“Yes. The CIA entered Afghanistan Before the Russians”. Zbigniew Brzezinski
Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Role of Al Qaeda
Introduction
According to this Nouvel Observateur (1998) interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the CIA’s intervention in Afghanistan preceded the 1979 entry of Soviet troops.
To label this as The Soviet Afghan War is a misnomer. Confirmed by Brzezinski, It it best described as the “U.S.-Al Qaeda War against Afghanistan”. The US started this war against The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, with a view to destroying a secular nation state committed to women’s rights and universal public education.
The planning of this war involving the recruitment of so-called. “freedom fighters” (good guy mercenaries) was marked by the active recruitment of Al Qaeda (The Base), namely terrorists acting covertly on behalf of the United States. This included Osama Bin Laden who had been recruited by the CIA.
While the first war in 1979-1980 was described as a “Covert Action Support to the Afghan Resistance “ which consisted in funding and supporting the recruitment of Al Qaeda “freedom fighters”.
22 years later a second War entitled US-NATO War against Afghanistan was undertaken:
On September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda, under the leadership of Osama bin Laden allegedly attacked the WTC and the Pentagon.
Michel Chossudovsky, December 31, 2024
Screenshot of the original article in French
“Yes. The CIA entered Afghanistan Before the Russians”. Zbigniew Brzezinski
Le Nouvel Observateur (LNO): 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?
Zbigniew Brzezinski (ZB): 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.
LNO: 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?
ZB: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
LNO: 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?
ZB: 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.
LNO: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
ZB: 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?
LNO: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
ZB: 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.
Translation of the original article Nouvel Observateur Article in French by the late William Blum
Video: Hillary fully concurs with Brzezinski
Al Qaeda: It was “a pretty good idea”, says Hillary, and it remains a good idea today.
In the course of the last 45 years since the since the onslaught of the so-called Soviet-Afghan War, the US has not ceased to support and finance Al Qaeda as a means to destabilizing and impoverishing sovereign countries.
TRANSCRIPT
“Let’s remember here… the people we are fighting today we funded them twenty years ago… and we did it because we were locked in a struggle with the Soviet Union.
“They invaded Afghanistan… and we did not want to see them control Central Asia and we went to work… and it was President Reagan in partnership with Congress led by Democrats who said you know what it sounds like a pretty good idea… let’s deal with the ISI and the Pakistan military and let’s go recruit these mujahideen.
“And great, let them come from Saudi Arabia and other countries, importing their Wahabi brand of Islam so that we can go beat the Soviet Union.
“And guess what … they (Soviets) retreated … they lost billions of dollars and it led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“So there is a very strong argument which is… it wasn’t a bad investment in terms of Soviet Union but let’s be careful with what we sow… because we will harvest.
“So we then left Pakistan … We said okay fine you deal with the Stingers that we left all over your country… you deal with the mines that are along the border and… by the way we don’t want to have anything to do with you… in fact we’re sanctioning you… So we stopped dealing with the Pakistani military and with ISI and we now are making up for a lot of lost time.” (HILLARY CLINTON)
President Ronald Reagan issued (and signed) the National Security Decision Directive 166 (NSDD 166), which de facto authorized “stepped-up covert military aid to the Mujahideen” as well as CIA support to religious indoctrination.
President Reagan and Mujahideen leaders from Afghanistan, 1980s
It is Unclear whether the Al Qaeda “Freedom Fighters” are “Good Guys” or “Bad Guys”.
“Al-Qaeda (Arabic for “The Base”, i.e The Data Base of CIA recruits) grew out of and became identical with the Arab-Afghan Legion, those terrorists recruited by the United States of America, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Originally sent to Afghanistan, they fought the USSR’s army and air force following the Soviet Union’s intervention of that country.
Later, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA, the Agency) directed them to cross the border and destabilize the Muslim republics of the Soviet Union.
Still later, the American government moved them into the Balkans to destroy Yugoslavia, and then similarly to Iraq, followed by Libya and Syria.” (J. Michael Springmann, attorney, author, political commentator, and former diplomat)
Al Qaeda: “Good Guys” in the 1980s?
The promotion of “Radical Islam” was a CIA initiative (NSDD 166) with a view to supporting the so-called “Afghan Resistance” against the Soviet Union
Among the most hideous crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan was to CLOSE DOWN PUBLIC SCHOOLS and replace them by CIA sponsored KORANIC SCHOOLS.
The number of CIA sponsored religious schools (madrasahs) increased from 2,500 in 1980 to over 39,000. Public education was dismantled. USAID generously financed the process of religious indoctrination, largely to secure the demise of secular institutions and the collapse of civil society.
In the Pashtun language, the word “Taliban” means “Students”, or graduates of the madrasahs (places of learning or koranic schools) set up by the Wahhabi missions from Saudi Arabia, with the support of the CIA.
“The United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings….
The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books ….
‘The pictures [in] the texts are horrendous to school students, but the texts are even much worse’ said Ahmad Fahim Hakim, an Afghan educator [working with] a Pakistan-based nonprofit.
An aid worker in the region reviewed an unrevised 100-page book and counted 43 pages containing violent images or passages.
Published in the dominant Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtu, the textbooks were developed in the early 1980s under an AID grant to the University of Nebraska-Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies. The agency spent $51 million on the university’s education programs in Afghanistan from 1984 to 1994“, (Washington Post, 23 March 2002)
Textbook printing and distribution by the University of Nebraska, Omaha, in partnership with U.S. Strategic Command, Omaha continued in 2002 and 2003 with funding from USAID, with another 15 million copies. Since Soviet withdrawal, a total of more than 30 million text-books with hideous images, for a total population of 36 million.
Video: Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Al Qaeda Mujahideen
Al Qaeda: ” Bad Guys” in the Wake of 9/11
The US-NATO “Humanitarian” War against Afghanistan was launched on October 7, 2001
An act of war by a foreign nation (Afghanistan) against a member of the North Atlantic Alliance (the USA) was considered as an act of war against all members under NATO’s doctrine of collective security.
Under no stretch of the imagination, can the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon be categorized as an act of war by a foreign country. But nobody seemed to have raised this issue.
On October 5, NATO Secretary General calls for the invasion of Afghanistan on October 7:
“The facts are clear and compelling. The information presented points conclusively to an al-Qaida role [CIA recruits ] in the September 11 attacks.
We know that the individuals who carried out these attacks were part of the world-wide terrorist network of al-Qaida [The CIA database], headed by Osama bin Laden [recruited by the US in the early 1980s] and his key lieutenants and protected by the Taliban.
On the basis of this briefing, it has now been determined that the attack against the United States on September 11 was directed from abroad [Afghanistan] and shall therefore be regarded as an action covered by Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which states that an armed attack on one or more of the Allies in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.
I want to reiterate that the United States of America can rely on the full support of its 18 NATO Allies in the campaign against terrorism.”
(Lord Robertson, NATO Secretary General (image Left), statement to the NATO Council, State Department, Appendix H, Multinational Response to September 11 NATO Press, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/10313.pdf, accessed 24 November 2009, emphasis added)
In other words, on October 5, 2001, two days before the actual commencement of the bombing campaign on October 7, the North Atlantic Council decided, based on the information provided by Frank Taylor to the Council
“that the attacks were directed from abroad” by Al Qaeda, headed by Osama bin Laden, thereby requiring an action on the part of NATO under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty ( NATO – Topic: Terrorism, NATO and the fight against Terrorism, accessed 24 November 2009).
Al Qaeda “Good Guys” Again in December 2024. Al Qaeda “Liberates Syria”
The main actors in the December 8, 2024 coup d’Etat who were described by the media as “rebels” are Al Qaeda affiliated mercenaries, all of whom are supported by Western and Israeli intelligence.
According to the the BBC “democracy” is to be reinstated under the leadership Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani. of an Islamist terrorist entity entitled Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), previously affiliated to Al Qaeda. [the Data base].
Ironically, this “good guy” Al Qaeda leader Al-Jawlani is still categorized as a terrorist by the U.S, State Department.
And the West applauds, celebrating the victory of Tahir Al Sham.
Their unspoken objective is to install an Islamist State led by Al Qaeda terrorist proxies.
Oops! Are these not the “same guys” who allegedly brought down the WTC and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 under the helm of Osama Bin Laden?
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, December 31, 2024
See Also
By , October 23, 2024
HUMANITARIAN WARFARE: KILLING SECULAR DEMOCRACY AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS, IN TWO DISTINCT PHASES (1980s and 2001-)
Unknown to Americans, in the 1970s and early 1980s, Kabul was “a cosmopolitan city. Artists and hippies flocked to the capital. Women studied agriculture, engineering and business at the city’s university. Afghan women held government jobs”.
BEFORE THE “HUMANITARIAN WAR”
AFTER THE “HUMANITARIAN WAR”
DESTRUCTION OF AN ENTIRE COUNTRY
Michel Chossudovsky, December 31, 2024
*
Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Global Research’s Holiday Fundraiser
Translated from the French by Bill Blum
