets that had greater range and explosive power. The ISI sent along some of its commando teams as rebels staged attacks on the Soviet air base at Bagram. 22 planes were bombed on the ground in one awesome major strike.

18:56 a major ammunition dump containing more than 30,000 tons of munitions exploded. Enterprising ISI commanders videotaped the explosion. William Casey was delighted and showed the film before Congress. In 1984, the ISI presence with the rebels rose to two teams in the Bagram operation, seven around Kabul, and two more with the Mujahideen groups near...

19:27 At later part of the year, rebels began to form units from their shifting bands, joining and creating regiments, several of which were united as fronts. Another mission was to attempt to block a road tunnel through which moved three quarters of the Russian supplies.

19:53 Langley's experts advised ISI on the weight of the explosives needed, which essentially was to create a truck bomb. A truck bomb? The ISI tried several times to carry out the mission, but couldn't do it. Meanwhile, the CIA's relationship with the Pakistani ISI continued to be awkward. Changing his team, William Casey approved William.

20:25 for the station in Islamabad. Pickney pulled off some coups, notably the recovery of an intact Soviet gunship helicopter downed by rebels, but his support at Langley wavered. Brigadier General Mohammed Yusuf of the Afghan Bureau continued as an effective field commander, yet

20:51 On only a handful of occasions was he ever permitted into CIA safe houses in Peshawar. One irked him greatly. An urgent summons in the middle of the night when Yusof could not get his driver. Got lost driving himself, then was told the Russians had learned of the rebel convoy hundreds of miles away. There was no way to know which warlord, Ban, had discovered it, nor...

21:22 get it messages, both of which Yusuf figured CIA ought to have known. The ISI leader loved the CIA satellite photos and its radio intercepts, but thought the secret warriors spent too much time spinning their wheels. Bert Dunn, the incoming division chief, knew the Pakistanis' sensitivities. Dunn had led the CIA station in Baghdad during the early part of the Iraq-Iran war.

21:51 and as a special forces officer with the army, had served in both Pakistan and Afghanistan as far back as the 60s. Monitoring U.S. aid to the Pakistanis with whom he had contacts, but not even done, could calm the waters, undoubtedly because Washington and Islamabad had different objectives. What the CIA did do

22:19 was continue supplying intelligence, some very good. The U.S. maintained its embassy in Kabul throughout the war. In April of 84, the DRA expelled the third secretary, Richard Vandiver, as persona non grata. Vandiver may or may not have been CIA. It doesn't really matter because they're one in the same.

22:52 He had a history in the agency's Directorate for Science and Technology, and they had established that the U.S. used its diplomatic pouches for sensitive listening devices. The official Michael Pillsbury confirms Washington had excellent data on the Soviet moves starting from this time. It was at this point that the CIA's Afghan secret war entered its highest.

23:24 The fact that the U.S. had an embassy in Kabul the entire time tells you a whole bunch of stuff. William Casey was constantly on the run. His annual visits to the cockpit of the Afghan war typically lasted two days. Much like the Washington emissaries who went to Saigon in such procession through the Vietnam War.

23:55 These were the visits of someone who knew what he wanted, not one who wanted to learn the truth of the matter. Brigadier Yusuf first met Casey in the spring of 84 when he and General Akhtar awaited his plane, a midnight black painted C-141 Starlifter at Pakistani's airbase. The ISI referred to the CIA director as Mr. Black.

24:25 because he always arrived on black aircraft. Sometimes Casey brought his wife, Sophia. Sometimes he even brought his daughter to Pakistan in the middle of a war. A couple of times he had John McMahon, but he always had his Near East chief, Bert Dunn.

24:49 He recalled that on these long flights where the only people on board were Dunn and Casey and one or two others and a security detail, he really got close to William Casey. There was the normal inspection or some demonstration of some new gadget. In 1984, the ISI training camps were featured. Then a command conference between allies, the Pakistanis frequently saw tension.

25:21 on the CIA side. For Casey, relentlessly enthusiastic, butted heads with his more cautious officers. Dunn seems to have been of two minds about William Casey. The ISI were impressed when Casey overruled his people who thought something unpractical or unwise. They nicknamed him Cyclone. Some ISI preferred Wanderer Casey.

25:51 Then he would disappear into his plane for Saudi Arabia and a strategy session with Prince Turki. Casey on Afghanistan was complicated. Biographer Joseph Perseco recounts that when John McMahon briefed Casey on the project for the first time, Casey shot back, quote, this is the kind of thing we should be doing, only more.

26:22 I want to see one place on this globe, one spot where we can checkmate them and roll them back. Raising the specter of Hitler in Munich, Casey spoke of the dead in the secret war as saving lives in the long run. Sure, that should have put the CIA director squarely in the victory camp, but his actions never corresponded with his words. Rather, Casey backed measures to draw out the Afghan project.

26:55 turning Afghanistan into Moscow's Vietnam. Munich meant something different. Rapid, decisive action in the short term. A strategic debate shows Casey's ambivalence sharply. The controversy of the moment centered on providing the rebels better protection from Russian aircraft. Major options were Swiss made.

27:26 anti-aircraft guns, Soviet shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile SAMs, a similar British SAM, or two different American SAMs. Charlie Wilson and congressional supporters of the Mujahideen, drawing from a secret paper John McMahon had sent to the Hill, had earmarked money for the Swiss guns. These turned out to be heavy and awkward, difficult to move, and a huge consumer of cumbersome

27:56 The guns ended up being statically used at rebel bases, not mobile like was necessary. The Russian SAMs, based on 1960 vintage technology, were easy to counter, as the Soviet enemy well knew. They were not effective. The British SAMs, called blowpipe, had problems of its own.

28:25 because it was optimally tracked weapon. The crew had to keep the enemy aircraft in sight during its flight. In the interval, the crew could be blown up or neutralized. The missile itself had reliability problems. According to ISI, one of those teams expended 13 SAMs to no effect during one battle.

28:51 The Afghan task force put $44 million of Soviet money into blowpipe because it could be spent without referencing any congressional oversee. But the investment ended there. So the American SAMs called stingers. The CIA rule had been no US weapons. Indeed, the agency had a preference for Soviet block weapons for which the rebels could capture or buy ammunition.

29:21 as they fought. U.S. government that lasted more than a year. Officers worried about the security issue, about blowing CIA's cover by using U.S. weapons, and about potential for other governments or terrorist groups. No kidding. The U.S. military, just beginning to introduce the stingers, also showed reluctance to slow down deployment.

29:50 by sending missiles to Pakistan. Through much of this debate, General Zia himself opposed U.S. weapons for the rebels to avoid provoking Moscow. When Brigadier Yusuf told visiting American Afghan activists in 1984 that stingers were needed, General Akhtar quickly summoned the group to hear a retraction.

30:16 The victory camp scored major points in late 84 when the Senate passed a resolution in favor of greatly improving the equipment of the Mujahideen. In March 85, President Reagan approved a national security directive that made it official policy to move beyond harassment towards victory. A new presidential finding accompanied the directive, reflecting the exuberance. Under Secretary of Defense Fred

30:45 Fred Eichel, at one meeting, advocated cutting out the ISI middleman by flying arms directly to the Mujahideen. Inevitably, someone raised the danger of a Soviet-American confrontation. Bertie Dunn's deputy, Thomas Twinton, attended this representing the CIA and told author Stephen Call that Eichel had responded, hmm, World War III.

31:15 That's not such a bad idea. Yeah, so much for civilians running the Defense Department. Eichel later claimed that call that he had just been kidding. At the Pentagon, Michael Pillsbury, an aide to Eichel, took the new finding as an opportunity to push stingers. When Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch visited Pakistan with a Senate delegation,

31:49 That summer, he took Pillsbury, a former staffer whom many regarded as a loose cannon. They were to inspect Pakistani Army House along with General Zia. Before the encounter, Station Chief Pickney, on instructions from Langley, took Hatch, told Hatch that Pillsbury could not attend. Senator Hatch demanded to speak directly to William Casey. When he got the CIA chief on the phone, induced him,

32:19 to relent. Casey apparently felt that he had erred in agreeing to Pillsbury's participation, but he blamed the station chief. After the Pickney's stock at headquarters went into freefall, at his meeting with the Senators, General Zia now said he wanted stingers. Senator Hatch prevailed upon him to put this in a letter to Washington.

32:47 Nudged by Zia, within a month, Reagan approved an immediate shipment of 100 of them. While the joint staff, Pentagon and State Department opposition melted away. Brigadier Yusuf began to organize and train the rebels to use them. In October of 85, William Casey made another visit to Pakistan in the company of John McMahon and Bert Dunn.

33:14 General Zia again emphasized giving the rebels Stinger missiles. Finally, the log jam was broken. At a breakfast in early December, McMahon told Fred Eichel that the CIA would ship as many of the missiles as the Pentagon could provide. When Zia saw Casey again in January 1986, he spoke of turning up the heat in the Afghan war. William Casey was beside himself with excitement.

33:42 Major policy fights were simultaneously occurring in the Soviet Union. In March of 85, the Soviet leadership changed. Mikhail Gorbachev came into office. Gorbachev thought the Afghan intervention a mistake and had already hinted he wanted out. That July came a key decision in Moscow.

34:07 The Russians determined to change their Afghan strategy. The new concept, somewhat akin to the U.S., had done in the last phase of the Vietnam War, amounted to Afghanization. Gorbachev gave his generals two years maximum, preferably one, for a military solution. Failing, Russia was pulling out. To give the generals what they needed, the Politburo increased Soviet air power and heavy firepower along with elite forces.

34:38 The DRA army assumed a larger share of offensive operations with the Russian elite forces as a spearhead. The bulk of the Soviet troops would revert to a defensive role. The new leader for this was General Mikhail Zaytsev, previously commander of Russian armies in eastern Germany. Soviet troops in Afghanistan reached their greatest number, 108,000.

35:07 Not long after the policy review, a further Politburo meeting that October approved the plan. The CIA received good information on at least the initial stage of this strategic debate. The intelligence source, codename Vail, provided access to Russian General Staff material and other data. Renegade CIA officer Aldridge Ames began to spy for the KGB.

35:36 That summer, source Vale disappeared. It was not clear how much the Soviet plan should be attributed to Gorbachev. Morton Abram Abranovich, then head of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at State Department, you know, the belly button in for the CIA, believes that Russians change, of course.

36:08 was more like Jack Kennedy's Bay of Pigs, he said, already in motion before the leader came on the scene. Most interestingly, the CIA had already anticipated this. In a major analysis in May, this five-year retrospective discussed the war's cost and the Russian prospects. While Moscow had incurred substantial costs, the CIA left.

36:37 the Soviet Union, saw a price of remaining as more than the international cost of getting out. Rebel casualties, 40,000 dead bodies of Afghanistan people were compared to the loss of 25,000 Russians. In a guerrilla war, casualties to the rebel side usually greatly outnumber those.

37:11 of the other side. Langley's experts were not universally admired, but it is important to survey the CIA. The agency did not believe Moscow foresaw early victory, and the Russians were unlikely to make important progress during the next two years. The CIA expected Soviet reinforcements 5,000 to 10,000. The actual would be closer to 20,000.

37:43 primarily specialized troops, exactly what the Russians did. The American analysts did not think it could alter the outcome. If the CIA erred in its analysis, it was on a pessimistic side. We cannot rule out a more serious deterioration of the Soviet position in Afghanistan than we have estimated.

38:07 result in a move not toward a political settlement, but towards an expanded Soviet military commitment and a wider war, unquote. An increase of the 50,000 troops, which was the equivalent of three divisions, would require Soviet mobilization and an expanded logistical base and take many months to accomplish. It would also utilize the kind of troops the Russians had found least effective.

38:34 An increase of 100,000 to 150,000 soldiers might enable the Russians to clear the cities and hold substantial portions of the countryside, while one of 200,000 offered the possibility of them to rout the Mujahideen. Quote, we believe this view underestimates insurgents' morale and military performance and exaggerates Moscow's efforts in the country, unquote.

39:09 This followed up in October with a study of the rebels, concluding that the divisions among the tribes were such that no near-term victory should be expected. The CIA was projecting a stalemate. Never a win, ever. The Mujahideen initiative in 1985 came in southeast Afghanistan, an effort to capture the city of Kost, Kost.

39:38 The campaign required coordination among the warlords, but personal and religious differences made that impossible. Brigadier Yusuf attempted to knock heads together, but failed. The Soviets, aware of the threat, mounted two major objectives. That led to a battle of Coswa, a key receiving area for supplying the forces.

40:03 The Mujahideen had developed it into a major base and training center, using bulldozers and explosives to open tunnels. Kaswa became a showcase for the rebels, with a hotel in one cave, a mosque in another, accompanying a communication center, repair shops and garages, as well as arms depots. The base had a permanently assigned unit, perhaps the first such formation of the resistance.

40:35 Equipped even with captured Russian artillery pieces and a couple of tanks. During offensive, the unit was hard pressed. At the time of the second attack, many rebel leaders were absent. And one key commander died during the collapse of one of the tunnels. The Russians plus the DRA forces captured most of the area but couldn't hold it. The base remained in rebel hands and years later,

41:08 passed into those of the Taliban until 2001 when the U.S. troops would come back. Supplies of rifles and missiles could not be the only sore point. Afghan task force paramilitary specialist Michael Victors

41:31 emphasized the mix of weapons and looked to where the resistance should be in a few years. Whether the rifles were Lee-Enfields or AK-47s seemed less vital to whether the warlords could supplement their firepower with heavy machine guns, mortars, and other weapons. Similarly, a mixture of machine guns and SAMs provided

41:54 the right set of capabilities. In fact, the Russians would lose more aircraft and helicopters to machine guns than to missiles. The objective was to drive the aircraft to high altitudes, robbing them of their effectiveness, not necessarily to down the aircraft. Other disputes arose. One concerned mines. First, the weapon themselves, later mine detection equipment.

42:22 Both rebels and the Soviets laid many thousands of mines during the war, and both progressed to new generations of them. Later, as the rebels began assaulting defended positions, mine clearing became the issue. Around 83, prodded by the war, the Pentagon began developing a device called Lightfoot to detect non-metallic mines so they could be disarmed.

42:50 recalls that the design work was completed in just a few months, but the military then had problems getting the CIA to accept it. The agency demanded lengthy tests. In other words, they weren't interested in actually doing it. Lightfoot reached the field only in late 1985. Agency officers say the detection device had problems. Krakowski

43:19 insists the method was so effective it was used by the U.S. in the Gulf War. Another issue would be anti-tank weapons. Quite well supplied with armor, the Russians relied on tanks in every battle. Until 87, the Mujahideen only had backwards means to fight them. When the CIA brought in Italian-made anti-tank missiles,

43:49 a measure that probably cost the Russians more than the Stingers. There were so many ideal weapons introduced at various times, the CIA officers took to calling them silver bullets. Langley again revamped its high command for the secret war. John McMahon retired in February of 86, his post going to Robert Gates. Gust Avracostas

44:19 The task force chief, an inside agitator in the victory camp, had been protected from Claire George by his connections to senior people, including Congressman Wilson. But as CIA budgets began to change, congressional backing became ever more important. So Director Casey built his own bridge to Wilson. Then the intermediary boss stepped down.

44:49 Burt Dunn, his successor, had no dog in the fight, and several people were banished to the African division. In a significant breach of Langley's tribal culture, the new Afghanistan Ops Group chief, Jack Devine, came where? From Latin America. Yeah, the division itself got a new chief, Tom Twitton, succeeded Dunn.

45:27 Finally, the station chief in Islamabad moved on. At Langley one day in May of 86, Milton Bearden found himself in Claire George's seventh floor office. He hardly needed the weekend to decide. Milt Bearden became the CIA's new field commander in Afghanistan. He was from Texas and Bearden had the advantage of coming from Charlie Wilson's home state.

45:55 About that time, George appointed Bearden station chief. The Russians began their summer offensive. They concentrated on several provinces, tried to clear Kost again, and fought a new battle for Zawah. The operations were standard. The Russian military had failed. The Moscow chairman, Gorbachev, came to the end of his patience. In a July speech, he announced a limited withdrawal, and six Soviet regiments left the theater.

46:25 Washington made an issue of claiming the Russians had offset the pullout by sending new reinforcements. But in fact, the Soviet contingent in Afghanistan diminished by 15,000 troops and enough equipment for mechanized brigade. Gorbachev then told mediator Diego Cordova that the UN mission would ultimately be successful. Washington was skeptical because

46:54 They didn't want this to end. This is a huge money laundering operation. In the summer of 86, the DRA officials prevented any progress in negotiations, but Carmel, politically bankrupt, resigned. His successor, Najibullah, gradually softened in December.

47:22 He went to Moscow where Gorbachev told him that Russia would be out of Afghanistan. Deprived of the source, Washington needed the intelligence and it was still lacking inside of Afghanistan. Because again, they're relying on Pakistan ISI for eyes on the ground in Afghanistan outside of the embassy.

47:52 Pakistan doesn't want this to end. They're making bank on it. Milt Burden arrived in July of 86, just as the ISI was beginning to turn out rebels trained to use the Stinger missiles. The CIA had doubts about the effectiveness of the Mujahideen using SAMs, but the matter settled itself. In early September, Stingers were used for the first time. The gunners had hit three of four helicopters.

48:22 William Casey again did his little happy dance. He wanted to fly to Pakistan right away. But instead, Bob Gates made the trip to familiarize himself with the front line of the secret war. During the visit to Iran, Contra affair had begun, calling Casey's entire enterprise into question. Through the controversy, the Afghan project stood out as a jewel among Casey's war.

48:52 but beneath the surface, it had begun to wind down. And what's so interesting about this and why they keep calling it the secret war, because if you go back in time in the 1980s, there was no one in the United States outside of the Washington DC complex that even knew the US was involved in any of this as they're sending hundreds of millions of dollars of your taxpayer money to Afghanistan. Uncle,

49:25 Milti, as Bearden was known, carried on. One key issue with the Stinger was accountability. Because remember, they're getting them from the Pentagon. This meant tracking the Sams so that they did not fall into the wrong hands. The CIA devised techniques for this, which means they're going to fall into the wrong hands. The real problem applied to every weapon. Of course, because the CIA uses these secret wars.

50:01 to weapons traffic. Beginning in 85, deliveries multiplied by a factor of 10. 60,000 tons of weapons were floating around Pakistan. Huh, what could go wrong with that? Bearden adopted a simple rule. If prices in the bazaars were much higher than what the CIA paid, that meant that the market had not been flooded with rake-off

50:32 from the CIA shipments. In other words, if they're seeing them in the local markets being laundered, as long as the price was not concerning, they were fine. They know these weapons are being trafficked to include Stinger missiles out of Afghanistan. And the CIA has their assets that are doing the weapons trafficking.

51:09 Bearden never solved the problem of the warlords. He could have some impact there. Uncle Miltie had originally impressed William Casey, a station chief in Niagara, Nigeria, and then Sudan. And he should have been sensitive to this issue. Bearden had made some moves towards creating a rebel central command, only to be undermined by the Pakistanis.

51:38 Because again, the Pakistanis have no vested interest in Afghanistan actually functioning as a country. He left it at that. Field officers pushed for aid for Mossad, that's the Northern Alliance guy, whom all agreed had the best troops and had the best political sense. But that meant...

52:09 Tangling with the ISI because they hated him because he was the effective guy in Afghanistan. That they had suffocated and ensured he got nothing. Of course, with the huge expansion of aid in the CIA, that might have demanded a revised distribution formula. But Bearden did not insist on it.

52:36 He felt his orders were to beat the Russians, not quibble over which warlords were supported. Citations of the percentage of weapons given to which rebel group from the early to late periods indicate shipments to more radical groups actually increased. Of course they did, because the CIA has plans to use them in the future. Bearden's only focus was making sure they were effective.

53:10 He had major differences with Brigadier Yusuf, who led ISI not long after the CIA man came to Islamabad. In one area, that of the Arab Afghans, Bearden had no contact whatsoever. Early on, the CIA had considered and rejected recruiting a corps from other Arab lands to fight in Afghanistan. Langley thought this was unwise.

53:39 as proves to be the case. But the secret warriors could not prevent Muslims getting the same idea. And it became a form of radical Arab bravery to go fight the Russians. There is no data on how many Arab Afghans took part in the war. Fundraising in Arab lands also became a source for the warlords. And by Soviet estimates brought in,

54:10 approximately $250 million annually. Much of this cash went to Peshawar and other areas for all kinds of things, weapons, food, medicine. The young Saudi engineer, Osama bin Laden, one of the Arab Afghans, began building an organization there.

54:39 There is conflicting evidence on whether bin Laden actually fought in the war, perhaps in one battle. There is little reason to doubt CIA assertions that it never helped him during the war, which is a bold-faced lie. The secret warriors had to basically skirt around that fact after the fact. In the spring of 87, Langley...

55:10 again changed the task force chief. Frank Anderson, a card-carrying Middle East warrior, became Bearden's new boss. Anderson spoke Arabic and had served in Yemen, Beirut, and North Africa, most recently as the station chief in Morocco. He tried to keep up momentum with new weapons every few months, starting with the Milan anti-tank missiles. Anderson often felt like a supply sergeant. Congressional overseas once...

55:40 Overseers once asked him what Washington could expect in terms of support from the future Mujahideen government, to which Anderson replied, gratitude in the Afghan dictionary is going to be found somewhere between nowhere. In April 87, the Mujahideen mounted attacks into Russia. Moscow protested because, again, they're being funded by the United States. Now they're going over the border.

56:12 In a maneuver worthy of CIA history on Central America, the deputy director of operations, Claire George, phoned Bearden to certify that the agency had had no rules or knowledge of the attacks. The station chief probably didn't know that this is exactly the sort of operation that had been advocated by the Pentagon's Krakowski in 1983 and by William Casey after that.

56:41 Casey is said to have given ISI data on Soviet bases drawn from satellite photos. A year after the Russian attacks, the KHAD or KGB struck back, blowing up huge ammunition dumps in Pakistan. Meanwhile, a new director, General Hamid Gol, took over ISI.

57:07 The greatest change occurred in August of 88 when a C-130 crashed, carrying General Zia and Akhtar, as well as U.S. Ambassador Arnold Rafale. Pakistani elections then brought to power Bhutto, daughter of the earlier strongman. And by the way, I've read lots of accounts of that C-130 crash. That absolutely was taken down.

57:37 That's C-130. Bhutto had once been imprisoned by the ISI. She did not like them at all. Her ascendancy increased prospects for negotiations, which began to move quickly. Diego Cordova's shuttled between New York, Geneva, Moscow, and Pakistan. Frank Anderson felt his CIA project had no impact on the talks.

58:10 But it was not in America's interest to permit the Russians to withdraw from their quagmire intact. With victory as the goal, the CIA budgets redoubled close to $300 million in 1984. By 1986, it was up to $700 million. And that funded only the CIA contributions. When you add the Saudi money, it's enormous.

58:37 Soviet intelligence toted up the numbers in 87 and came up with over $2 billion that had been spent by the covert operators. Humanitarian aid added close to another billion dollars. Estimates of total CIA spending on the Afghan project through 1991, the US gave the rebels a golden parachute that ranged

59:07 up to $9 billion. Yeah. Yeah. That's our taxpayer dollars. That's not even counting what we don't know about. All to kill a bunch of Afghans and Russians in Afghanistan to secure opium. Yeah. Crazy. Absolutely crazy. Okay. That's it for today. Bridget SR.

59:59 Crazy. I still think they should be buried under nuclear waste. Yep. Yep. I agree. So just to kind of give you a heads up next week, we're going to talk just some generic Reagan CIA projects early. And then the following chapter is...

1:00:35 Chapter 21 goes into, the name of it is called William Casey's War, and that's about Nicaragua. So that's going to be an interesting, it is a very, very long chapter. So that'll take us probably the rest of the week and probably part of the following week. And we get into kind of a summary of,

1:01:08 Because the last couple of chapters is Project Democracy, which, as we know, has been anything but that. And then he does basically kind of a summary chapter or two. But we're getting through it. We're almost there. It's a crazy book. This, Colonel, just goes to show.

1:01:42 Iran-Contra itself opened up everything that was really going on. And what really, given the age of this crowd, I would say there's a lot of people here listening in that have loved ones that were in Iraq, that were in Afghanistan, that were involved in Iran-Contra, the whole nine yards.

1:02:14 Unbelievable. Yeah, I was one of the people in Iraq. I know, Colonel. You were there. My son was there. So it just, it's horrendous. Yeah. It's amazing that you're there doing whatever it is that you're told your mission is.

1:02:42 And you're completely oblivious to why you're really there. And, you know, it's crazy because while you're there thinking that you're doing the right thing, some of us die. And for what? So William Casey can get excited about giving Stinger missiles that are then...

1:03:15 siphoned off for other covert operations around the world. It's really sick. It's sick. It's disgustingly sick. I know I've told you guys before, but my very first day in theater in Iraq, the C-130 that we flew into Sir Sink in took out three army guys.

1:03:49 that had died. And I was a lieutenant. This was the first time I had been in a theater, a war theater. And that was my first day forward. And we flew in and the C-130 on its return trip to Incirlik took out the three coffins of...

1:04:20 They had been, they had walked off the tarmac into an open field that surrounded the airport, not knowing it was a minefield and got blew up. At least one of the guys survived and the, I won't even go into it, but it's gross. And to watch the, and I didn't know, because again, it was my first.

1:04:51 time ever being deployed, there's a ceremony that they do when they're loading the coffins. And I was like, I just remember thinking to myself, what the hell? It was like, it all came home to me about what being in the military really was all about.

1:05:20 because not everybody comes home. And that's kind of the salt in the wound for everybody when you find out that so much of the military operations around the world literally had nothing to do with the national security of the United States. I miss my daughter's birthday. I missed everything that happened to her for six months to go over there.

1:05:48 in what amounted to just another false flag of the CIA to get control of oil. That's it. That's why I was there. That's why those people died. And it's crazy. But anyway. Okay. Yep.

1:06:20 Hearts and minds used to manipulate people into believing that wars are serving their best interests. That's absolutely true. Absolutely true. Okay, let's see. We have to realize that it is a crime syndicate operating within the US. I agree. I made that point a million times if I made it once. Let's see.

1:06:57 The U.S. Army veteran admitted he helped start ISIS when he was drunk. He told me that. So you can say that after the fact, but that's not what they believed when they were over there training the Mujahideen, which morphs into Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

1:07:20 The U.S. military has trained all of these people for the CIA. But in every case, they were told that they were training people that were trying to take back their government or to, in the case of Colombia with their 20,000 mercenaries, the U.S. military was told that they were training these people to take out the narco networks. They had no idea.

1:07:46 They were training people to protect the narco networks. They had no idea. Now, did some of the senior people, you'd have to be retarded not to know that at the senior level, but not the normal NCOs. All of the normal NCOs that are sent overseas on these training missions all think that they are training the good guys because that's the intelligence from the CIA that they're fed. They're not the ones that go out and identify these people.

1:08:16 That's done by the CIA. And again, it is just definitely all an illusion to get done whatever it is their agenda is. Travis, go ahead. I was just wondering, did you hear the latest from Cass Patel on who's really rigging our elections? As apparently the Venezuela front fell through.

1:08:47 Well, I think we've completely debunked the Venezuelan angle. That's what the last, I don't know, 10 weeks. Gosh, it seemed like it went on forever of reading that stupid book, Stolen Elections. The whole thing's a crock of shit. Go ahead. It's China. Yeah. I kid you not. China snuck into CIA headquarters. CIA knowing it.

1:09:19 Yeah. Yeah, okay. You just can't make this shit up. You can't make this shit up. Yeah. And what's interesting about that is there's so much information on China rigging elections around the world. Oh, no, but wait, that's not true. Unless, well.

1:09:50 Now, there's a couple of missing letters out of CIA. If you actually write CIA, you can make, if you add a couple of letters, China, right? So they just added a couple of letters to CIA. It's actually CIA, but if you add those letters, we'll call it China. Go ahead, SR. Thank you, Colonel.

1:10:23 This being Russia's Vietnam, in reality, it did accomplish exactly what they wanted done. Historical events will show, and there's no doubt about it, that as soon as that happened and Russia was on the back foot, financially in trouble and broken, what happened? We wound up there. Had it not been for Putin in the aftermath of all of this,

1:10:56 This would still be going on today. Even though it is going on elsewhere, Russia would have been under U.S. control. There is no doubt in my mind. Thank you, Colonel. Sure. Well, I don't know that I would have just said U.S., but to your point, there was already a team put together as the Soviet Union economically was falling apart.

1:11:26 Part because of Afghanistan, but part because they had a command-driven economy that can't long-term, regardless of wars or whatever, can't maintain itself. That's kind of an economic reality. But the fact that they already had waiting on the bench

1:11:55 an economic team to go in and do the economic hitman agenda inside of Russia or the Soviet Union when it fell should tell you everything about the goals that's not mentioned anywhere in this book.

1:12:23 of destabilizing the Soviet Union, which everyone can argue is a good thing from the side that believes that a lot of people suffered in the Soviet Union because of communism. But bringing communism down and then facilitating actual

1:12:51 republics or democracies, on the backside of that, you can argue is a goal worth pursuing. But that's not what the agenda was. The agenda was, through people like Bill Browder and Edmund Safra, was to go in and exploit the former Soviet Union.

1:13:19 through privatization for the oligarchs. They're like vultures. And so when you can bring down something like the Soviet Union and then install your vulture capitalist in that country and effect control of the vast amount of resources that that would have brought to the table, they're not in it for the good of the people. They're in it for themselves.

1:13:48 It is thanks to Putin that that operation was exposed and thwarted in order for the Russian people in Russia not to be exploited the way we are. Because if you look at the people in Europe and the people in the United States, our wealth has been stolen for...

1:14:18 since World War II on adventures like this. And it's every day, whether it's the exposure of the SPLC, the exposure of the Medicare fraud, Medicaid fraud, everything. All of the billions, trillions of dollars that has been extorted from us and sent overseas.

1:14:47 for these destabilizations. And it isn't the, this would still not be right. But if you overthrew a country that was rich in oil and you use the profit of that overthrow and control of those oil fields to benefit the American people that die in your operations to do that,

1:15:16 That would be one thing. I still would not advocate that, but that would be one thing. But not one of these adventures has ever been to benefit the American people. We're just extorted till they go on to the next extortion operation, the next extortion. And it is the oligarchs, the international syndicate, that financially benefit from all of these operations. We never see a penny of it.

1:15:46 That's the part that is just mind-blowing to me when the realization of that kind of sets in. That every one of these was an extortion effort, and we're going to see it when we talk about Nicaragua. All of it, Guatemala in 1950s, Iran was an extortion where Americans died in these operations to enrich oligarchs.

1:16:15 And to ensure that they were still able to monopolize entire countries. So yeah, Putin got in their way. In a big way. And in a good way. Especially for the Russian people. Just like Trump is doing right now. Putting himself out there, getting in their way. Which is why they hate him. And I love it. Yeah, Archangelo, you say Trump is supposedly

1:16:53 cleaning up the deep state, yet he seems to be emboldening in it. There's no emboldening the deep state right now. If you think that, you really aren't paying attention. They have increased the desperateness of their responses at every turn. I don't know how you can look at what's going on and think.

1:17:23 that are they getting more desperate? Yeah, desperate and being emboldened are not the same things. These people are very, very desperate right now. And are they likely to lash out as a cornered animal would? Yes, that doesn't mean you're emboldening them. That means you're exposing them. Those are not the same thing. Okay, anybody else?

1:17:58 Nope. All right. You guys have a wonderful weekend. I'll see you back on Monday.

1:18:07 I definitely have to do some premium content this weekend because it looks like we're almost done with April. This is just so crazy. Time flies by so fast and there's so much stuff happening. So we will definitely figure out something to do this weekend or later tonight so that I can get my premium little widget filled on Rumble.

1:18:33 Thanks, everyone, for being here and spending your time learning along with us. I appreciate it. Take care. Oh, Sean, go ahead. Sorry, I didn't see your hand. Hi, just a quick question. You talk about the oligarchs and their control and power over everyone. They want to bring in 15-minute cities and total surveillance with volunteer and all that.

1:18:59 I was just wondering, is their long-term goal for the human race, their vision for the human race, to create an oligarch's paradise? And to achieve that goal, they would have to reduce the population, the number of people, down to a manageable half a billion, say, you know, so that they can take total control. They've written about it. That's definitely their goal.

1:19:28 We had the Georgia Guidestones that actually said it. They carved it in marble and put up a monument to it. So that's definitely their goal. You can read the, I'm reading, oh, what's?

1:19:45 I don't have it in here. The Anglo-American something something by Carol Quigley. The whole Fabian Society, the Milner's Kindergarten, which most people associate with South Africa, that was just kind of a stepping stone on perfecting how they would do it. But in their writings, in the Milner's group that grew out of Oxford, Oxford, which...

1:20:14 miraculously is the first official 15 minute city in Oxford. And whoever posted that this morning, I was like, Milner is like having a heyday in hell right now. He'd be so proud that Oxford would be the first prototype for that because they basically done this in the Phoenix program. That's what the Phoenix program was in Vietnam. They set up these compounds, put people in them.

1:20:42 forcibly put people in them and then made them check IDs to go and come and controlled all of the food that went in, controlled the people, the governments that oversaw the villages that they created. This has all been mapped out. The UK did it in Malaya before we did it in Vietnam. They've been practicing doing this all over the world. The Operation Condor.

1:21:09 In all of those countries, they had the computer system set up. They were tracking dissidents. They were tracking all of the people. They have been building this for a very, very long time. This is, Milner wrote about it and his predecessors wrote about it in the mid 1850s. This was always the thing. And in their writings, they talk about taking back America.

1:21:37 They wanted America back in the British Empire. That was their ultimate goal, which is why they set up the Fed here to be able to control us. And our financial engine that has managed to contribute to this worldwide authoritarian overthrow of all of these countries. This has always been their plan.

1:22:04 And that's the reason why just in a quick fashion, I want to go over Carol Quigley's book just to show you. I mean, that's the reason they fought the Boer Wars. They want control over everything. That's the reason why they fought the Boxer Wars. They want control of everything. And for them, and in this book, it actually says it's a religion for them.

1:22:30 They feel their cause is moral because their religion is control. They don't believe in God. They don't believe in any of the things that we believe in. They believe in world control. That is their religion. They write about it all the time. And because that is their religion, they feel morally just in doing it. That's the part most people don't understand. It is a religion for them. Okay, so.

1:23:07 With that being said, on that happy note, have a nice weekend. Take care, everybody.

Entities here

CIA75 Soviet Union50 Inter-Services Intelligence27 Afghanistan25 Pakistan25 William Casey25 Mujahideen25 Operation Cyclone25 United States16 Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq13 U.S. Congress12 Burt Dunn12 Soviet-Afghan War11 Milt Bearden11 John McMahon8 Charles E. Wilson8 Pentagon8 Robert Gates7 Vietnam War7 Claire George6 Howard Hart6 Mikhail Gorbachev6 Near East and South Asia office5 Saudi Arabia5 Fred Eichel5 Akhtar Abdul Rahman5 Mohammed Yusuf5 Charles Koch5 Diego Cordova4 Eli Karakowski4 U.S. State Department4 Islamabad4 Iran-Contra3 Gust Avratosis3 Richard Pickney3 Kabul3 Alan Fiers3 Orrin Hatch3 KGB3 United States Department of Defense3

Claims made here

Robert Gates headed CIA documented ▶ 3:28

“That was just made up out of whole air. They have no idea whether that was true or not. Analysts in the Directorate for Intelligence told that the project could not achieve more than a disruptive effe…”

William Casey headed CIA documented ▶ 5:58

“to be cleared with General Zia of Pakistan, the Saudis, and others. Chuck Cogan recalls an adrenaline rush when William Casey took over from Stan Turner. But to some degree, escalation had to be incre…”

William Casey recruited Howard Hart documented ▶ 6:27

“a Soviet Vietnam, but they did. That might have been the idea at the White House, and it was. When Howard Hart replaced John Reagan as station chief in Islamabad, Casey's instructions were simply to g…”

Howard Hart replaced John Reagan documented ▶ 6:27

William Casey appointed Howard Hart documented ▶ 6:57

“and had led the Near East branch for Pakistan and Afghanistan at the inception of the project. Kogan selected him to lead the station on the basis of their shared experience. A regional conference amo…”

Charles E. Wilson recruited Charles Koch documented ▶ 9:20

“the Afghan resistance. Democrat Congressman Charles Wilson of Texas waged what amounted to his own covert campaign against officials he thought insufficiently committed to the Afghan rebels. He fasten…”

Charles E. Wilson funded Mujahideen documented ▶ 9:20

Charles E. Wilson recruited Howard Hart documented ▶ 9:20

CIA funded Mujahideen documented ▶ 10:26

“of ISI. But by 1983, they were being eclipsed as Wilson got more friendly with Zia. Budget levels on the covert program were affected by the lobbying. Reagan administration permitted itself to be move…”

Charles E. Wilson funded Mujahideen documented ▶ 10:59

“trying to give them more money. CIA would ask for a couple of million and Congress would give them 25. Charlie Wilson began being a spark plug to this effort. The numbers only grew larger. In 83, 30 m…”

William Casey funded Mujahideen documented ▶ 13:21

“We had the opportunity early on to have negotiations, but we don't have control of all of the opium yet. So we're just going to keep going and kill a bunch of Russians. Big money combined with funneli…”

Inter-Services Intelligence supplied_arms_to Mujahideen documented ▶ 13:52

“Huge amounts of weapons. Pakistani sources report that CIA logisticians suddenly produced 100,000 old Lee-Enfield rifles. Apparently, they got this bunch from India. Howard Hart had championed the Lee…”

CIA supplied_arms_to Mujahideen documented ▶ 14:21

“The ISI protested. It had not requested the weapons and lacked storage for them. The agency merely answered that the shipment would be in advance on supplies that was in the pipeline. Of course, that …”

Inter-Services Intelligence covered_up CIA documented ▶ 14:52

“put it on a boat, sell the ship around, and made it appear as if it came from somewhere else. Again, making tons of money off of our money. Soon, enough of the ISI discovered Pakistani army stampings …”

Inter-Services Intelligence laundered_money_for CIA documented ▶ 14:52

William Casey reassigned Claire George documented ▶ 15:22

“The CIA project had nearly ended before the last bullet was ready. The Mujahideen had long since switched to automatic weapons instead of these ancient bolt-action rifles. In 1984, William Casey neede…”

Claire George appointed Burt Dunn documented ▶ 15:52

“George, in turn, persuaded William Casey to approve a comrade from the African division, Burt Dunn, to head the Near East. Then came the matter of a task force chief. Alan Friars, the lead candidate, …”

William Casey appointed Alan Fiers documented ▶ 15:52

Gust Avratosis succeeded Alan Fiers documented ▶ 16:22

“had been deputy to Mac Gaffin from the early days and knew all the players, but he was on the wrong side of the new boss, Claire George. Abratosis, Kutos, campaigned for the position, and one day when…”

CIA supplied_arms_to Mujahideen documented ▶ 18:28

“But in 1984, the CIA got a hold of Chinese rockets that had greater range and explosive power. The ISI sent along some of its commando teams as rebels staged attacks on the Soviet air base at Bagram. …”

Inter-Services Intelligence supplied_arms_to Mujahideen documented ▶ 18:28

Richard Pickney headed CIA documented ▶ 19:53

“Langley's experts advised ISI on the weight of the explosives needed, which essentially was to create a truck bomb. A truck bomb? The ISI tried several times to carry out the mission, but couldn't do …”

Democratic Republic of Afghanistan removed_from_power Richard Vandiver documented ▶ 22:19

“was continue supplying intelligence, some very good. The U.S. maintained its embassy in Kabul throughout the war. In April of 84, the DRA expelled the third secretary, Richard Vandiver, as persona non…”

CIA spied_on Soviet Union documented ▶ 22:52

“He had a history in the agency's Directorate for Science and Technology, and they had established that the U.S. used its diplomatic pouches for sensitive listening devices. The official Michael Pillsb…”

William Casey funded Mujahideen documented ▶ 32:47

“Nudged by Zia, within a month, Reagan approved an immediate shipment of 100 of them. While the joint staff, Pentagon and State Department opposition melted away. Brigadier Yusuf began to organize and …”

William Casey funded Mujahideen documented ▶ 33:14

“General Zia again emphasized giving the rebels Stinger missiles. Finally, the log jam was broken. At a breakfast in early December, McMahon told Fred Eichel that the CIA would ship as many of the miss…”

Mikhail Gorbachev ordered_assassination_of Soviet Union documented ▶ 33:42

“Major policy fights were simultaneously occurring in the Soviet Union. In March of 85, the Soviet leadership changed. Mikhail Gorbachev came into office. Gorbachev thought the Afghan intervention a mi…”

Mikhail Gorbachev ordered_assassination_of Soviet Union documented ▶ 34:07

“The Russians determined to change their Afghan strategy. The new concept, somewhat akin to the U.S., had done in the last phase of the Vietnam War, amounted to Afghanization. Gorbachev gave his genera…”

Mikhail Zaytsev headed Soviet Union documented ▶ 34:38

“The DRA army assumed a larger share of offensive operations with the Russian elite forces as a spearhead. The bulk of the Soviet troops would revert to a defensive role. The new leader for this was Ge…”

Aldrich Ames spied_on CIA documented ▶ 35:07

“Not long after the policy review, a further Politburo meeting that October approved the plan. The CIA received good information on at least the initial stage of this strategic debate. The intelligence…”

Morton Abramovich headed Office of Research and Intelligence documented ▶ 35:36

“That summer, source Vale disappeared. It was not clear how much the Soviet plan should be attributed to Gorbachev. Morton Abram Abranovich, then head of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at Stat…”

CIA supplied_arms_to Mujahideen documented ▶ 43:19

“insists the method was so effective it was used by the U.S. in the Gulf War. Another issue would be anti-tank weapons. Quite well supplied with armor, the Russians relied on tanks in every battle. Unt…”

John McMahon succeeded Robert Gates documented ▶ 43:49

“a measure that probably cost the Russians more than the Stingers. There were so many ideal weapons introduced at various times, the CIA officers took to calling them silver bullets. Langley again reva…”

Tom Twetten succeeded Burt Dunn documented ▶ 44:49

“Burt Dunn, his successor, had no dog in the fight, and several people were banished to the African division. In a significant breach of Langley's tribal culture, the new Afghanistan Ops Group chief, J…”

Burt Dunn succeeded Jack Devine documented ▶ 44:49

Mikhail Gorbachev ordered_assassination_of Mujahideen documented ▶ 45:55

“About that time, George appointed Bearden station chief. The Russians began their summer offensive. They concentrated on several provinces, tried to clear Kost again, and fought a new battle for Zawah…”

Claire George appointed Milt Bearden documented ▶ 45:55

Najibullah succeeded Babrak Karmal documented ▶ 46:54

“They didn't want this to end. This is a huge money laundering operation. In the summer of 86, the DRA officials prevented any progress in negotiations, but Carmel, politically bankrupt, resigned. His …”

CIA supplied_arms_to Mujahideen documented ▶ 47:52

“Pakistan doesn't want this to end. They're making bank on it. Milt Burden arrived in July of 86, just as the ISI was beginning to turn out rebels trained to use the Stinger missiles. The CIA had doubt…”

Inter-Services Intelligence trained Mujahideen documented ▶ 47:52

CIA covered_up Osama bin Laden host_asserted ▶ 54:39

“There is conflicting evidence on whether bin Laden actually fought in the war, perhaps in one battle. There is little reason to doubt CIA assertions that it never helped him during the war, which is a…”

Frank Anderson succeeded Gust Avrakotos documented ▶ 55:10

“again changed the task force chief. Frank Anderson, a card-carrying Middle East warrior, became Bearden's new boss. Anderson spoke Arabic and had served in Yemen, Beirut, and North Africa, most recent…”

CIA covered_up Mujahideen host_asserted ▶ 56:12

“In a maneuver worthy of CIA history on Central America, the deputy director of operations, Claire George, phoned Bearden to certify that the agency had had no rules or knowledge of the attacks. The st…”

William Casey supplied_arms_to Inter-Services Intelligence host_asserted ▶ 56:41

“Casey is said to have given ISI data on Soviet bases drawn from satellite photos. A year after the Russian attacks, the KHAD or KGB struck back, blowing up huge ammunition dumps in Pakistan. Meanwhile…”

KGB carried_out_attack Pakistan documented ▶ 56:41

Hamid Gul headed Inter-Services Intelligence documented ▶ 56:41

Benazir Bhutto succeeded Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq documented ▶ 57:07

“The greatest change occurred in August of 88 when a C-130 crashed, carrying General Zia and Akhtar, as well as U.S. Ambassador Arnold Rafale. Pakistani elections then brought to power Bhutto, daughter…”

Saudi Arabia funded Mujahideen documented ▶ 58:10

“But it was not in America's interest to permit the Russians to withdraw from their quagmire intact. With victory as the goal, the CIA budgets redoubled close to $300 million in 1984. By 1986, it was u…”

CIA funded Mujahideen documented ▶ 58:10

Milner Kindergarten founded Fabian Society host_asserted ▶ 1:19:45

“I don't have it in here. The Anglo-American something something by Carol Quigley. The whole Fabian Society, the Milner's Kindergarten, which most people associate with South Africa, that was just kind…”

Phoenix Program carried_out_attack Vietnam host_asserted ▶ 1:20:14

“miraculously is the first official 15 minute city in Oxford. And whoever posted that this morning, I was like, Milner is like having a heyday in hell right now. He'd be so proud that Oxford would be t…”

United States carried_out_attack Vietnam host_asserted ▶ 1:20:42

“forcibly put people in them and then made them check IDs to go and come and controlled all of the food that went in, controlled the people, the governments that oversaw the villages that they created.…”

Milner Kindergarten targeted_for_regime_change United States host_asserted ▶ 1:21:37

“They wanted America back in the British Empire. That was their ultimate goal, which is why they set up the Fed here to be able to control us. And our financial engine that has managed to contribute to…”

Milner Kindergarten founded Federal Reserve host_asserted ▶ 1:21:37

Milner Kindergarten carried_out_attack Boxer Rebellion host_asserted ▶ 1:22:04

“And that's the reason why just in a quick fashion, I want to go over Carol Quigley's book just to show you. I mean, that's the reason they fought the Boer Wars. They want control over everything. That…”

Milner Kindergarten carried_out_attack Boer War host_asserted ▶ 1:22:04