It was in the late seventies that CIA finalised its covert plan for waging proxy war against the then Soviet army in Afghanistan by using radicalised Islamic fighters [mujahideen]. Codenamed Operation Cyclone, this devious enterprise came as a windfall for Pakistan’s military dictator-turned-resident Gen Zia ul Haq as it led to a Faustian US-Pakistan bargain [or to put it more precisely, an unholy agreement between CIA and Pakistan army’s spy agency Inter Services Intelligence or ISI].

Operation Cyclone was a classic example of proxy war. While ISI was required to provide radicalised and trained manpower to fight the occupational Soviet army in Afghanistan, Washington would divert requisite military hardware to arm the fighters as well finances to sustain this venture through CIA. Since ISI physically distributed weapons, military equipment and funds received from CIA to mujahideen groups, substantial diversion of US weapons and money for Pakistan’s proxy war in J&K as well as for lining the pockets of Generals was no big deal for Rawalpindi.

The gains made by Pakistan in terms of extremely generous US military and financial aid packages were indeed enormous. In fact the lure for lucre was so compelling that Pakistan army’s leadership conveniently chose to disregard the inevitable negative consequences that its deeply flawed decision to host religiously indoctrinated Islamic fundamentalists on its soil portended for the hapless people of Pakistan. The saddest part is not Rawalpindi’s continuing state of denial but the pride with which Pakistan army Generals recall this abhorrent bargain that has claimed thousands of innocent lives.

During his 2010 interview given to Spiegel, Pakistan’s ex President and former army chief Gen Pervez Musharraf nonchalantly admitted that “We [Pakistan army] poisoned Pakistani civil society for 10 years when we fought the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.” He went on to boast that “It was jihad, and we brought in militants from all over the world, with the West and Pakistan together in the lead role.” This revelation was neither an emotional outburst nor an unintended or........

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