Posted on 11/06/2001 7:13:37 PM PST by rdavis84
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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A couple of thoughts about the Brzezinski interview below. First, it flatly contradicts the common justification for U.S. actions in Afghanistan during the 1980s: that the U.S. simply aided forces resisting Soviet imperialism. Brzezinski makes clear that the Soviets were baited into sending forces to Afghanistan; thus their actions were defensive. Moreover, the U.S. used the violent Wahhabi (Saudi Arabian) form of Islam to create a monster-movement which plagues the world today. For more on this, see 'Articles Documenting U.S. Creation of Taliban and bin Laden's Terrorist Network' at http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/doc.htm
EXCERPTED-----
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.
ABOVE FROM ---- Brzezinski admits: Afghan Islamism Was Made in Washington
FROM------ http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/sectravels/dest1.html
Afghanistan
November 1, 1974
Henry A. Kissinger
Kabul
Official visit. Met with Prime Minister Daoud and senior Afghan officials.
August 8, 1976
Henry A. Kissinger
Kabul
Official visit. Met with Prime Minister Daoud and senior Afghan officials.
FROM--- Author: Zbigniew Brzezinski
Title: Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the 20th Century
Air date: April 2, 1989 ------ EXCERPTS ONLY------
BRZEZINSKI: After Harvard? Well, after I got my degree at Harvard I taught at Harvard. I taught at Harvard until 1960 then in 1960 I went to Columbia University and have been a professor there since then, but periodically I have been involved with public affairs. So for example in the mid '60s, I was on the Policy Planning Council, Department of State. In 1960 I was marginally involved in the Kennedy campaign for president foreign policy brain trust. In 1968 I directed the foreign policy task forces for Vice-President [Hubert] Humphrey when he was running for the presidency. In 1972 I became director of the Trilateral Commission an American, Japanese, West European public organization. In 1976 I directed the Foreign Policy Task Forces for Jimmy Carter then I became his National Security Advisor for four years. Then I went back to private life. Although in 1988 I was co-chairman with Vince Sowcroft and Henry Kissinger of the Foreign Policy Task Force for Vice-President Bush.
BRZEZINSKI: Well, on China I don't think there's too much division. I think everybody recognizes that American Chinese relationship has evolved very well. First President Nixon broke through and established a contact. Then President Carter broke through and normalized relations. Since then the political, the economic, the military relationship has grown well, and President Bush has a lot of feeling and sensitivity for China. He understands China well. He is, in my judgement, the first President we have had for whom our relationship with the Pacific is just spontaneously naturally felt to be as important as our relationship with the Atlantic.
:-) MasterMind, huh?
I dont know whether to laugh or cry that anyone is naive enough to believe this to be possible. Possible in the minds of former Carterites, and certainly ego-driven Jimmy himself sure, but not in reality.
You mean Zbig? He's the one that said it.
If true then this can now be said: "Washington giveth and now Washington taketh away."
I, for one, don't see why we keep harping on the follies of past administrations. I don't get the point. Are we supposed to go back in time and un-elect them?
No. I think it would be more useful if we learned from past mistakes.
But we as a Nation don't. We don't even learn from the founding fathers.
Kind of like Zbig's statement to Carter that we lured the Ruskies into their VietNam.
Sad, very sad but very true.
But, I have seen many articles recently about how we funded Afghanis' resistance to the Soviets and the impression I get from all of these is that the reader is supposed to conclude that since we supported that which we now fight, we should desist in shame.
Some articles aim at that, I know. That's one reason I compiled this from quotes from a Main Player that is still influential, just like Kissinger is.
My main interest was the fact that we've decided that we can't fail to "win" in this. It's a Game to World Politicians that they don't lose chunks of their bodies in.
The comments about Russia/Soviets becoming demoralized and effectively bankrupted as a goal that was achieved should been flashing Red to us. We've had OUR VietNam, do we want another? Only worse.
The rise of Islamic Fundamentalism as a political threat to world peace and democracy dates much further back, to the Pan-Arabism of Nasser and earlier. It is much more a political movement than a religious one, as we have seen in Iran, Algeria, and resurgent Islamicist movements in Egypt, Tunisa, Turkey, etc. The United States really has had less to do with the origins of anti-western sentiments in the Middle East and Asia than the European, Turkish, and Russian colonial powers have had in their respective periods of dominance. Would there be a Taliban if there were no Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? I would be better to ask if there would have been no Soviet invasion of Afghanistan if there had been no Breshniev Doctrine.
Geez, I hate it when it comes to this. But it has.
You pique an anxiety that all of us share, especially those who remember and those who were there in Nam: Concerns about another Viet Nam and the quagmire of it all.
Nam was different, because of many factors.
Now we have been breached. Now we are the defenders.
Then we reached, almost as if to find a war or to fill a vacuum. "To keep the Cong from San Francisco," was actually a rallying cry from the Pentagon.
We weren't sure as a nation why we were in Nam.
We have no such doubt about our motives now.
Could this, still, become a quaigmire?
Of course it could.
Toughen up.
Have you noticed how "discretely busy" pappy bush has been lately? You'd begin to suspect that he and Dick Cheeney were shackin' up. (if you/I were the suspicious type :-)
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