How Jimmy Carter and I Started the Mujahideen

[timosman]

http://www.counterpunch.org/1998/01/...he-mujahideen/

JANUARY 15, 1998

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?

Brzezinski: 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?

Brzezinski: 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 [integrisme], having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

Brzezinski: 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.

Brzezinski: 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.

[dannno]

We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

[merkelstan]

old but worth knowing about

[Firestarter]

I do not agree, see the following quote from the following thread: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...s-for-Oil-wars

PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN
The CIA with Saudi intelligence started collaborating with Islamists like Bin Laden at the beginning of the 1970s, and backed the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies. The Golden Crescent along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, went from 400 tons of heroin in 1971 to 1,200 tons in 1978. Before 1979 almost no heroin from this area reached the USA, but it supplied 60% of US heroin through the 1980s.
In April and May 1979 the USA armed mujahedin guerrillas in Afghanistan, amongst whom Gulbuddin Hekmatyar - a known drug trafficker with heroin refineries. During the Afghan resistance to the Soviet Union in the1980s, Bin Laden was the financier and logistics expert for the Saudi-financed Makhtab al-Khidamat, an organisation that recruited volunteers from all over the world. Bin Laden made commission on the transactions, which were laundered by the Russian Mafia.
In 1999 the United Nations estimated the yearly opium production of Afghanistan at 4,600 tons; 70% of the world’s crop (7,000 tons).The heroin was trafficked by the mujahedin that had been supported by the CIA.
In the 1980s Global International Airways (of Farhad Azima) delivered arms to Afghanistan, taking narcotics back. Also Global International Airways (Kansas City), which was reportedly founded with money from BBCI, was involved in the arms for drugs pipeline.

[Republicanguy]

Well, the Opec-Saudi connection was also the reason for the decline. Not just a budget for the conflict.

[enhanced_deficit]

To be fair, US was not alone and Saudi-Israeli financial/arms alliance (pre-ISIS phase) also played a major role in that great Jihad war against infidels.

It was a win-win-win for all parties claiming to be "people of the book" except the Russian infidels... at least until 9/11 happened:

- US got to stop communist expansion into Afghanistan
- Israel got to move large number of Russian jews to Israel and occupied settlements on palestinian land (that OBL later claimed to be a factor behind 9/11)
- Saudis got to exercise their Jihad/foreign fighters cultivation muscle and please their major oil customer all at the same time. OBL got to develop an army of Jihadeen militants that he would later put on the "road to peace" as The Independet reported at the time






But looking at the chain of historic events, had the Jihadeens not been trained/armed/financed , US may still not have elected in 2008 a historic President like Obama.
Would leave it to historians to figure out if that falls under wins or losses.

[Ender]

To be fair, US was not alone and Saudi-Israeli financial/arms alliance (pre-ISIS phase) also played a major role in that great Jihad war against infidels.

It was a win-win-win for all parties claiming to be "people of the book" except the Russian infidels... at least until 9/11 happened:

- US got to stop communist expansion into Afghanistan
- Israel got to move large number of Russian jews to Israel and occupied settlements on palestinian land (that OBL later claimed to be a factor behind 9/11)
- Saudis got to exercise their Jihad/foreign fighters cultivation muscle and please their major oil customer all at the same time. OBL got to develop an army of Jihadeen militants that he would later put on the "road to peace" as The Independet reported at the time

But looking at the chain of historic events, had the Jihadeens not been trained/armed/financed , US may still not have elected in 2008 a historic President like Obama.
Would leave it to historians to figure out if that falls under wins or losses.

Uh- I think the "historic" president of our terrorist time is Bush.