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| Thread: The Brzezinski Interview | |
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 07, 2015 12:04 AM |
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Edited by artu at 02:55, 07 Oct 2015.
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The Brzezinski Interview
While I was reading the papers about Russia now directly interfering in Syria, I noticed a reference to a semi-famous Brzezinski interview, I got curious and checked it out, it's really very interesting to read and I wonder how you guys will comment on it.
Brzezinski is not anybody, he is the United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. Here is the interview with the proper sources in this link.
Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs that the American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahiddin in Afghanistan six months before the Soviet intervention. Is this period, you were the national security advisor to President Carter. You therefore played a key role in this affair. Is this correct?
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahiddin began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. But the reality, closely 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 [emphasis added throughout].
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into the war and looked for a way to provoke it?
B: It wasn’t quite like 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 secret US involvement in Afghanistan , nobody believed them. However, there was an element of truth in this. You don’t regret any of this 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, essentially: “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 that was unsustainable for the regime , a conflict that bought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Q: And neither do you regret having supported Islamic fundamentalism, which has given arms and advice to future terrorists?
B : What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Q : “Some agitated Moslems”? But it has been said and repeated: Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today...
B: Nonsense! It is said that the West has a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid: There isn’t a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner, without demagoguery or emotionalism. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among fundamentalist Saudi Arabia, moderate Morocco, militarist Pakistan, pro-Western Egypt, or secularist Central Asia? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries...
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 07, 2015 12:17 AM |
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Edited by Stevie at 00:17, 07 Oct 2015.
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Hadji020
Adventuring Hero
The Underestimated
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posted October 07, 2015 12:17 AM |
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This guy is pure evil. A puppeteer, if you will, of presidents. Together with the Rockefeller Trilateral Commission.
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Pawek_13
Supreme Hero
Maths, maths everywhere!
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posted October 07, 2015 12:18 AM |
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I have practically zero knowledge of the war in the Afghanistan and it now seems it might be a good idea to do some background reading on that topic.
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted October 07, 2015 12:20 AM |
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The Q/A makes total logical sense, will definately - read it (it's an article, an interesting one at that, much less wordy than what I'm used to). After all doing both Russian history and studying the Cold War, might post this on the Uni boards if it end up being insightful.
Edit: Was a good read, American journal articles feel much easier to follow imho. I like how it implies that not only did the Americans coax the Russians to intervene, but wanted them to "bleed", knowing full well how much the US suffered over Vietnam they knew that this just might break the USSR.
Nice timing as well, was just doing some research on the topic of the Afghan war (as well as watching movies).
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted October 07, 2015 12:49 AM |
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Wow, I would like to hear this guy today. Damn, he is far from the truth.
But then, if you look it back then, the "real threat" was just USSR. It is quite displeasing to know what the government is able to do, even being pulled by third-side parties.
This is why I don't support demo(n)cracy. It just gives the right to give power to "wrong" people, people that can misuse power. Basically, nobody is safe from such powers.
When did we even allow such things to happen, anyway?
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted October 07, 2015 12:59 AM |
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The interview reeked of self adulation still was interesting, the article itself is the real treat imho.
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 07, 2015 01:18 AM |
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Yes, I liked it, too.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 07, 2015 02:10 AM |
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Hadji020 said:
This guy is pure evil. A puppeteer, if you will, of presidents. Together with the Rockefeller Trilateral Commission.
you think guys like him act alone? this kind of stuff is what goes on behind the scenes in EVERY WORLD POWER, and the powers-to-be. don't believe for a second that this stuff isn't ALWAYS on the table, at any given time. it's how countries keep from having to kill one another off before they get too powerful; by destabilizing what is necessary to weaken them so they are less of a threat. this is just simple world politics in action. it's a chess game on a global scale(of course, that's oversimplifying things a bit; but i think you get my point). i wouldn't necessarily call it evil, either. it's just how the powers of the world work.
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Kayna
Supreme Hero
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posted October 07, 2015 02:30 AM |
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It is my belief that only large, drawn out scale war can harm a country. Small scale interventions helps grant soldiers experience in the field. It is something the US has been doing at least every 20 years and that is one of the purpose. To gain experience ( points! ).
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Kayna
Supreme Hero
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posted October 07, 2015 02:30 AM |
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Edited by Kayna at 02:40, 07 Oct 2015.
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blizzardboy
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Nerf Herder
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posted October 07, 2015 02:46 AM |
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"Never start a land war in Asia".
The USSR's "Vietnam" didn't bring down the empire  That's such a flattering overstatement by Brzezinski. Maybe expedited it a little bit with the financial drain but it was on the road to dissolution one way or another.
It says a lot for Afghanistan that it bordered the gigantic USSR (biggest empire in history in terms of area) and they were still repelled. If the US invaded a decade earlier before computer chips were regularized into weaponry, it could have been a lot worse. Afghanistan was a graveyard for empires up until smart weapons were invented.
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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blizzardboy
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Nerf Herder
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posted October 07, 2015 02:51 AM |
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Stevie said:
It's good to have a confirmation from "the other side" of things which were already considered (or at least suspected) to be true. That's all there is to this, really.
Arming the Taliban against the Soviets in the 70s/80s? This is common knowledge. It was a frequently brought up point in the presidential debates in the early 2000s when the Afghan War was fresh. I think it was brought up in recent years too because of the heated discussion over arming factions within Syria.
Internal US interest groups have a long history though of profiting from death. The still hugest example in history remains the US armdealers' beaucoup business selling American weapons to both Germany/Austria-Hungary and UK/France in WWI instead of cutting off weapons to both sides. That was some fat cash. It's still done today, though in more subversive forms. My recent article about how the NRA used to support responsible gun control for the entirety of American history up until the 1970s, and has since shifted to a hotheaded libertarian-esque organization, with tons of backing from kind, responsible, hard-working but also emotionally insecure older white men that need to own handguns (and still decent support from younger people). Money is certainly a large factor involved in all of that: the NRA is an arm for the armsdealers.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 07, 2015 03:05 AM |
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Edited by artu at 03:11, 07 Oct 2015.
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Yes, even some members here including myself brought up the point that US financed and trained jihadists during the cold war era in many threads. The timing is the important factor here and at least during the time of the interview and the article (1998/2000), we can understand, that timing was not very common knowledge. The scholar even mentions the French interview is generally lost to the English-speaking audience.
Of course, also because it's late 90's, Brzezinski is quite straight-forward and blatantly open about underestimating Islamic fundamentalism, I hardly imagine, he'd pick the same tone if he was speaking today.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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blizzardboy
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Nerf Herder
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posted October 07, 2015 03:11 AM |
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I was a tween that played Heroes 2 and Magic the Gathering in the late 90s so I wouldn't know. Maybe this "common knowledge" was only resurrected in the early 2000s, once the Afghan War began and several politicians started discussing it. It might have been far less known in the 90s.
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted October 07, 2015 09:39 AM |
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"Revelations" like this one come years after the actual events pretty much all the time, proving that the moronic black-and-white propaganda-created picture in many people's heads is added there just to switch off their brains. Nothing new. In some 10-20 years, provided no info leaks, you'll read the same about Ukraine. Maybe even about ISIS. People en masse generally don't care about "the past" however so if you tell them "these are the bad guys now", they don't give a damn about anything preceding. It's simpler that way.
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Hadji020
Adventuring Hero
The Underestimated
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posted October 07, 2015 07:19 PM |
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Edited by Hadji020 at 19:25, 07 Oct 2015.
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fred79 said:
Hadji020 said:
This guy is pure evil. A puppeteer, if you will, of presidents. Together with the Rockefeller Trilateral Commission.
you think guys like him act alone? this kind of stuff is what goes on behind the scenes in EVERY WORLD POWER, and the powers-to-be. don't believe for a second that this stuff isn't ALWAYS on the table, at any given time. it's how countries keep from having to kill one another off before they get too powerful; by destabilizing what is necessary to weaken them so they are less of a threat. this is just simple world politics in action. it's a chess game on a global scale(of course, that's oversimplifying things a bit; but i think you get my point). i wouldn't necessarily call it evil, either. it's just how the powers of the world work.
I know mate, but when it comes to the USA, this guy is a ringleader, he and Henry Kissinger are the two most prominent policymakers behind the scenes.
By the way, ive done quite some research into matters like these for over 18 years now, so when i call him evil, its not because of (mainstream )interviews like these
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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted October 08, 2015 12:39 AM |
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artu said:
Yes, even some members here including myself brought up the point that US financed and trained jihadists during the cold war era in many threads. The timing is the important factor here and at least during the time of the interview and the article (1998/2000), we can understand, that timing was not very common knowledge. The scholar even mentions the French interview is generally lost to the English-speaking audience.
Of course, also because it's late 90's, Brzezinski is quite straight-forward and blatantly open about underestimating Islamic fundamentalism, I hardly imagine, he'd pick the same tone if he was speaking today.
Agree completely, he'd have to have a re-think.
I'm not surprised anymore, since this stuff has went on since the end of the second world war. Watch Operation Gladio on youtube if you have not, it shows that a version of that man's thinking is widespread around the globe and that the world-powers engaged in a newer version of war behind The Cold War. (this behind-the-scenes-crap came into prominence during the early 20th century and apparently will never stop)
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