The Mujahedin and Jimmy Carter
David Drake has the following on his blog today:
Carter and Brzezinski Funded Islamic Terrorists
The Left is so fond of trotting out the photograph of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in 1983The Left is so fond of blaming Ronald Reagan’s Administration of providing aid to the Mujahadeen. But years before to those two instances occurred, then-President Jimmy Carter and his National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, secretly funded Islamic terrorists beginning in 1979.
This is not some conspiracy theory from the Right-Wingers. These are the words of Zbigniew Brzezinski himself:
Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser
Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998
Posted at globalresearch.ca 15 October 2001Question: 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?
B. 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? [Notice he really doesn’t answer the question - Drake]
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.
“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.”“…we knowingly increased the probability that they would.”
“There isn’t a global Islam.”
“Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.”
Well, Christians aren’t demanding that non-Christians convert or die, are they?
Whew - Brzezinski is certainly either detached from reality or spinning answers to downplay just how badly their covert operation ultimately affected the U.S. and the rest of the world two decades later. Nor did this scheme by Carter and Brzezinski do anything to help Carter win a second term; huh - interesting isn’t it? Not really.
I don’t know that you can tie a war between Russia and Afghanistan, clandestinely instigated by Carter, Brzezinski and the CIA, to the ultimate breakup of the Soviet empire. This alone is not the reason for the breakup of the Soviet Union. There were several other factors contributing to it, perhaps the largest factor being the state of the Russian economy.
Another factor contributing to the disillusionment of the Russian State is, without a doubt, the October 1986 Ronald Reagan - Mikhail Gorbachev summit held at Reykjavik, Iceland The Carter-Brzezinski plan may have, in some small way, set the stage for what was to happen. But its certainty can only be answered with a “maybe”, and it’s difficult to qualify and quantify a “maybe”.
Giving Russia “its own Vietnam”, coupled with Carter’s lack of support for the Shah of Iran, certainly didn’t help promote or foster any goodwill between Muslims and Western countries.
Had Carter and Brzezinski’s “secret plan” been concocted and implemented under a Republican Administration, somehow I think that Democrats and Liberals would make a big deal out of it - and rightly so - as a defining moment in U.S. policy failure that set the stage for the uprising of Islamic sponsored terrorism.
The cynicism is appalling, but such is politics. It does, however, show that those who blindly hate Bush for the death he brought on with Iraq War should really put the blame squarely on the shoulders where it belongs… Jimmy Carter. The fact they don’t merely makes it obvious what ignorant blind sheep, the left are. The follow the diktats of arrogant windbags , a la Chomsky, who made hatred of America fashionable.
Even if Carter had a noble intent in bringing Russian Communism to its knees (rather doubtful, given some of his own words and policies), neither he nor Brzezinski bothered to analyze the long term effects of their policies… Hence today’s Islamic threat to the West, the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the rise of Salafism throughout Africa and Europe can be layed at the feet of these two idiots who wittingly or unwittingly greatly contributed to the conflagrations facing the world today. “There isn’t a global Islam.” Indeed, Zbigniew your brilliant and blatant disregard for the facts is either the product of political blindness or untruth! Ah, but there is global Zionism and global Christianity and they are the real threats to the West, right Jimmy?!?!?
And yet, Jimmy, America’s most globally derided president in his time, is a hero to the Left who blame Bush for the policies started by their peanut brained champion! It is a measure of an individual’s knowledge, a measure of the person’s character, a measure of one’s probity who he or she looks up to and follows. I tremble for America and the West…
Chaim
Crossposted at: Freedom's Cost
Labels: Afghanistan, Carter administation, Islam, Mujahedeen
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