The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Paris, 15-21 January 1998
The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan: Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998
Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to Jimmy Carter, Dies at 89
Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to Jimmy Carter, Dies at 89
Question: 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 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?
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.
Translated from the
French by Bill Blum. The URL of this
article is:
