Brzezinski admits: Afghan Islamism Was Made in Washington Afghan Islamism Was Made in Washington

'Le Nouvel Observateur' (France) ^ | Jan 15-21, 1998 | Interview

[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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[NewAmsterdam]

Western businesses and banks were all to keen to get their hands on East European assets. Not to do some producing of goods, of course, but to kill off potential cheap competition or to beef up the asset-side of their books. Example: I once visited a South African investment bank in London. I met some high-up suit who thought I was a fellow banker. He asked me if I was interested in taking over some Bulgarian debt. I said: errrrrrrr.......don't think so (have plenty of debts of my own). What was the case? The bank had bought up vineyards in Bulgaria. There was no production there, of course. But the bank added it to its balance sheet as an asset (even though they also had been obliged to take on the vineyards debts). Not to be too exposed to these non-performing assets they sought other investment banks to take over part of that asset (and some debt, of course). Perhaps they could flog it later to another winemaker or whatever for more money. Meanwhile it made a nice impression on their shareholders because they could report their assets globally had risen by 25% or whatever over the past year. Also meanwhile: no doubt the people in the small town that used to work on the vineyard now had to live off picking their noses. Now really. That is modern capitalism my friends. And America is the champion of that. You really think these poor peasants in Bulgaria will love us all, and America in particular, for kicking them out off their jobs? Errrrrrrrrr........don't think so.

[x]

This was one of those difficult decisions that political leaders are paid to make. From where they sat, and from where we sit now, it was not the wrong decision to make. It was more like Churchill and FDR arming and supporting Stalin to get rid of Hitler, than like Churchill and Lloyd George promoting Japanese expansionism, Leninism, Zionism, or Saudi Wahhabism in order to disloge the Kaiser and the Ottoman Empire -- a justifiable choice of one demon to defeat a more pressing one, rather than something unprecedented or unjustified. Indeed, FDR had embraced a great known evil, in a way that Carter and Brzezinski did not. We'd had good relations with the likewise "Fundamentalist" Saudis for a long time, so the dangers at the time would have appeared to be much less than they do in hindsight. Ought they to have known? They might have known or guessed at something, but there is no way they could have known what we know now. If things go horribly wrong now, we may regret their decision, but I think it will stand as the right decision for the time and the right decision overall.

Zbig has the arrogance and vanity one expects from intellectuals in politics. He sounds insufferable, but at least he does stand by his decisions, rather than try to palm them off on the other party if they become unpopular. And that is to his credit. There is more continuity in our policies than parties and ideologues will admit.

The other thing about these remarks is that politicians improvise. They do what they can at the time and hope for the best. Indeed, they hope that others who come later will make everything right. The critical period was not in the Carter or Reagan years, but during Bush I and Clinton.

[NewAmsterdam]

bttt

[Zviadist]

Also meanwhile: no doubt the people in the small town that used to work on the vineyard now had to live off picking their noses. Now really. That is modern capitalism my friends. And America is the champion of that. You really think these poor peasants in Bulgaria will love us all, and America in particular, for kicking them out off their jobs?

You are right, of course. But most Americans don't even have a passport and rely on some 20-something scumbag Reuters correspondent to give them the truth about the disaster that is post-communism. They simply DO NOT KNOW what has happened to all those people who believed in America and who wanted no hand-out from America, but rather just hoped for a level playing field after the evil scourge of communism was defeated. What did they get? Poverty worse than anything they ever knew under communism and the indignity of seeing the former communist ruling class as the best friend of the Western international capitalist class. What a farce! But Americans do not see this because they do not travel and they do not speak foreign languages.

[madrussian]

So the Soviets went into Afghanistan because Afghanistan was bordering the Soviet Union and the US was actively interfering in the internal Afghan matters. The US would have done the same if any country bordering the US was messed with by the Soviets.

[Zviadist]

The US would have done the same if any country bordering the US was messed with by the Soviets.

There was this little place called Bay of Pigs...

[Ditto]

You sound like the type who believes that the US won both WWI and WWII

Well, in December of 1941, only the UK remained in the West, and they were hanging on by their fingernails and would have starved in less than a year. And Comrade Joe was back pedaling so fast he would have bumped into Tojo before long. I guess without America to deal with in the Pacific, Tojo would have had an open dance card for old Joe in Siberia. I seem to recall Stalin was really hurting for some hardware from those evil American capitalists. (built with the blood of downtrodden American workers of course).

Now you want to tell me that Europe would have beat Hitler without the US? Go ahead.... tell me that. It must be in one of your revisionist history book somewhere.

... and brought the idea of democracy to Europe, without which Europe would still be in the Dark Ages. Am I wrong? I hope so.

Which part of Europe? The part East of the Elbe was pretty much dark age in terms of democracy until recently. Poland had some history --- Czech republic a little less, but the rest had spent all of history under the feet of tyrants. Did America have a part in freeing those people? What do you think?

As to Western Europe, Comrade Joe had his people all set to take over after WWII. France, Italy, Belgium. All they needed was bunches of hungry people. They got foiled by a little bit of American imperialist foreign policy called the Marshall Plan then another bit of interventionist empire building called the Berlin Air Lift. Then there was all those times in the 50s and 60s where those ugly American flexed their muscles at Checkpoint Charlie. Those damn Americans.... always messing around in other people's business. They sure took all the fun out of European politics. The Europeans had it down to a good knock down drag out war every generation and America messed around so much that its been 50 years since they went for each others throats. Hell, they even use the same currency now! God knows when the next time we’ll get to see the Germans beat the snot out of the French. What party poopers.

I bet you want to tell me that Hitler would have been defeated without America and the Europeans would still be getting their 6 weeks of vacation in the Caribbean from the State Commissars if America hadn’t insisted on Democracy for Europe after WWII. I know you want to tell me that. Go ahead.

[x]

My mistake, it wasn't the British who supported Lenin, but the Germans. They also tried to get Mexico on their side by promising them Texas and the Southwest. To be sure both the Germans and the meddling British of the same years thought they were struggling for their lives, but the evils they unleashed were greater than those they were fighting against. I don't think Carter and Brzezinski are in their category.

[Rodney King]

You seem to dislike American "meddling". Would you prefer Soviet meddling, like the enslavement of half of Europe for 50 years?

[NewAmsterdam]

Rob Peter and Paul and vice versa Oh, I see, well that is allright then, isn't it? Just hobble around the globe a bit, make a new friend here, dump an old friend there and turn the whole thing on its head a few years later when it suits you. Now, that is going to make friends, indeed.

By the way, do you have any idea about the fact that it wasn't only Americans who died in Korea and Vietnam? No Brits, French, Australians?

[colorado tanker]

I do travel. I do speak foreign languages. I do think that someone who's best argument is to claim his opponents are ignorant hasn't got much of an argument. Two differences between us. I don't wear a tin foil hat. I did vote for President Bush.

[Zviadist]

The part East of the Elbe was pretty much dark age in terms of democracy until recently.

Ever heard of the Golden Bull? Arany Bika, magyarorszagon? Didn't think so. Around the time of the Magna Carta. Before America was America, it defined that which many years later became the basis of American democracy. You know nothing of history. A little place called Hungary -- you might only know it as "the dark ages."

[Zviadist]

Two differences between us. I don't wear a tin foil hat. I did vote for President Bush.

Another differnce: you seem to think you able to read minds. I have no such fantasies.

[Ditto]

Look at what happened to the Serbs for merely trying to retain the integrity of their country.

Yes, I remember. Tito and the Red Army beat the hell out of them.

Oh.... you mean Yugoslavia? When did that become a Serb country? And when did the commie fry of Tito become "The Serbs"?

[Zviadist]

Just hobble around the globe a bit, make a new friend here, dump an old friend there and turn the whole thing on its head a few years later when it suits you. Now, that is going to make friends, indeed.

Well done! You nailed it!

[Ditto]

A little place called Hungary...

So the Hapsburgs are right up there with Washington and Jefferson?

You really are starting to sound like some of the Black Nationalists. Did some Slave really invent a flying machine 10,000 years ago only to be ripped off by the Wright Brothers?

[Zviadist]

You really are starting to sound like some of the Black Nationalists. Did some Slave really invent a flying machine 10,000 years ago only to be ripped off by the Wright Brothers?

You deny the existence of the Golden Bull, which any elementary school student of European History would surely know

Silly boy, unschooled in history. It was before the Habsburgs in Hungary. In case you don't know, they were Austrian.

[GROUCHOTWO]

Several misconceptions here:

1.Don't link Americans with American foreign polcy. They are two separate and distinct entities. For the most part Americans are highly idealistic and moral. American foreign policy is driven by an entirely different set of standards. Much of the time it does not serve the interest of US citizens or the people that the policy experts pretend to help. For example, no rational American citizen would agree to the US policy which overthrew the elected governments in Slovokia, Hungary or Belarussia in order to install Communists(now called capitalists)

2.There is one precept that should distinquish a moral peoples from the "other": The ends do not justify the means!! Give up that concept and then you have no right to claim moral superiority.

3.Brzezinski justifies using good terrorists(at that time) against bad ones. What most good citizens should see is that he was happy to kill Russian boys because they had oppressive rulers. Does not any one in the US realize that the Russian Bolsheviks acted worse than Hitler to their own citizens?

4.Do you not know that the power and the finance for all of the Communist subjugation came from New York and the traitors in our government?

[NewAmsterdam]

If you are spoiling for a fight go elsewhere. You seem to have reeled off this sort of thing many times before because you do not answer what I said at all. Is this your stock-rant for multiple purposes? For instance, you imply that I have made some Marxist revisionist comments, which I somehow cannot recall doing. Anyway. Let's try to say something useful. It is of course impossible to say whether European countries would have beaten Hitler without the USA. No doubt it would have taken a lot longer, but Hitler might have dug his own grave in Russia (as he in fact to a large extent did) just as Napoleon did before. There is no doubt about the American contribution to the war. And, don't worry, I am perfectly grateful for that, if only because it liberated my parents. But in terms of suffering one has to be fair and conclude that it were the Russians and the British who bore the brunt of the war.

I'll bring another point to your attention. And I happen to know this professionally. Uncle Joe did not aim to take the whole of Western Europe over. He was perfectly happy to undermine Western Europe through his usual subversive activities but he had no intention to Sovietize it.

Secondly, I asked about the idea of democracy and suddenly, zoooooooooom, off you go into some summary of Cold War history as perceived by an American. Your rant seems to imply that America fed Western Europe and somehow kept the peace there; without the US those silly Europeans would never have eaten again and only been at each others' throat (perhaps out of hunger). The Marshall plan was a good thing as well as the Berlin airlift. But no effort was made on part of the West-European nations to rebuild their countries and to create their own prosperity? And their was no perfectly understandable self-interest in the Marshall plan? And West-Europeans never had any idea that war was bad and peace was good? They had no hand in keeping peace in their countries after WWII? They had no idea about what democracy meant let alone ever experience it?

You see, your rant reveals you treat Europeans like children. I think I was right in my original question. You seem to think that without the glorious Americans Europeans would still be living in the Dark Ages. And that is a-historical, to say the least.