I'm tired of people 'blaming the dead' for decisions taken twenty years ago that had unforeseen consequences. That kind of smug hindsight is not only offensive, it serves no purpose. It's like watching evil laugh and dance. |
Posted on 10/08/2001 1:57:12 PM PDT by Zviadist
Ex-National Security Chief Brzezinski admits: Afghan Islamism Was Made in Washington
Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser in 'Le Nouvel Observateur' (France), Jan 15-21, 1998, p. 76
Translated by Bill Blum
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Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?
B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated: Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
B: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.
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Note: There are at least two editions of 'Le Nouvel Observateur.' With apparently the sole exception of the Library of Congress, the version sent to the United States is shorter than the French version. The Brzezinski interview was not included in the shorter version. *
Translated from the French by Bill Blum, author of "Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II" and "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower" Portions of the books can be read at: http://members.aol.com/superogue/homepage.htm
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Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion.
Well, Brzezinski admits that Afghanistan I was a provokation to get the Sovs to play. Those little old Islamic extremists weren't going to hurt us... Can you say "BLOWBACK"?
Yet these scumbags never get called for the disater their policies produce. We keep going on blindly as if even recent history just didn't exist -- gone down the memory hole. And then we pat each other on the back and say how they bombed us because of how wonderful we are. People are STUPID!
What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Blowback--the new bogeyman. My question is what will the blowback be on all of this willy-nilly speculation about blowback...
Brzezinski again.
Tsk tsk. And he seemed like such a nice fellow...
"Events in Kosovo" BRZEZINSKI SCOWCROFT LAVROV Interviews of 3/25/99
CHARLIE ROSE: We cannot, if I hear you correctly, fail here. Too much is at stake in terms of America's-- beyond the morality of the issue, but in terms of America's prestige and reputation and the credibility we have in the future. We cannot let this pass, and we cannot lose.ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: You're absolutely right.
I think this is the first really complex challenge to American global leadership. And, if we falter here, the consequences would be devastating -- in the first instance, for Europe; secondly, for the American-European relationship; thirdly, for our position in the world; and then, in a sense, more generally for the kind of world that we will be living in the next few years.
So, in a microcosm,
this is a real test case of what the world is about to be.CHARLIE ROSE: So, if someone says to the president, ``Make the case why Kosovo is important,'' you say, ``This is a microcosm of the way the world is gonna be in the near future''?
ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: That is right.
Blowback--the new bogeyman. My question is what will the blowback be on all of this willy-nilly speculation about blowback..
Fine. Call it what you will. Call it the negative consequences of excessive meddling, call it typical American foreign policy simplism and provincialism. Whatever you call it, we are seeing the fruits of our labors some back to strike us and no one wants to talk about it -- the root cause of the current crisis. Only feelgood things like "they hate us because we are beautiful."
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html
Ok guys, tin foil alert, since when the US has been a promoter of Islam, since when the US had a president praying the G_d Allah?
I guess those National Security Advisors should all carry a crystal ball and keep a hot line open to the Psychic Friends Network.
Instead, I always thought that it was the internal contradictions of Communism, the inefficiencies of the system, and the inability of their economic system to both deliver commercial goods and compete with the Regan buildup that finally caused Gorbachev to pursue glasnost and peristroika.
So the US CIA initiatives in Afghanistan did produce the mujahideen and the Taliban -- but not the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Note that peristroika (and to some extent glasnost) have been adopted by the Chinese. They took this initiative without any Afghanistan episode as a cause. They just see the practical advantages of a market economic system. However, they did not make the mistake of imploding their political processes, which are needed intact to guide the economic change and avoid the Russian chaos. (Plus they did not enlist the assistance of Harvard economists!)
I'm tired of people 'blaming the dead' for decisions taken twenty years ago that had unforeseen consequences. That kind of smug hindsight is not only offensive, it serves no purpose. It's like watching evil laugh and dance. |
Have you forgotten 1999? That is the year when the US bombed Belgrade in the name of Islam.
What a bunch of leftist psycho babble. Can't any country take responsibility for its own state of affairs? Is the US really that powerful? If so, how come we haven't got bin Laden yet?
Answer: Yes, we have influence, but it is not Omnipotent, and it certainly wasn't of the nature to create Afghan Islamism. Yes, we provided war materials, but if your looking for a "spiritual" source for the Talbans ideology (outside of Afghanistan (but the roots were all ready there be sure)) look to the form of radical Wahbism that was imported by Saudi mujtahids, like Osama bin Laden...
OH I get it...Jimmy Carter and Ziggy ended the cold war and defeated the Soviets. What a load of crap. Watch out Ziggy, you're going to break your arm patting your back like that.
So you think Brzezniski should have fully foreseen that 20 years later Afghanistan would be taken over by a group of low rent, semi-literate Pakistani religious nuts who were financed by a complete mad man from Saudi Arabia with $300 Million at his disposal who became totally obsessed when US troops stepped on Saudi soil?
No, but it does put to lie the idea that American muddling and empire-building does not have consequences. Even 20 years later. That perhaps there was motivation beyond "they hate us because we are so noble and good and have such good fast food restaurants" that most Americans seem to feel so smug and snug believing.
Instead, I always thought that it was the internal contradictions of Communism, the inefficiencies of the system, and the inability of their economic system to both deliver commercial goods and compete with the Regan buildup that finally caused Gorbachev to pursue glasnost and peristroika.
I always thought it did not end at all, but rather just re-tooled the hammers and sickles into "capitalist" symbols and the old nomenklatura remained in all the positions they occupied before the "fall of communism," but were much better paid. Did they not?
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I fail to understand the utility in pointing out that human beings cannot see very far into the future. In 1979 Carter and Brzezinski viewed the Soviet Union as a greater threat to the U.S. than Afghan fundamentalism. I would have thought them insane had they not.