Only losers: Wars cannot be won and are never just – yet they are fought (Part 1/3)
The first casualty in every war is the truth. However, it does not stop at this one victim. For many centuries, people in all countries involved in wars were told that an armed conflict was a good thing – assuming their own side could win. What remained were thousands of dead and traumatized people, most of them not among those who had been particularly eager to beat the drums of war. But even the „winners“ often lost an immeasurable amount: human lives, material, prosperity and peace of soul. One might have thought that at least we Germans would have seen through the game after the Second World War. But apparently the historically known suffering was not enough to achieve the effect of the „burnt child“ in the long term. Once again, people are talking from the podium and on talk shows about necessary and just wars. Can a war be won? Why are wars being fought? Who benefits from war? What is a proxy war? – This is the topic of the following review of the wars in Angola and Afghanistan as well as some geostrategic considerations still relevant today.
„We have a military operational stalemate we cannot resolve militarily,“ says former Brigadier General Erich Vad, who was Chancellor Angela Merkel’s military policy advisor from 2006 to 2013, about our current situation. By the way, this is also the opinion of US Chief of Staff Mark Milley. He said a military victory in Ukraine is not to be expected and negotiations are the only possible way forward. Anything else means the pointless waste of human lives.“
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said on 25 April 2022 the US wanted to weaken Russia so it would be unable to carry out another invasion: „We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.“
If a war cannot be won by military means, what is it all about? I feel reminded of the Afghanistan of the eighties.
Between phrasemongering and the delivery of tanks, our current policy seems to have forgotten what war is and how wars are caused.
„In a world of Orwellian Newspeak, where war suddenly means peace, all this may work,“ Sahra Wagenknecht (note of recaction: a german leftist politician) reflects. „But in the real world, you just ask yourself: have they all gone completely insane? (…) We are increasingly becoming a party to the war. Not only in terms of international law, but also in fact. Especially as it also means that in the short term, the modern Leopard tanks can only be used in Ukraine if we send a German crew with them. But maybe that’s exactly what some people want?“
Every war starts with lies, and for every war there is also the suitable propaganda. Terms such as „regime“, „autocrat“, „rebels“, „solidarity“, „resolute action“ or even „robust mandate“ should therefore generally make us sit up and take notice. It sounds somehow good each time, moral and, above all, without alternative, and each time it causes immeasurable suffering retrospectively.
Is there such a thing as a good war? I say no. Can a war be won and legitimize itself in retrospect? Especially not, I think. A war cannot be ended by more war. It is always the people who suffer. Every war ends at the negotiating table. But anyone who promotes the supply of weapons to a war zone is always promoting war at the same time. „No weapons in war zones“, the Greens (note of redaction: a German party) had advertised on their posters. That was a good idea once. Anton Hofreiter (note of redaction: a politician of the Greens) responded to a question on January 5, 2023, saying that you have to „differentiate what kind of war it is“. So are there good wars after all? Can a war be legitimized in retrospect because it was won? What is he trying to sell us here?
The following retrospectives address the general question of the winnability of wars and reveal some recurring but mostly hidden strategies and dynamics. They are largely neutral on my part. In the last chapter, I present my personal opinion.
Proxy war in Angola: the apocalypse for freedom fighters
The term „proxy war“ can be dated back to the Cold War and is characterized by the fact that „an existing conflict, civil war or war in a third country is instrumentalized for the purposes of the major powers involved and, if this is not yet the case, escalated into a military conflict“. The primary goal of the major powers in a proxy war is „the preservation or expansion of their respective spheres of interest at the expense of the other major powers“.
The main victims are the populations of third countries. Because of this fact it is easier to convince the own population, and in many cases the proxy war is kept secret from them.
The civil war in Angola began in 1975, immediately before the country gained independence from the colonial power Portugal. It escalated into a proxy war between the Eastern Bloc, including Cuba, and the Western powers, including the apartheid regime in South Africa.
„Everything followed the logic of a proxy war,“ summarizes the historian Jürgen Zimmerer. „The conflict was only resolved when Mikhail Gorbachev dismantled the communist regime and then the South Africans withdrew from Namibia, which they had occupied.“
The war is considered to have ended when the rebel leader Jonas Savimbi was killed in 2002.
CIA paramilitary program in Angola: 1975-1976
John Stockwell was an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for 13 years and deployed in Vietnam and Africa, among other places. He led the covert operation in Angola, working both from Washington and in the field. „There are (…) other functions (of the CIA), some of which are more legitimate than others,“ the whistleblower explains. „One of them is covert warfare. (…) Another one is the dissemination of propaganda to influence people’s minds. And that is one of the main tasks of the CIA“. When asked for a specific example, Stockwell replies:
„Well, for example in my war, the Angolan war, I helped to manage, a third of my staff was propaganda. (…) I had propagandists all over the world, principely in London, Kinshasa and Zambia. We would take stories that we would write and putt hem in the Zambia Times. And then pull them out and send them to a journalist who is on our payroll in Europe. But his cover story you see would be that he had gotten it from his stringer in Lusaka who had gotten it from the Zambia Times. We have the complicity of the government of Zambia, of Kenneth Kaunda, to put these false stories into his newspapers. But after that point, the journalists from Reuters and AFP, the management, was not witting out it. Well, our contact in Europe was, and we pumped just dozens of stories about Cuban atrocities, Cuban rapists. (…) We didn’t know of a single atrocity committed by the Cubans. It was pure, raw, false propaganda …“.
The CIA and the proxy war in Angola
When Angola became independent in 1975, there were rival liberation movements in the country fighting each other. These groups included the anti-colonialist National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), led by Holden Roberto, the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) under the leadership of Jonas Savimbi, and the originally marxist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). The latter two parties received massive support from foreign countries: the MPLA from communist Cuba and the Soviet Union, UNITA from South Africa and the USA (1). To gain support from abroad, the movements emphasized their ideological differences, explains Hellmuth Vensky. The MPLA emphasized its Marxist ideology, while UNITA redefined socialist approaches as anti-communist.
John Stockwell cannot give an intrinsic reason for the CIA’s involvement in this conflict. The covert war was kept secret from the public. The only thing he can say about the nature of his connection to Jonas Savimbi he met personally in 1975 is that he was opposed to the MPLA:
„Scoffing at my notion that MPLA ]eaders were hostile to the United States, MacElhinney went on. It was only the CIA’s historic relationship with Roberto that had us :so close to the FNLA, and even he, despite many years of association, wouldn’t tell us much. For example, the Chinese had publicly announced their FNLA advisor program and we knew they were at Kinkuza, Zaire, but Roberto wouldn’t talk to the CIA about them. We knew even less about Savimbi-our alliance with him was based solely on his opposition to the MPLA.“(2).
According to Stockwell, Savimbi had no profound ideology. „He was neither Marxist nor capitalist, nor even a black revolutionary. He was an Angolan patriot, fighting for the freedom of the Ovimbundu people.“ (3). The Ovimbundu are the largest ethnic group in Angola. The MPLA was consisted mainly of the Ambundu, the second largest ethnic group in the country, as well as other ethnic groups in Angola.
Stockwell accompanies Savimbi to a large UNITA meeting, where Savimbi gives a fiery speech. More than 300 Africans shout „Savimbi“, „UNITA“ and „Angola“. Savimbi shouts: „UNITA is the hope for Angola!“ and „We have defeated the Portuguese, we will defeat the MPLA (4)!“ During this experience, Stockwell feels great doubt about his own motivation and the CIA’s intentions.
„Standing on the railroad tracks in the bare African veld I felt an almost mystical objectivity about the CIA and the things I had done, the pointlessness of my operations in Lubumbashi, the brutality and betrayals of Vietnam, the empty cynicism of the case officer’s role. Savimbi was impatient to move on. For a moment I resented him, with his clear objectives and clean conscience. He was that rare coincidence of history, a throwback to the great tribal leaders of Africa-Tchaka Zulu, Msiri, and Jomo Kenyatta-a far cry from the conflicting values and goals of America, and of the CIA in its middle-aged mediocrity.“ (5).
The war in Angola was very much about oil and diamonds. „What role does international business play in operations like Cuba and wars like Congo, Vietnam and Angola?“ reflects John Stockwell. According to him, in Angola several transnational giants were „interested in the outcome“(6), including the oil company Gulf Oil, the diamond company DeBeers, Boeing, Mobil and numerous smaller companies.
UNITA financed itself by selling diamonds to South Africa. Arms dealers all over the world filled their pockets. Cabinda, an area between Congo and the former Zaire, was fought over fiercely and with vehement international influence. Huge oil reserves lie off the coast there. Prior to the war, Gulf Oil had had exclusive access to the oil fields in Cabinda (7).
The bloody massacres in Africa are largely financed by the sale of diamonds, especially in Angola, summarized Anne Jung of Medico International. The flourishing trade in diamonds and oil provided the material basis of Africa’s longest-lasting war for 30 years. The profiteers were transnational corporations, governments, private mercenary companies and diamond markets.
Making war while having no say: Need-to-know for leading CIA agents
In the course of the covert warfare, Stockwell gets deeper and deeper into an inner conflict. He has to realize that although he himself was on the ground in Angola and organizes the war from Washington, he has no influence on the strategy, regardless of his level of knowledge. His ideas are repeatedly rejected, for example by the head of the Africa Division, James Potts. „Potts and I never analyzed the Angola program together“, Stockwell remembers. „Now that I was confident of my knowledge of Angola, I wanted to have an airing, to hear his rationale for the program, and to make some basic suggestions.. (…) It didn’t work. Potts refused to respond and the meeting became a Stockwell monologue …“ (8).
At the time of the events, Stockwell apparently believes in the possibility of winning the war in Angola and in the meaningfulness of war in general and therefore proposes a more aggressive approach. Completely contrary to his idea, however, the covert war in Angola was continued without the intention of winning it. Instead, the aim was to achieve a balance between the opposing forces (9). Stockwell points out to his superior that if this strategy is continued, it will not serve the population, neither in Angola nor in the USA. However, he bites on granite:
„Otherwise, if we weren’t willing to do that, we would further U.S. interests by staying out of the conflict.“, declares Stockwell to Potts. „The middle ground, feeling our way along with small amounts of aid, would only escalate the war and get the United States far out on a fragile limb. It would help neither the Angolan people nor us.“. Potts breaks off the conversation.
Before Stockwell later gives his planned internal presentation, his superior puts him in his place: „ Just stick to the facts about your trip “,Potts said. „Don’t make any conclusions or recommendations.“. Potts might have been happier without Stockwell’s presence, but that would have been embarrassing. The colleagues naturally wanted to hear the travel report from Angola at first hand (10). Stockwell complies and finally receives the appropriate gesture from his now relaxed superior, who invites him to lunch with some ambassadors. „He reached for my arm and said: ‚ John, do come with us.‘ Such are the rewards of a good team player in the CIA.“ (11).
The disapproval of his own analysis of the situation is evident throughout the whistleblower’s report. At times, this situation causes him abdominal pain and makes him sick (12).
Global strategy in the Cold War
„An officer who does not generate operations does not get promoted.“, the former CIA employee reflects on the motivation of his colleagues. „The officers energetically go about seeking opportunities to defend our national security.“ The CIA’s task is apparently to promote the aggressive strategy in foreign affairs: „The 40 Committee papers for the Angolan operation, written by the CIA did not list a peaceful option, although the State Department African Affairs Bureau and the U.S. consul general in Luanda had firmly recommended noninvolvement..“ In 1959, the CIA also did not recommend that President Dwight David Eisenhower pacify Fidel Castro and learn to live with him in Cuba (13).
Stockwell mentions the promotion of agents as a reason for the CIA’s constant support for violent aggression. In his report, he then leaves further considerations to colleagues whose statements he remembers: „Arguing with MacElhinney, I took up Kissinger’s simplistic line that the Soviets had to be confronted anywhere they made a move, this time in Angola. Do we just stand back and let them have a free rein with the Third World? “You are suffering from a bad case of ‚party line,‘ “ MacElhinney informed me archly. „The Soviets did not make the first move in Angola. Other people did. The Chinese and the United States. The Soviets have been a half-step behind, countering our moves. And don’t put all the blame on Kissinger, the CIA led the United States into the Angolan mess,“ she added.“ (14).
Stockwell remembers Brenda MacElhinney as a good colleague who answered every question he asked her competently and in detail. She had been in Angola by herself, where she had reopened the Luanda station (15). Her name was changed by the author.
Although the Soviets were allied with the MPLA until the early 1970s, they stopped their support in 1973, the CIA colleague explains below. It was not until March 1975 the Soviet Union began supplying the MPLA with large quantities of weapons. In response to the Chinese and American programs and the successes of the FNLA, the Soviet Union then initiated massive arms deliveries by aircraft. MacElhinney considered the CIA’s Angola program to be a mistake that would harm and discredit the United States (16).
The collegue proposes Stockwell a policy of non-interference as a much better strategy. „Sincerely condemn outside interference and prevail on all parties, including the Soviet Union and the Chinese, to work for a peaceful solution. President Senghor of Senegal had just called for United Nations initiatives to ha1t the fighting. We could respond. And we could establish fair ties with all three movements and welcome the eventual winner into the family of nations.“
The CIA’s actual actions were miles away from this. Stockwell presented these arguments to Deputy Director Carl Bantam – name also changed. He dismissed them: the CIA agents are professionals who are paid for their special skills. It is not their job to analyze policy, but only to implement it (17).
The end of the covert operation in Angola
„In January 1976, the military situation for UNITA in Angola turned from bad to disastrous“, Stockwell remembers. Without the South African arms and leadership, UNITA could not withstand the advance of the MPLA and thus the Cubans. UNITA’s position was increasingly crumbling throughout central Angola. Savimbi was pushed back (18).
In Washington, the Senate finally put a stop to the Angola program. This stopped the future flow of money.
„The CIA urgently tried to use that money for more arms flights, while the administration sought to squeeze another $9 million out of the CI A’s FY 75 budget.“ There were conflicts between the CIA, the government and the Senate. „Five more C-141 arms flights went from Washington and France to Kinshasa, destined for Angola, between December 19, 1975 and January 29, 1976. (…).Sensing our defiance, the Senate responded angrily.“
Only after February 9, when the president’s signature legalized the Tunney Amendment, did the CIA acknowledge defeat and begin to withdraw.“, Stockwell said. The Portuguese commando force was disbanded and some agents of the operation were sent home from the mission. „But even then, after February 9, the CIA continued making arms shipments into Angola, sending twenty-two additional flights from Kinshasa to the air strip in Gago Coutinho in eastern Angola, delivering an additional 145,490 pounds of arms and ammunition.“(19).
UNITA leader Savimbi asks how the strategy should continue and receives no answer from the CIA for weeks. In the interim, the agency tries to make the war publicly justifiable after all. Meanwhile, UNITA loses 600 soldiers in a devastating defeat (20). Savimbi finally receives an answer from the CIA that he should continue fighting and represent a resistance to the MPLA. However, this approach is nothing but brutal and senseless.
„When Washington finally answered, it encouraged Savimbi to continue fighting. On February 11 the CIA spokesman promised Savimbi another million dollars in arms and money. On February 18, 1976, Secretary Kissinger sent the American charge in Kinshasa a cable, instructing him to tell UNITA leaders that the United States would continue to support UNIT A as long as it demonstrated the capacity for effective resistance to the MPLA. By that late date Kissinger knew full well that we could provide no more support to UNITA.“ (21).
The CIA and the government sold one’s own grandmother with this behavior and did not even stop at their allies.
In 1976, Jonas Savimbi sent a message to Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda asking for asylum for his mother and children. He explained that the war machine now been set up by Cuba and the Soviet Union was beyond his imagination and that they had to decide to go over to guerrilla warfare immediately. Savimbi summarizes: „ No one is reponsible for this desaster but the big powers.“ (22, 23).
In his last meeting with a CIA officer on February 1 1976, UNITA leader Savimbi swore to never leave the Angolan bush alive (24). In April 1976, FNLA leader Roberto lamented that thousands of exiled FNLA supporters were starving to death in lower Zaire. The US-allied dictator Mobutu, at the time president of Zaire, refused to receive anyone and let the 1,376,700 dollars for them go into his own pocket. „It was only a matter of days before UNITA and FNLA leaders were hounding the Kinshasa station, desperate, hungry, their debts still unpaid.“, Stockwell remembers. „Conveniently ignored was the fact that Mobutu was as eager as we were to be rid of the liberation movements.“
The Kinshasa station made a feeble effort to obtain another million dollars from headquarters, but it was over. There was no more money. “We were not in the missionary business and our involvement with the Angolan revolutionaries was ended.” (25).
„It was of course impossible to count the total numbers of Africans who lost their lives during the program.“, is Stockwell’s sad conclusion. The numbers are undoubtedly in the thousands. None of the CIA employees were killed or suffered from anything worse than malaria. This is normal, however, as the CIA always operates behind the scenes and leaves the serious risks to others (26).
In February 2002, the head of UNITA, Jonas Savimbi, was ambushed and is said to have died in a firefight. Savimbi’s death is also regarded as the end of the civil war after 27 years. Up to 500,000 people had lost their lives in this war. Famine, displacement, landmines and the destruction of the infrastructure were also consequences of the war. On April 4 2002, the Angolan government and UNITA signed a ceasefire agreement in the Angolan capital to end the war.
The tragic consequences of the war are „half a million civilians killed, more than four million refugees“ and „a ruined state“, summarized Hellmuth Vensky in 2012. Around four-fifths of Angola’s population had no access to medical care by that time, and more than half had no drinking water. „Every third child dies before the age of five,“ it continues. „Around 15 million landmines are still claiming lives or maiming people ten years after the end of the war. An entire country is struggling with its traumas.“
It was only in the 1990s, „when the East-West conflict dissolved into glasnost and perestroika“, that the UNITA rebels lost the support of the West. Long after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, the Marxist MPLA fought in Angola against UNITA, which had long been supported by the USA.
Stockwells conclusion regarding CIA
Stockwell’s conclusion about his former employer is consequent and unsparing:
„Cast as superpatriots, there were no rules, no controls, no laws, no moral restraints, and no civil rights for the CIA game-players. No individual in the world would be immune to their depradations, friends could be shafted and enemies destroyed, without compunction. It was an experiment in amorality, a real-life fantasy island, to which presidents, legislators, and the American people could escape, vicariously. (28).“
The secret intelligence service is an unfortunate relic of the Cold War, deeply embedded in the US government, and preserved by a self-absorbed, nostalgic commitment to its continued existence. „The CIA presence in American foreign affairs will be judged by history as a surrender to the darker side of human nature.“ (29).
In the second part, I take a look at Afghanistan in the 1960s, the beginnings of the proxy war in Afghanistan and the role of the CIA in it, as well as the long-term consequences of all this up to the current situation, in which the Taliban have regained power in the country.
Sources and notes:
(1) Stockwell, John: In Search of enemies: How the CIA lost Angola, Publisher: Futura, 1979 Page 47.
(2) Ibidem, Page 64.
(3) Ibidem, Page 157.
(4) Ibidem, Page 147 folgende.
(5) Ibidem, Page 155.
(6) Ibidem, Page 211.
(7) Ibidem, Page 211.
(8) Ibidem, Page 162.
(9) Ibidem, Page 82.
(10) Ibidem, Page 162.
(11) Ibidem, Page 166.
(12) Ibidem, Page 143.
(13) Ibidem, Page 267.
(14) Ibidem, Page 67.
(15) Ibidem, Page 31.
(16) Ibidem, Page 32.
(17) Ibidem, Page 33.
(18) Ibidem, Page 246.
(19) Ibidem, Page 247.
(20) Ibidem, Page 36.
(21) Ibidem, Page 248.
(22) Ibidem, Page 249.
(23) Original: „No one is reponsible for this desaster but the big powers.“
(24) Ibidem, Page 250.
(25) Ibidem, Page 261.
(26) Ibidem, Page 262.
(27) Ibidem, Page 271.
(28) Ibidem, Page 268.
(29) Ibidem, Page 271.
By Angela Mahr
Translated by Peter Mueller
(original article: https://www.manova.news/artikel/nur-verlierer )
