Interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski Le Nouvel Observateur (France), Jan 15-21, 1998, p.
76*
http://www.counterpunch.org/brzezinski.html
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?
Brzezinski: 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. Y ou don't regret anything today?
Brzezinski: 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?
Brzezinski:
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.
Brzezinski:
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 of the indispensible,
"Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II" and "Rogue