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Zbigniew Brzezinski, once advisor to President Carter for security, passed away a few days ago.

Here is translation of a short interview Brzezinski gave in 1998 to French newsmagazine Nouvel Observateur.
Back in those years, that is before 9/11, some informations about Islamism were not so difficult to find, nor was Brzezinski shy to speak about them...

(translation is mine)
(I put this in US subforum because this is basically about US history)

Le Nouvel Observateur — Former CIA Director Robert Gates asserts in his Memories that US secret services began helping Afghan Mujahideens 6 months before Soviet intervention. At that time, you were President Carter's advisor for security ; therefore you played a role in this. Do you confirm?

Zbigniew Brzezinski — Yes. According to official history, CIA help to Mujahideens started 1980, that is after the Soviet army had invaded Afghanistan on 1979/12/24. But reality, until now secret, is very different: it's July 3rd 1979 that President Carter signed first order about clandestine help to opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. On that day, I wrote a note to the president where I explained that in my view, that help would trigger a Soviet military intervention.

N. O. — In spite of that risk, you were in favor of that covert action. But you may even have wished this Soviet entry into war, and maybe you aimed at triggering it?

Z. B. — Not quite. We did not pushed the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would do so.

N. O. — When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting they wanted to struggle against secret ingerence by the USA in Afghanistan, nobody believed them. Still, there was truth in it... Do you regret anything now?

Z. B. — Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. Its consequence was to draw the Russians in the Afghan trap and you want me to express regrets? On the day the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote President Carter to the effect of: "We now have an opportunity to give the USSR its Vietnam war". Indeed, Moscow had to pursue during almost ten years a war that the regime could not bear, a conflict that demoralized then triggered the explosion of the Soviet empire.

N. O. — Don't you regret either to have favorized Islamist integrism, to have given weapons and advice to future terrorists?

Z. B. — What is more important in regard to world history? The Talibans, or the collapse of the Soviet empire? A few Islamist hotheads, or liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?

N. O. — “A few hotheads”? But it is widely said that Islamic fundamentalism is now a global threat.

Z. Brzezinski. — Bollocks! They say the West should have a global policy towards Islamism. That is stupid: there is no global Islamism. Let's look at Islam in a rational rather than a demagogic or emotional way. It's the first world religion with 1.5 billion faithfuls. But what does fundamentalist Saudi Arabia, moderate Morocco, militarist Pakistan, pro-Western Egypt of secularized Central Asia have in common? Nothing more than what unites the countries of Christendom...

Alexis wrote:Zbigniew Brzezinski, once advisor to President Carter for security, passed away a few days ago.

Here is translation of a short interview Brzezinski gave in 1998 to French newsmagazine Nouvel Observateur.
Back in those years, that is before 9/11, some informations about Islamism were not so difficult to find, nor was Brzezinski shy to speak about them...

(translation is mine)
(I put this in US subforum because this is basically about US history)

Le Nouvel Observateur — Former CIA Director Robert Gates asserts in his Memories that US secret services began helping Afghan Mujahideens 6 months before Soviet intervention. At that time, you were President Carter's advisor for security ; therefore you played a role in this. Do you confirm?

Zbigniew Brzezinski — Yes. According to official history, CIA help to Mujahideens started 1980, that is after the Soviet army had invaded Afghanistan on 1979/12/24. But reality, until now secret, is very different: it's July 3rd 1979 that President Carter signed first order about clandestine help to opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. On that day, I wrote a note to the president where I explained that in my view, that help would trigger a Soviet military intervention.

N. O. — In spite of that risk, you were in favor of that covert action. But you may even have wished this Soviet entry into war, and maybe you aimed at triggering it?

Z. B. — Not quite. We did not pushed the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would do so.

N. O. — When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting they wanted to struggle against secret ingerence by the USA in Afghanistan, nobody believed them. Still, there was truth in it... Do you regret anything now?

Z. B. — Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. Its consequence was to draw the Russians in the Afghan trap and you want me to express regrets? On the day the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote President Carter to the effect of: "We now have an opportunity to give the USSR its Vietnam war". Indeed, Moscow had to pursue during almost ten years a war that the regime could not bear, a conflict that demoralized then triggered the explosion of the Soviet empire.

N. O. — Don't you regret either to have favorized Islamist integrism, to have given weapons and advice to future terrorists?

Radical Islam was predicted right here



Z. B. — What is more important in regard to world history? The Talibans, or the collapse of the Soviet empire? A few Islamist hotheads, or liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?

N. O. — “A few hotheads”? But it is widely said that Islamic fundamentalism is now a global threat.

Z. Brzezinski. — Bollocks! They say the West should have a global policy towards Islamism. That is stupid: there is no global Islamism. Let's look at Islam in a rational rather than a demagogic or emotional way. It's the first world religion with 1.5 billion faithfuls. But what does fundamentalist Saudi Arabia, moderate Morocco, militarist Pakistan, pro-Western Egypt of secularized Central Asia have in common? Nothing more than what unites the countries of Christendom...

I guess Brezinski won't have to worry about Islamic terrorists anymore. What he doesn't say is the Carter effort in Afghanistan was pretty feeble.

Z. Brzezinski. — Bollocks! They say the West should have a global policy towards Islamism. That is stupid: there is no global Islamism. Let's look at Islam in a rational rather than a demagogic or emotional way. It's the first world religion with 1.5 billion faithfuls. But what does fundamentalist Saudi Arabia, moderate Morocco, militarist Pakistan, pro-Western Egypt of secularized Central Asia have in common? Nothing more than what unites the countries of Christendom...

Historical and existential resentment against Western civilisation and a feeling of deep humiliation that must be quenched somehow? A lot of that also works in countries formerly defined by christendom, but oh well.....;>...........

If ever there was a man who displayed on his face the evil on his mind, it was Zbigniew Brzezinski

The widow of Cyrus Vance, the only US Secretary of State to resign in protest against his president’s actions in a hundred years, called Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor and Vance’s rival, “that awful man”. Not a single official of the State Department under Vance during the Carter Administration of 1977 to 1981, thought differently. Most of them had monosyllabic terms for Brzezinski. Since Brzezinski died last Friday, not a single member of his own White House staff has made a public statement in his honour, memory or defence. The mute ones include Madeleine Albright, who owed to Brzezinski her career promotion as an academic, then White House staffer, then Secretary of State herself.

http://johnhelmer.net/zbigniew-brzezins ... -lives-on/

http://johnhelmer.net/the-presidents-in ... er-finger/

http://johnhelmer.net/canada-radio-come ... raise-him/

YMix wrote:

If ever there was a man who displayed on his face the evil on his mind, it was Zbigniew Brzezinski

The widow of Cyrus Vance, the only US Secretary of State to resign in protest against his president’s actions in a hundred years, called Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor and Vance’s rival, “that awful man”. Not a single official of the State Department under Vance during the Carter Administration of 1977 to 1981, thought differently. Most of them had monosyllabic terms for Brzezinski. Since Brzezinski died last Friday, not a single member of his own White House staff has made a public statement in his honour, memory or defence. The mute ones include Madeleine Albright, who owed to Brzezinski her career promotion as an academic, then White House staffer, then Secretary of State herself.

http://johnhelmer.net/zbigniew-brzezins ... -lives-on/

http://johnhelmer.net/the-presidents-in ... er-finger/

http://johnhelmer.net/canada-radio-come ... raise-him/

white people and immigrants.....

Zbigniew Brzezinski, I will argue, was a rare geopolitical strategist; one whose strategies were actually effective.

The involvement of the former Soviet-Russia in the Afghan war was one of the key factors that precipitated the rapid decline and fall of the former SU.

That the US completely p*ssed away the opportunity by, among other things, continuing to support the ideological and financial source of Islamic extremism, Saudi Arabia, thereby also unnecessarily taking a side in the sectarian Shiite vs Sunni conflict is not something that can be blamed on ZB.

Bin Laden's beef was the presence of US troops in what he believed should be sacred infidel free ground, Saudi Arabia.

If three guys in a van, waving machetes, constitutes "global Islamic terrorism", then the sun is setting on the West.
The closest historical event to "global Islamic terrorism" was the Ottoman invasion of Europe, culminating in the Siege of Vienna
where the 200,000 strong Ottoman Army was decimated by 3,000 Polish-Lithuanian Hussars.

Tl;dr: Unlike most US geopolitical strategists ZB knew his history and was not a f*ck up.
Little wonder few, if any, of his colleagues had anything to say about him upon his demise.

Typhoon wrote: The involvement of the former Soviet-Russia in the Afghan war was one of the key factors that precipitated the rapid decline and fall of the former SU.

lol. According to very few people.

Bin Laden's beef was the presence of US troops in what he believed should be sacred infidel free ground, Saudi Arabia.

That was BL's excuse to dhimmis, his real objective is the objective of all wahabbis; the caliphate. If he merely wanted to have US troops out of Saudi Arabia he could have merely lobbied our government or his.

Mr. Perfect wrote:

Typhoon wrote: The involvement of the former Soviet-Russia in the Afghan war was one of the key factors that precipitated the rapid decline and fall of the former SU.

lol. According to very few people.

According to ones that have some understanding of the region and of history, yes.

https://faculty.washington.edu/aseem/afganwar.pdf

Mr. Perfect wrote:

Bin Laden's beef was the presence of US troops in what he believed should be sacred infidel free ground, Saudi Arabia.

That was BL's excuse to dhimmis, his real objective is the objective of all wahabbis; the caliphate. If he merely wanted to have US troops out of Saudi Arabia he could have merely lobbied our government or his.

All it would have taken is a "pretty please with sugar on top"? Who knew.

Typhoon wrote: According to ones that have some understanding of the region and of history, yes.

https://faculty.washington.edu/aseem/afganwar.pdf

Lets see, would one of the two global superpowers at the time collapse because of a confrontation with a 3rd world desert country or a confrontation with the other more powerful global superpower. Occam's razor.

All it would have taken is a "pretty please with sugar on top"? Who knew.

Lol that is where reasonable people start. You would start with terror?

Typhoon wrote:Zbigniew Brzezinski, I will argue, was a rare geopolitical strategist; one whose strategies were actually effective.

The involvement of the former Soviet-Russia in the Afghan war was one of the key factors that precipitated the rapid decline and fall of the former SU.

That's debatable, to say the least.

Soviet forces lost about 15,000 soldiers to Mujahideen insurgents, barely more than a quarter of America's 58,000 losses during the Vietnam war. Total Soviet forces in country peaked at 115,000, while American forces had peaked at 543,000. This, while Soviet population was a bit larger than American one.

America did not suffer catastrophic failure, dismantlement and economic collapse as a result of the Vietnam war. It is hard to imagine a war comparatively far less costly Afghanistan war being a "key factor" in Soviet collapse.

That the US completely p*ssed away the opportunity by, among other things, continuing to support the ideological and financial source of Islamic extremism, Saudi Arabia, thereby also unnecessarily taking a side in the sectarian Shiite vs Sunni conflict is not something that can be blamed on ZB.

True.

If three guys in a van, waving machetes, constitutes "global Islamic terrorism", then the sun is setting on the West.

Jihadist terrorism is a bit more powerful than that.

What strikes Western countries is incidentally only a small distant echo of the main action, which has taken place in numerous mostly Muslim countries - and their weak non-Muslim neighbors, e.g. in Africa - for decades now.

As an example, the Algerian civil war in the 1990s resulted in death of over 100,000 people, while no more than tens of French citizens were killed by Algerian Islamists in terrorist attacks. A distant echo indeed.

Incidentally, one of the proximate causes of the Algerian civil war was the return home of Algerian volunteers having fought the Soviet Union with Saudi and American support - they wanted to bring home Islamist revolution and continue the fight for Shariah.

The closest historical event to "global Islamic terrorism" was the Ottoman invasion of Europe, culminating in the Siege of Vienna
where the 200,000 strong Ottoman Army was decimated by 3,000 Polish-Lithuanian Hussars.

That won't happen again of course.

In a way, Islamism is a giant version of Amerindians' Ghost dance

All people had to do was to dance to the gods of old, close their eyes, magic would happen, and when they would open them again the White invaders would have disappeared and everything would be back the way it should always have stayed. Except they opened their eyes again, and the Whites were still there.

All people now have to do is to close their eyes, dance and fight to the Shariah of old, Allah's magic will happen, and when they open their eyes the hated West will be down again instead of towering above Muslims, and Asians also will be behind instead of rivaling Westerners.

I don't think Allah will answer that murderous dance, no more than the Spirits did the much more pacific Amerindian version.

Unlike most US geopolitical strategists ZB knew his history and was not a f*ck up.

Knew his history: Undisputable.

Not a f*ck up: ... Err, wilful provocation to invasion of Afghanistan, resulting in 0.6 to 2 millions civilians killed, 5 millions refugees, and a serious acceleration to a murderous ideology, this for no discernible benefit whatsoever... I could call that a f*ck up.

Well said Alexis!