BEg2 ch25 summary - forgot the most important part

[Thomas Eckhardt]

“Sure, blast from past, part from Stinger missile launcher.
Battery-coolant receptacle cap.”
(...)
“This writing on the battery cap, what’s it say, can you read it?”
“Pashto, ‘God is great,’ maybe legit, maybe CIA forgery to look
like mujahedeen, covering up some caper of their own.”

(The "caper of their own" would be a "false-flag caper" as mentioned by
Windust on p. 378. "Nobody is that good.")

I like Igor's matter-of-factness:

"You used to get shot at with Stingers." (...)

"Me, my friends, nothing personal."

The historical reference is of course to Operation Cyclone:

-- Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) program to arm and finance the Afghan
mujahideen in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1992, prior to and during the
military intervention by the USSR in support of the Democratic Republic
of Afghanistan. The mujahideen were also supported by Britain's MI6, who
conducted separate covert actions. The program leaned heavily towards
supporting militant Islamic groups, including groups with jihadist ties,
that were favored by the regime of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in neighboring
Pakistan, rather than other, less ideological Afghan resistance groups
that had also been fighting the Soviet-oriented Democratic Republic of
Afghanistan administration since before the Soviet intervention. --

As for the links between the mujahideen and Al-Qaeda:

-- Some have alleged that bin Laden and al Qaeda were beneficiaries of
CIA assistance. This is challenged by experts such as Coll—who notes
that declassified CIA records and interviews with CIA officers do not
support such claims—and Peter Bergen, who argues: "It's worth mentioning
here that there is simply no evidence for the common myth that bin Laden
and his Afghan Arabs were supported by the CIA financially. Nor is there
any evidence that CIA officials at any level met with bin Laden or
anyone in his circle." Bergen insists that U.S. funding went to the
Afghan mujahideen, not the Arab volunteers who arrived to assist them.

However, Sir Martin Ewans noted that the Afghan Arabs "benefited
indirectly from the CIA's funding, through the ISI and resistance
organizations," and that "it has been reckoned that as many as 35,000
'Arab-Afghans' may have received military training in Pakistan at an
estimated cost of $800 million in the years up to and including 1988.
Some of the CIA's greatest Afghan beneficiaries were Arabist commanders
such as Haqqani and Hekmatyar who were key allies of bin Laden over many
years. Haqqani—one of bin Laden's closest associates in the
1980s—received direct cash payments from CIA agents, without the
mediation of the ISI. This independent source of funding gave Haqqani
disproportionate influence over the mujahideen. Haqqani and his network
played an important role in the formation and growth of al Qaeda, with
Haqqani allowing bin Laden to train mujahideen volunteers in Haqqani
territory and build extensive infrastructure there. Milton Bearden, the
CIA's Islamabad station chief from mid-1986 until mid-1989, took an
admiring view of bin Laden at the time. --

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone

Some see the attacks of 9/11 as "blowback" of supporting the
mudjahideen. This claim, however is disputed:

-- A number of commentators have described Al-Qaeda attacks as
"blowback" or an unintended consequence of American aid to the
mujahideen. In response, the United States government and American and
Pakistani intelligence officials involved in the operation have denied
this theory. Many journalists including Peter Bergen have also refuted
the claim. They maintain the aid was given out by the Pakistan
government, that it went to Afghan not foreign mujahideen, and that
there was no contact between the Afghan Arabs (foreign mujahideen) and
the CIA and other American officials, let alone the arming, training,
coaching or indoctrination. --

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_assistance_to_Osama_bin_Laden

Recommended reading:

Steve Coll, "Ghost Wars"
Lawrence Wright, "The Looming Tower"
Peter Dale Scott, "The Road to 9/11"

The CIA on supporting the mujahideen with Stinger missiles:

https://twitter.com/CIA/status/1379437049728659459?s=20

In BE, the scenario on the Deseret rooftop is one element of a
conspiracy theory that, to the best of my knowledge, Pynchon invented
out of whole cloth. In this fictional CT, developed by March and Maxine,
there was a "dry run" for 9/11 with a manpad crew, presumably civilian
contractors from the US, threatening to shoot down incoming airplanes,
and a sniper as "[i]nsurance to see that they go through with it".
(265-269). Maxine later learns from Igor that the DVD has a hidden track
showing "young men of Arab background" building a virtual-cathode
oscillator (330) at #hashlingerz.

In any case, the coolant receptacle cap suggests that the events on the
roof of the Deseret filmed by Reg really took place within BE's
fictional world. What they mean is less clear.

P.S. From the CIA's online museum:

"This silver coin commemorating an anticipated (but never realized) Bay
of Pigs victory features an outline of Cuba with a rebel invader
advancing past a fallen member of Castro's military in the foreground."

https://twitter.com/CIA/status/1397193234086957056