« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

MEMBER DIARY

How Zbigniew Brzezinski Created the Taliban

Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Adviser for Jimmy Carter, is an unofficial advisor to President Obama, and NSA Jones, as well as being an advocate for the appeasement of the Iranian regime of President Ahmadinejad, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Any advice from  Brzezinski hould be looked at with great skepticism as he is the man who created the policies that brought us the War on Terror by  luring the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan and he was a major force in creating both the Taliban and al Qaeda.

US aid to the mujahideen Islamic insurgency started, six months before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan with the intention of making it more likely for the USSR to attack Afghanistan to support its puppet government. Brzezinski admitted as much in a 1998 interview:

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. That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Soviets into the Afghan trap…. The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter “We now have the opportunity of giving to the Soviet Union its Vietnam War.”

Brzezinski got his wish, and once the Soviets invaded he sprung into action.

We immediately launched a twofold process when we heard that the Soviets had entered Afghanistan. The first involved direct reactions and sanctions focused on the Soviet Union, and both the State Department and the National Security Council prepared long lists of sanctions to be adopted, of steps to be taken to increase the international costs to the Soviet Union of their actions. And the second course of action led to my going to Pakistan a month or so after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, for the purpose of coordinating with the Pakistanis a joint response, the purpose of which would be to make the Soviets bleed for as much and as long as is possible; and we engaged in that effort in a collaborative sense with the Saudis, the Egyptians, the British, the Chinese, and we started providing weapons to the Mujaheddin, from various sources again – for example, some Soviet arms from the Egyptians and the Chinese. We even got Soviet arms from the Czechoslovak communist government, since it was obviously susceptible to material incentives; and at some point we started buying arms for the Mujaheddin from the Soviet army in Afghanistan, because that army was increasingly corrupt.

Unfortunately the unexpected result of his policy was the creation of the Taliban its alliance with al Qaeda. After the Soviets withdrew, the mujahideen who got their initial financing during the Carter Administration thanks to Brzezinski  began to fight each other for power. After several years of civil war, a new armed began with the backing of Pakistan. Known as the Taliban this radical group entered the fray. By 1996, with backing from the Pakistani ISI, the Military of Pakistan, and al-Qaeda, the Taliban had controlled most of the country. At the same time,in May 1996 Sudan, which had been the home of al Qaeda, told bin Laden would never be welcome to return, therefore the Taliban offered bin Laden the opportunity to re-locate its headquarters to Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda enjoyed the Taliban’s protection and build up its network from there.

In that same 1998 interview referred to above, Brzezinski recognized that his policies brought about the Taliban and said it was worth it.

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?

Unfortunately, thanks to Brzezinski we are still fighting those “stirred up Moslems” in Afghanistan today.

COMMENTS

  • fpete13527

    Brzeziinski’s policy stunk and it was instrumental in giving us the mess we are dealing with today.

    • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

      and certainly Carter, Zbig’ and Reagan are not at fault. This was one of the best policies Carter started and that reagan expanded and completed to our great and the world’s great benefit.

      Yes, Jeff, we are still fighting the Taliban and al qaeda, and Jeff, good people will ALWAYS be fighting evil in some forms as we always have since Eve bit the apple and will till the Messiah returns, but it was VITAL to defeat the USSR and free half the world from slavery and Carter gets some small credit.

      The fault of the formation of the Taliban and al Qaeda is with those that started the Taliban and al Qaeda and those do not include cater or reagan. Even if we knew that Taliban and al Qaeda would be formed, it would still be a NO-BRAINER to back them to beat the MUCH GREATER THREAT that was the USSR.

      You column diminishes Reagan’s accomplishments and re-writes history worse than anything uttered by Zbig’.

      And you would cite the “official” history of the CIA to try and make a puny point about pre-invasion vs post invasion aid? Come now man. The USSR had already put in a strong man long before the invasion.

  • janis

    He always DID have a talent for being so forward thinking. After the disaster with the hostages in Iran, you would have thought he could see the ducks lining up, wouldn’t you? But noooooooo…..

    Good piece, Jeff. Sorry the facts support the whole thing. Geez.

    • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

      The Looming Tower and Reagan’s War. Those books are “good pieces” that actually have the facts on Taliban, al Qaeda and Reagan’s FULL EMBRACE of the aid to the muhajadeen and their great role in eventually ridding the world of the Evil Empire.

      That the confidence in defeating the USSR also rubbed off on Osama bin Laden that eh could one day be THE EVIL EMPIRE is unfortunate, but even after later democrats showed OBL the weak horse side that made them do a 911, they still are light years from being the threat that the USSR was for decades.

      We were right to aid the muhajadeen, period.

  • pilgrim

    Give me a break. The 10 years the soviets spent fighting in Afghanistan was not good for them,, but the arms race against the US under Pres. Reagan was what ended the cold war. Also the speeches and united moral alliance of Reagan, Thatcher, and the Pope were inspirational to the dissidents in the Soviet Union.

    • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

      in Central America and Africa where the USSR was trying to expand its empire. Reagan confronted the Soviets on ALL fronts: rebuilt defense; moral calling out of the evil empire, actions in Grenada and Libya, and funding and supporting forces opposed to Soviet-backed forces abroad.

      Carter did a few things right after he learned his lesson that our fears of communism were not “inordinate”, and they include especially his backing of the muhajadeen to make the Soviets PAY for their invasions.

      I care not what spin Zbig’ puts on it now. The policy was the right one and Carter deserves credit.

      That participants in the muhajadeen included Osama bin Laden and others that gained confidence in their ability to overthrow empires that, along woth the ideology they already had led to the formation of al qaeda is not carter or Reagan’s fault.

      Defeating the Evil Empire was worth it nevertheless. They already could destroy us and were costing us trillions to defend against them. One of the reasons we oppose the jihadists is so that they never become as powerful as the USSR was.

      The Taliban would have formed absent our aid, eventually, but even if they would not have, we could not know the future. We had to oppose the evil of the day and we did so successfully, and Cater and yes, even Zbig’ deserve a little credit for that action.

      Unfortunately, Carter admin did little else. Reagan, Thatcher and the Pope did the rest…and God.

      • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

        book “Reagan’s War” to find praise from Reagan conservatives for Carter’s policy to aid the muhajadeen after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

        It was the right policy under Carter and Reagan and in retrospect. One cannot know what those one helps today will become tomorrow. And even if we did know what they would become, can anyone argue that it was still wrong to use them as a tool to defeat the USSR? Not me. The USSR cost the US trillions and lives in proxie wars and the USSR enslaved half the globe. It is one of America;s greatest glories that we defeated them, and while I am a Reagan man who wishes Nixon had followed his advice in the 60s and 70s (Kissinger admits this now), all those Presidents from Truman-Bush41 contributed to the ultimate defeat of the evil Empire even thru detente’ and containment.

        Reagan’s “we win, thy lose” strategy was superior and worked, but one must acknowledge that Carter and Zbig’ started one of the main cogs of the WIN policy by opposing the tyrants in Afghanistan, albeit after probably encouraging the invasion thtu their initial weakness.

        Below is a column in which i tangentially acknowledged this. Still looking for a column I think I wrote that extensively quoted from Reagan and his supporters in books, in praise of Carter’s Zbig’ policy.

        If it makes everyone feel better, just chalk Carter.Zbig’ up to stopped clocks being right twice a day, because they were right TWICE: In backing the muhajideen and in trying to rescue the hostages in Iran.

        • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

          http://www.redstate.com/gamecock/2009/12/27/no-obama-apology-tour-to-yemen-as-c/

        • pilgrim

          In my opinion Reagan deserves MORE credit than the previous US Presidents in ending the Cold War. I did not say previous President deserve NO credit because they all to some degree were working toward ending the Cold War.

          In that 1998 interview Z-big sounded like he was spinning history to look like he had won the Cold War, and I do not buy that spin.

          Gamecock, you are the first person I ever heard bragging up on the Iran hostage rescue operation. I talked to a guy in a Naval Armory bar about why he hated Carter’s guts. He had the unpleasant experience of being part of that operation.

          • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

            was part of the panoply of policies that brought down the USSR and, rightly defends that policy, even if it was part of the series of events, etc that led to the Taliban filling the vacuum when the USSR was driven out.

            What Jeff actually states is far worse about our policies then and his re-write of history and what they should be going forward than any implications of self-aggrandizement by a former official.

            Jeff blames US policy for the Taliban, rather than blaming the USSR and those that preach Islamic extremist hate. He ignores history and the implications of his paradigm would tie the US’s hands to fight evil with allies less pure than Jesus Christ.

            On Iran, of course there are guys that were a part of the mission to save the hostages that are dead and that can’t talk, much as there are hundreds of thousands at Arlington that fought and died, some in failed missions.

            But for a President that had disgraced America via inaction and appeasement, I was happy that we tried to save the hostages, and from books written by the 53, they were encouraged to live on when they heard that Americans were willing to die to try and rescue them.

            God bless

            PS My main message is that Jeff’s misstatements and conclusions merit more attention and scorn than the Zbig’ proxy used here to discredit a god policy and to cast false blame on the US for the creation of the Taliban and al Qaeda.

          • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

            bigger than a criticism of puny Zbig’s vanity. Such a column would rightly point out all the bad policies of Carter and Zbig’ that Reagan had to reverse. The policy to aid the muhajadeen would not be one of them. Reagan EMBRACED and EXPANDED that good policy.

  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine
  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine
  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine
  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine
  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

    “Any advice from Brzezinski hould be looked at with great skepticism as he is the man who created the policies that brought us the War on Terror by luring the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan and he was a major force in creating both the Taliban and al Qaeda.”

    “Unfortunately, thanks to Brzezinski we are still fighting those