>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
>[integrisme], 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, andthe 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)
>