BanglaBhoot
RETIRED TTA
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By Anwaar Hussain
After crawling out of the woodwork where they hibernated for decades, the ex-spooks of Inter Services Intelligence are singing like canaries on the national media. In a blizzard of accusations and counter-accusations, ranging from secret funds used to prop up political alliances to brazen smear campaigns against political leaders, they are revealing mind boggling misdeeds of their former employer like never before. Has Pakistans premier intelligence agency Hooverised or McCarthyised over the years, is a question that begs an answer.
First, what is being Hooverised or McCarthyised? For the answer, let us first have a look at what an intelligence agency is supposed to be doing for its masters.
An intelligence agency is a governmental agency that is dedicated to information gathering for purposes of national security and defense. They do this by means of espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis, cooperation with other institutions, and assessment of public sources. The process is also known as intelligence analysis. Briefly put, intelligence agencies can provide the following services for their governments.
provide analysis in areas relevant to national security;
give early warning of approaching crises;
serve national and international crisis management by helping to detect the intentions of current or potential opponents;
aide national defense planning and military operations;
protect secrets, both of their own sources and activities, and those of other state agencies;
launch defensive activities such as counter-espionage or counter-terrorism when required; and
act covertly, if need be, to influence the outcome of events in favor of national interests.
As can be clearly seen in the underlined portions, a potential does exist in the above mentioned mandates for certain actors to stretch the intangible borders of these functions to far supersede the original. These actors could be weak governments wanting to stay on by hook or by crook, or overzealous individuals occupying key appointments either in these agencies or the departments to which these are directly responsible, who start imagining themselves as the state itself rather than minions of the state.
Allow me to make the point by two examples.
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation predecessor to the FBI in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972. Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a large and efficient crime-fighting agency, and with instituting a number of modern innovations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories. Being the father of this all powerful and efficient organization soon went to Hoovers head. He became increasingly high-handed. He routinely started exceeding the jurisdiction of the FBI by using it to harass political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders, and to use illegal methods to collect evidence.
In fact, so powerful did Hoover become as a chief of FBI that despite Presidents Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson each considering dismissing Hoover as FBI Director, none dared do it. They all concluded that the political fallout of doing so would be rather unacceptable. Hoover was reportedly maintaining files on all of them. Only his death in 1972 from the effects of high blood pressure could end his 37 year long iron grip on the FBI and the American governments. It is because of Hoovers long and notorious reign that FBI directors are now limited to 10-year terms.
When confronted, Hoover and his sympathizers would always contend that he was doing what he was doing only for national security and the larger national interest.
Likewise, Joseph Raymond McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion in the United States. He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. In the American milieu of the time, these accusations received wide publicity and broad acceptance, increasing his approval rating and gaining him a powerful national following.
In a Lincoln Day speech to the Republican Womens Club of Wheeling, West Virginia, McCarthy is usually quoted to have said: The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 57a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.
Consequently, in the post 2nd World War era, many thousands of Americans were accused of being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of hostile investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies. By the mid-50s, McCarthys dogged witch hunting of prominent politicians, government officials and public figures had reached such pernicious lengths that the term McCarthyism, coined a month after his Wheeling speech, gained almost a world wide acceptance in English lexicon.
Originally, McCarthyism was meant to explain the politically motivated practice of making accusations of betrayal, sedition, or treason without proper regard for evidence. In time however, McCarthyism took on a broader meaning describing the excesses of similar efforts. The term is also now used more generally to describe reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries.
McCarthys many excesses finally brought him to a Senate condemnation vote On December 2, 1954. He was condemned by a vote of 67 to 22. Unable to live with the ignominy, McCarthy died of a wasted liver due to increased alcoholism on May 2, 1957, at the age of just 48.
Just like in Hoovers case, McCarthy and his supporters too always maintained that his actions were only in the interest of national security and to ward off an impending national crisis.
So whether over the years the ISI has Hooverised or McCarthyised or a bit of both is left to the readers judgment. The scribe, however, stands in total agreement with Stendhal, that most original of French writers of the 19th century, who once said;
The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.
The irony is that the sheep are usually convinced, singing all the way to the slaughterhouse.
Of Spies, Spills and the ISI | Truth Spring
After crawling out of the woodwork where they hibernated for decades, the ex-spooks of Inter Services Intelligence are singing like canaries on the national media. In a blizzard of accusations and counter-accusations, ranging from secret funds used to prop up political alliances to brazen smear campaigns against political leaders, they are revealing mind boggling misdeeds of their former employer like never before. Has Pakistans premier intelligence agency Hooverised or McCarthyised over the years, is a question that begs an answer.
First, what is being Hooverised or McCarthyised? For the answer, let us first have a look at what an intelligence agency is supposed to be doing for its masters.
An intelligence agency is a governmental agency that is dedicated to information gathering for purposes of national security and defense. They do this by means of espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis, cooperation with other institutions, and assessment of public sources. The process is also known as intelligence analysis. Briefly put, intelligence agencies can provide the following services for their governments.
provide analysis in areas relevant to national security;
give early warning of approaching crises;
serve national and international crisis management by helping to detect the intentions of current or potential opponents;
aide national defense planning and military operations;
protect secrets, both of their own sources and activities, and those of other state agencies;
launch defensive activities such as counter-espionage or counter-terrorism when required; and
act covertly, if need be, to influence the outcome of events in favor of national interests.
As can be clearly seen in the underlined portions, a potential does exist in the above mentioned mandates for certain actors to stretch the intangible borders of these functions to far supersede the original. These actors could be weak governments wanting to stay on by hook or by crook, or overzealous individuals occupying key appointments either in these agencies or the departments to which these are directly responsible, who start imagining themselves as the state itself rather than minions of the state.
Allow me to make the point by two examples.
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation predecessor to the FBI in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972. Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a large and efficient crime-fighting agency, and with instituting a number of modern innovations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories. Being the father of this all powerful and efficient organization soon went to Hoovers head. He became increasingly high-handed. He routinely started exceeding the jurisdiction of the FBI by using it to harass political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders, and to use illegal methods to collect evidence.
In fact, so powerful did Hoover become as a chief of FBI that despite Presidents Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson each considering dismissing Hoover as FBI Director, none dared do it. They all concluded that the political fallout of doing so would be rather unacceptable. Hoover was reportedly maintaining files on all of them. Only his death in 1972 from the effects of high blood pressure could end his 37 year long iron grip on the FBI and the American governments. It is because of Hoovers long and notorious reign that FBI directors are now limited to 10-year terms.
When confronted, Hoover and his sympathizers would always contend that he was doing what he was doing only for national security and the larger national interest.
Likewise, Joseph Raymond McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion in the United States. He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. In the American milieu of the time, these accusations received wide publicity and broad acceptance, increasing his approval rating and gaining him a powerful national following.
In a Lincoln Day speech to the Republican Womens Club of Wheeling, West Virginia, McCarthy is usually quoted to have said: The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 57a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.
Consequently, in the post 2nd World War era, many thousands of Americans were accused of being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of hostile investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies. By the mid-50s, McCarthys dogged witch hunting of prominent politicians, government officials and public figures had reached such pernicious lengths that the term McCarthyism, coined a month after his Wheeling speech, gained almost a world wide acceptance in English lexicon.
Originally, McCarthyism was meant to explain the politically motivated practice of making accusations of betrayal, sedition, or treason without proper regard for evidence. In time however, McCarthyism took on a broader meaning describing the excesses of similar efforts. The term is also now used more generally to describe reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries.
McCarthys many excesses finally brought him to a Senate condemnation vote On December 2, 1954. He was condemned by a vote of 67 to 22. Unable to live with the ignominy, McCarthy died of a wasted liver due to increased alcoholism on May 2, 1957, at the age of just 48.
Just like in Hoovers case, McCarthy and his supporters too always maintained that his actions were only in the interest of national security and to ward off an impending national crisis.
So whether over the years the ISI has Hooverised or McCarthyised or a bit of both is left to the readers judgment. The scribe, however, stands in total agreement with Stendhal, that most original of French writers of the 19th century, who once said;
The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.
The irony is that the sheep are usually convinced, singing all the way to the slaughterhouse.
Of Spies, Spills and the ISI | Truth Spring
