Stingers: Sores That Hardly Heal

Originally published on Desicritics 8/15/08

The pain was almost intolerable. Burning, searing fire that ran down the side of my face onto my neck made me shout and scrabble about like a mad man. I had been picking oranges from a tree in our central Nigerian compound when I disturbed a nest of wasps that had taken residence in that tree, not more than two feet above my head. Six of these warriors descended on me and began to sting, each one multiple times. Wasps do not commit suicide when they attack, they use their stingers again. Years later, in 1985 I was reading on the verandah of our Model Town home in Lahore and a bee landed on my neck. I brushed it aside, but not quick enough and got stung. It was not as painful as the wasps had been but there was one difference. It left its stinger behind, and in doing so had committed suicide, tearing out its guts as it was brushed aside. Pindi, my cook pulled the stinger out with a tweezers, warning me not to leave it in as it would create a bad sore and become infected. I had to hear the terrible stories of children in his village that had been stung and had suffered terribly because the parents did not know enough to get rid of the deadly stingers and not to leave them embedded.

I had been reading the Pakistan newspaper, Dawn, at the time and news about the very beginning of the defeats and withdrawals of the Soviet military forces from Afghanistan because of such effective rebel fighting, like “persistent wasps”. This withdrawal eventually culminated in 1989, supported by the many small victories of the Mujahideen in their fight against the cursed invaders, and the support given by the Americans to this effort of the guerrillas during Operation Cyclone, support by the supply of arms and weapons to the freedom fighters. Stingers! Yes, these were supplied by the CIA in the hundreds to the forces fighting the Soviets. Some sources say as many as two thousand stingers weregiven to the Mujahideen. After the withdrawal of the Russians there was a concern that the Taliban now had many of these weapons, Stingers, which, with their heat seeking devices had been lethal against Soviet helicopters and low-flying aircraft. Now American forces could become targets of these very weapons.

But, allied experts said, the battery systems which operated these weapons became useless after a few years. (But the technology to repair and put in new battery systems existed; in fact Pakistan now has its own version of the old Stinger) I love the title of the article by Ken Silverstein in the State Oct.2, 2001, “Stinger, Stingers, Who’s Got the Stingers?”  In that article he reviews the Reagan administration’s programs to arm the Mujahideen with Stingers to battle Soviet aircraft, he says that the Taliban now possess many of these weapons as do others to whom they were sold who ‘reverse-engineered’ these and made their own. Many worried about this because Islamic fundamentalist who loathed the West, about as much as they hated the Soviets, could possibly share these wonderful high tech weapons with, and think of this, with terrorist groups.

In 1986, Congress had approved the deal and CIA then shipped 300 Stingers to the rebels and the next year 700 more. The Stingers were now embedded, not only among the rebel forces, but according to some sources, Pakistan stock piled the Stingers it got, and some say, sold a few to the Chinese for sums unknown, who were clever and reverse-engineered them and produced their own, and since there was a hot market for these, reverse sold these to the ones who first had them. According to Silverstein’s article these weapons now were dispersed by the rebels to Tajikistan, Chechnya and Algeria. And, he says that the Pentagon approved the sale of Stingers to at least 21 countries, mostly NATO of course, such as Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. ( I love the word mostly. The selling of American weapons by Americans is a really big business, and this does not just include little Stingers, it includes weapons of pretty ‘mass destruction’ in the form of high tech aircraft and their missile systems. You know, keep the economy going.) The Soviets stole the design and made their own SAM-14 Gremlin, a virtual copy of the Stinger. Oh my! What a hornet’s nest!          

The CIA later, in its $65 million program, (It is as if they gave each Afghan citizen $2) offered $150,000 to $200,000 to the very ones they had supported by giving them these amazing weapons. This was more than production cost, but cheaper than having their planes shot down. This buy-back program resulted in the return of very few of the Stingers and the authorities were concerned that the Taliban, who later waged a bloody insurgency, had stockpiled these weapons. In fact, the coalition authorities had no idea where most of these lethal Stingers were. These were a hidden threat and are still a threat today, imbedded, festering Stingers. This was a sore spot. The buy-back flopped, by and large. If the Americans thought that Stingers were worth about Rupees 1,200,000 each, these must be pretty good things to keep around, just in case. And it is a well know fact that in bargain situations, when one party seems a bit desperate to buy something, it may be a good strategy to hold back a bit and wait and see if the buy back price will rise. Imagine getting the Stingers free and then later selling them back at highly inflated prices to the donor and making a few dealers rich in the process. Riches buys land, good land for growing poppies.

These embedded Stingers may still be around. India claimed that in a 1999 attack Muslim rebels in Kashmir used a Stinger to down a military aircraft. 

Kathy Gannon’s book I is for Infidel: From the Holy War to Holy Terror: 18 Years Inside Afghanistan, 2005, Perseus Book Group, speaks about the war in Afghanistan as being “yesterday’s war”. “The wider world had done the most dangerous of things. It had stuffed this tiny country with massive amounts of weapons, including the precious Stingers, turned over the countryside to the volatile discordant mix of mujahadeen factions—and then walked away.”

In 2001, following the Sept.11 attack the U.S. launched “Operation Enduring Freedom”, a military campaign to destroy the Al-Qaeda terrorist camps inside Afghanistan, the very ones with whom they had had a common cause, you know, the Afghan Mujahideen and who now said thanks for the free Stingers. The Stingers were not like those of the wasps, burning, searing, but temporary. They were like those of bees, which left imbedded, make their way deep into the flesh while pumping venom all the while and leaving a festering sore that hardly heals.

In the 2008 political campaigns new political solutions are being suggested about Afghanistan, new efforts that will need to be made to subdue the rebels in their mountain dens in Afghanistan and along the border of Pakistan and hopefully get the really bad guy, bin Laden in the process. What a holy terror our soldiers will face once again when ‘Yesterday’s War’, thanks Kathy, becomes Today’s Military Operation in which, on their turf, using our weapons, our Stingers, they, the bad guys, face off against us, defending their holy land with religious Islamic zeal, cursing oaths of vengeance. 

Not to worry folks. Dear Wikipedia gives us the answers, “The US inventory contains 13,400 missiles. The total cost of the program is $7,281,000,000.” Let’s see, if we divided this by the population of Afghanistan which is about 33 million people it could set up the entire population with a nest egg for small business development that would put it on its economic feet, peacefully. Imagine what that money could do to build schools for Afghani boys and girls. I forgot; inventory means that the money has already been spent by U.S. tax payers to engineer and manufacture these arms which now exist and are waiting for new batteries and need to be used.

That is a lot of bees to contend with, a pretty big hive. Let the Taliban be warned, our hive is bigger than yours. The pain will be intolerable, a real pain in the neck! But for whom?