Is a country of 24 million people really
worth so little?
For those who are interested in the
Afghanistan "trap," as described by Zbgniew Brzezinski, (President
Carter’s National Security Advisor) Bill Blum has provided a translation of the
original interview in which this startling admission appeared.
[excerpted from http://legalminds.lp.findlaw.com/list/cyberjournal/msg00658.html]
Le Nouvel Observateur (France), Jan
15-21, 1998, p. 76
Q: 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 [entendaient] to fight against a secret
[ingérence] 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 [intégrisme],
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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In his book "Rogue
State", William Blum quotes part of that, and says:
Besides the fact that there is no
demonstrable connection between the Afghanistan war and the breakup of the
soviet empire, we are faced with the consequences of that war: the defeat of a
government committed to bringing the extraordinarily backward nation into the
20th century; the breathtaking carnage; Moujahedeen torture that even US
government officials called "indescribable horror"; half the
population either dead, disabled or refugees; the spawning of thousands of
Islamic fundamentalist terrorists who have unleashed atrocities in numerous
countries; and the unbelievable repression of women in Afghanistan, instituted
by America's wartime allies.
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comment from person sending me this
information:
Oh - and they also went from
exporting hardly any opium to now being the world's largest illicit opium
producer.... Oops....