Andre Gunder Frank

subject: On Brzezinski interview on how he and Carter started War in Afghanistan.(see below)

agf note:
somewhere i have a similar interview that says the same thing as Brzky does here about the trade off between the war against the Soviet Union with mujahaddin and the supposed war against drugs, whose supply and trade in the area multiplied as a result [it was worth it, as Madelein Albreight would - about500,000 Iraqi dead did - say.And these drugs still today finance Taliban, the Northern Alliance, and via both the KLA and its Macedonian offshoot who run the Afghani drugs through the Balkans, and whose ''freedom fighters'' are peopled by isalmist mercenaries who are trained by CIA,ISI, Taliban and Co. and put to fight wars in the Balkans for the USA, its local puppets, AND WITH TRAINING, ARMS AND FINANCE, not to mention local military/political support, BY US MERCENARY OUTFITS SUB-C0NTRACTERD BY THE CIA.
HERE AGAIN, HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF - OR JUST CONTINUES ON AND ON ...
from time to time: freedom fighter yesterday, terrorist tomorrow [now that the Russians are on board in the grand coalition against terrorism the Chechens have since a week ago suddenly turned as well]
from place to place: freedom fighter here, terrorist there, freedom fighter here, terrorist there.
its all a matter of Orwellian Big Brother double-speak. Alas, poor Big Brother in 1984 did not yet have CNN and Christiane Amanpour to spread the word and change definitions over night, nor even ABC,NBC,CBS,NPR [p=public?] to bable the latest propaganda line.

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From: BBlum6@aol.com
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 13:49:49 EDT
In light of what's happened, I think it's important to give the following very wide currency.
Interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski 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 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 [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.

* There are at least two editions of this magazine; with the perhaps sole exception of the Library of Congress, the version sent to the United States is shorter than the French version, and the Brzezinski interview was not included in the shorter version.
The above has been translated from the French by Bill Blum Author, "Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II" and "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower" Portions of the books can be read at:
http://members.aol.com/superogue/homepage.htm (with a link to Killing Hope)
If anyone whose French is better than mine can translate the bracketed word, "intégrisme", I'd appreciate hearing from them

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ANDRE GUNDER FRANK