'BLOWBACK' is a CIA term of art for the unintended spilling over of agency tricks abroad onto life in the United States." Such is the opening sentence of Jim Hoagland's column, 'Turncoat Terrorists' published in the January 16 issue of the 'Washington Post', in which he questions the practices, and even the existence, of the CIA in this post-cold war world.

The word 'blowback' was originally coined to counter the wash back into the US information flow of planted phony news items from overseas. Now, says Hoagland, 'blowback' has assumed a deadlier form than mere falsified journalism. Washed back into the US itself are terrorist bombs ferried in by the messengers of death linked to the network of leftovers of the single-minded Islamic warriors recruited, funded and trained by the CIA to fight in the Afghan war of the 1980s against the Soviets and their communist supporters. These wars are still being fought, to our detriment, between Afghans of different ethnic and sectarian bents, one side still supported and aided by Pakistani and Arab youths trained in the art of fanatic warfare.

The United States may well have hastened the end of the cold war and the disintegration of the Soviet empire, but it did so at a terrible future cost to itself and to those, such as Pakistan, who helped it. This cost was either unforeseen or ignored by the CIA which presumably simply wished to get on with the job at hand and let tomorrow take care of itself. Tomorrow came, and with it terrorists, bombings, killings and bloodshed. The thousands of Pakistanis and Arabs sent in did their jobs, fought the 'holy war' against communism, and when that ended they turned their sights to another holy war, on a much grander scale, against those perceived to be enemies of their particular militant version of Islam.

In its zeal to eliminate the bogey of communism the CIA had blundered. It had discounted the possibility of a blowback and the form, which that blowback might take. It had also ignored the lessons of recent history, of the aftermath of the break-up of the great colonial empires of the Middle East and North Africa.

The Agency's tricks bounced back with a vengeance. The 'holy terrorists', as Hoagland terms them, are now personified by Osama bin Laden, whose operatives in their murderous attacks use bomb-making techniques taught in the training camps for Afghanistan run by the CIA in the 1980s. A recent attempt to smuggle explosives from Canada into the US was intercepted and the smuggler was found to have links with the veterans of the Afghan wars (now known as 'Afghans') and with Bin Laden.

The US is not the only one to suffer from the CIA's games. By 1991, over 100 Algerians recruited to fight in Afghanistan had joined the Islamic Front for Salvation, a particularly violent group responsible for the widespread massacres of innocent Algerians. 'Afghans' have fought in Bosnia, Chechnya, Kashmir, and wherever else the Islamist activists have joined battle with the 'infidels'.

Hoagland cites the prescience of George Orwell who in his 1939 essay 'Marrakesh' (obviously overlooked by the CIA) related how he had asked himself, when watching a column of Senegalese soldiers marching by under the command of French officers, how long the colonialists would continue to kid themselves. How long would they continue to shut their minds to the inevitable? How long would it be before the native soldiers of the colonial lands turned the weapons provided to them by the colonialists upon the colonial masters?

The Afghan adventure of the CIA may have boomeranged on the US and on the other powers seen to be opposing the advance of the violent brand of Islam, but it is Pakistan which has been the major recipient of the wash back. It serves no purpose to repeat how this country has suffered. We all know too well how the homeful effects have afflicted every aspect of our lives, law and order being the major casualty, the proliferation of the Kalashnikov, the decline of the economy, drug smuggling and drug addiction being just a few others.

The madressah system of education has been institutionalized. Most of it turns out thousands of young blinkered bigots who have been taught only to parrot the misguided teachings of almost illiterate mullahs ignorant of the true tenets of their religion. There are also a sizable number of madressahs which send out into the world militant youths, schooed to fight, to kill and to die for the 'cause'.

Politicized and established also are terrorist groups such as the Lashkar-i-Tayyaba, and the Harkat-ul-Ansar, funded by the CIA, which was declared a terrorist organization by the US State Department last year and promptly changed its name to Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. These groups practice their own version of Jihad. The Taliban, sitting on our border, were admittedly created in the main by Pakistan, but at the instance and with the help of the CIA. That Pakistan is regarded by some as a terrorist state, encouraging and aiding international terrorism, must largely be credited to the CIA.

It is difficult to sympathize with the US in its post-cold war predicament, particularly when Pakistan has to bear the brunt of accusations in the US press that not only does it aid terrorists but was also associated with the planning and execution of the recent hijacking of the Indian airliner. The ISI which in the past worked closely with the CIA is now accused of having links with Osama bin Laden, of masterminding the release of the radical Maulana Masood Azhar from the Indian jail.

Tariq Ali, once the 'enfant terrible' of left-wing politics, writing on Talebanisation in a recent issue of 'Outlook' has this to say:

"With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the cold war came to an end. Leaving behind orphan-states on every continent. The effect in Pakistan was catastrophic. The fundamentalist groups had served their purpose and, unsurprisingly, the US no longer felt the need to supply them with funds and weaponry. Overnight, the latter became violently anti-American and began to dream of revenge. Pakistan's political and military leaders, who had served the US loyally and continuously from 1951 onwards, felt humiliated by Washington's indifference."

Pakistan was awarded posthumous honours for aiding the US to enter China and Afghanistan. However, foreign policies of nations must be forward-looking and cannot depend upon history and forgotten goodwill. The US acts in its own interest, firmly believing that the means justify the ends, as does India. The wise men of India have no wish to annex Pakistan and share borders with countries which are even more unstable, irresponsible and violence-prone. They would rather have a lame, deformed and orphaned Pakistan, barely alive, and we seem to be doing all we can to help them in this preference. The world accepts India's size and weight, even if we do not. But, then, it takes a confident leader to assess correctly his country's weaknesses.

Russia and Vladimir Putin have their own way of dealing with troublesome fundamentalists, as can be seen from the photograph of Grozny on the day the Russian flag was hoisted there.

China deals quietly with the fundos in its south-west areas, in true inscrutable Chinese manner. Its advice to Pakistan on the 'Kashmir issue' is to wait, have patience, give it time, let changed circumstances come into play. But China has always thought in terms 'eternal'. It waited for 442 years before accepting Macao back into the fold and it is not hurrying to claim Taiwan tomorrow.

By and large, General Pervez Musharraf has chosen his men, civil and military, on merit. His programmes on education and health, both vital issues, are commendable. But should his public relations adviser, Javed Jabbar, not emphasize that what is said in a village in Pakistan, to raise the villagers' applause, is heard worldwide within the hour? The general's Muzaffarabad speech was ill-conceived and counter-productive. Weakened and bankrupted as we have been, should we now not take tangible steps to reduce the tension which has been created? Without major global support we cannot hope to have the Kashmir issue settled in the way we wish. A heightened, hyped nuisance value can only imperil our country and its people.