Square Root of Terror: Synopsis

A 52 minute documentary about the history of Afghanistan from the 1970s to the present.


In 1978, Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, conceived what he called the “Afghan Trap”, a policy designed to lure the Soviet Union into a Vietnam-like quagmire in Afghanistan. Brzezinski’s plan worked. Unfortunately, he neglected to consider the deeper motivations of his Pakistani partners in the scheme and the catastrophic consequences for the Afghan people and the world.

CIA Director Bill Casey and Congressman Charles Wilson (D-TX), Chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, enthusiastically brought the CIA on board to execute Brzezinski’s plan.

THE SQUARE ROOT OF TERROR sets out to demonstrate that Casey and Wilson and later Defense Secretary Dick Cheney were all informed as to the criminal nature of the Afghan leaders chosen by Pakistan to receive the lion’s share of U.S. support. Brzezinski may not have known what to expect in 1979, but his policy successors did, and despite numerous warnings, they persisted in charting a course which:

turned Afghanistan into a Stone Age pile of rubble;
caused the deaths of 1.5 million Afghans;
the maiming of another million;
the displacement of 6 million more; and
ultimately led to the horrific events of September 11, 2001.

THE SQUARE ROOT OF TERROR includes on-camera interviews with a little known hero for peace, Edmund McWilliams. Mr. McWilliams (a Vietnam veteran and career diplomat with the U.S. State Department) ran the U.S. Embassy in Kabul during the height of the Soviet occupation, from 1986 to 1989. After the Soviets left in 1989, McWilliams talked to Afghan leaders inside and outside of the country and they all communicated the same message. Namely, that they believed they could work out a peace agreement with (Afghan communist) President Najibullah, but in order for it to only work, America had to stop providing weapons and cash to mujahiddin faction leader Gulbaddin Hekmatyar. McWilliams cabled this message to his superiors at the State Department, as well as then Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney. In response, he was transferred to Indonesia, and a fiasco known as the Battle of Jalalabad was pursued, rather than peace.

Also included in THE SQUARE ROOT OF TERROR is an on-camera interview with Milt Bearden, CIA Chief of Station to Pakistan during the late 1980s. Mr. Bearden would like everyone to believe that his choices during his tour of duty in Pakistan had nothing to do with the rise of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, which is why he frequently changed the subject, dissembled or flat out lied in response to interview questions. When questioned about that battle of Jalalabad, he exclaimed, “You won’t get me to say it was my idea!” and proceeded to point every-which-a-way, like the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz, “I’ll say it was Mrs. Bhutto, and she’ll say it was Hamid Gul, and he’ll say, ‘Oh no, Mr. Bearden made me,” etc., etc. When asked why, against advice to the contrary he continued to provide support to Gulbaddin Hekmatyar he said, “Granted, Hekmatyar was a bad guy. I should’ve shot him when I had the chance,… but he didn’t kill Kennedy.”
Finishing funds are needed to travel to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Washington, D.C. and New Hampshire with a small crew (4 people) to interview individuals who were directly involved in events described by Mr. McWilliams, including:
Dr. Abdullah Abdullah – Former Foreign Minister for the Northern Alliance

Wakil -- Foreign Minister under Afghan Communist President Najibullah

Azizullah Wassifi -- Minister of Agriculture under President Mohammad Daoud, later Governor of Jalalabad and currently advisor to President Hamid Karzai

General Jurat -- Chief of Intelligence for the Northern Alliance

Massoud Khalili – Afghan Ambassador to India and former Northern Alliance military commander

Afghan Refugees living in the camps along the Af-Pak border

Senator Gordon Humphries, Ret. (R-NH) – Senator Humphries was skeptical of the stories he was being fed by the CIA, and after McWilliams was transferred to Indonesia, the senator had him appointed Special Senate Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, in order that he might return to the region and report truthfully back the U.S. Senate.

The people listed above can further substantiate Mr. McWilliams’ stunning tale of how American and Pakistani officials pursued a policy whose intent was anything but peace, and who cared little about how their policies traumatized Afghanistan and its people.
Finally, there are the Afghan people and their tragic stories. It has been called “The Great Game,” but war is not a game. It is a horror which kills, maims and poisons the people and land upon whom it is inflicted. On-camera interviews have been conducted with several Afghan refugees, including a gentleman from the Afghan Embassy in Washington, D.C., Ashraf Hadari, his wife, Lina Rozbih, of Voice of America and Rezia Wardak, whose family is very prominent in Paktia Province, along the border with Pakistan.
Steve Masty, who worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the World Food Organization and other NGOs during the 1980s and 1990s, was recorded in a telephone interview. Mr. Masty had strong ties with some of the mujahiddin leaders, in particular Abdul Haq. Haq was the Afghan commander who, after 9/11, made arrangements with the CIA to go into Afghanistan to negotiate with the Taliban. Sadly, he was captured (some say accidental on purpose) and executed by them.
Lastly, of course, finishing funds are needed for post-production, as described in the attached budget.

There are many people who believe that the consequences of U.S. policy in Afghanistan could not have been foreseen. THE SQUARE ROOT OF TERROR sets out to demonstrate that not only were the consequences foreseen, but key individuals in the U.S. government were emphatically forewarned as early as 1989, “You are creating a monster, and it will come back to haunt you.”