Am I the only one who thought Zbigniew Brzezinski was dead years ago? (Wishful thinking, I know.) Now he seems to be in the news every day:
All of a sudden, everyone seems to be in favor of sending more troops to Afghanistan... as Barack Obama encourages Europeans to dispatch more NATO forces.... But Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski is not on board -- though it's not the first time President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser has cast a skeptic's eye on the usefulness of dispatching great numbers of troops to the country. In an [in]famous 1998 interview with France's Le Nouvel Observateur, Brzezinski admitted his own role in funding Afghanistan's Mujahadeen in 1979, thereby "increasing the probability" that the Soviets would invade a tough, demoralizing, mountainous theater for combat.Man wants a job, doesn't he? And what a resume: Hire the guy who got us into this mess to get us out.And it's with a similar perspective that Brzezinski now doubts the that the answer to what ails Afghanistan is more troops. "I think we're literally running the risk of unintentionally doing what the Russians did...."
However, Brzezinski noted that just as the Soviets were able to delude themselves that they had a loyal army of communist-sympathizers who would transform the country, the U.S.-led forces may now be making similar mistakes....
Brzezinski, who has endorsed Obama, was far more critical of a few figures now surrounding McCain....
"Well, if McCain is president and if his Secretary of State is Joe Lieberman and his Secretary of Defense is [Rudolph] Giuliani, we will be moving towards... World War IV... If it's [Richard] Armitage, or if it were to be Brent Scowcroft, I think it would be very different."....
"Republicans move toward neocon-ish formulas, and Democrats [follow] idealistically escapist formulas. In either case you don't end up with the necessary mix of idealism and realism."
Comments (6)
WTF could "idealistically escapist" possibly mean in this context?
Or is it just flattery to the new boss?
Posted by Michael Dawson | July 27, 2008 1:44 AM
Posted on July 27, 2008 01:44
"However, Brzezinski noted that just as the Soviets were able to delude themselves that they had a loyal army of communist-sympathizers who would transform the country."
Newsflash. The communists were doing quite well in afghan urban centers, much better than we are now (the PDPA with soviet assistance actually built shit with local labor and were sending afghans by the boatload to prestigious universities in moscow and petersburg for training as doctors, engineers, etc). Had the CIA/Zbiggy not begun arming and training the fundamentalists, the PDPA would have routed the insurgents themselves and the Soviets would never have invaded and wreaked havoc on that poor, peasant country. (btw, i'm not apologizing for soviet crimes against humanity there, but obviously zbiggy knew what he was doing and is thus equally complicit in those crimes). bastards...
Posted by dermokrat | July 27, 2008 2:03 AM
Posted on July 27, 2008 02:03
Agreed, Brzezinski knew exactly what he was doing: "That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians 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 the USSR its Vietnam War."
Posted by Nicholas Hart | July 27, 2008 12:42 PM
Posted on July 27, 2008 12:42
Notice how empire media trots out the undead to keep discussion within the bounds of elitist narrative. Even the U.S. Army seems willing to consider other points of view:
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=207
But by all means do google Richard Armitage. I mean, if this is the conventional voice of reason, then the empire constituency has indeed been hopelessly mesmerized.
Posted by Jay Taber | July 27, 2008 3:23 PM
Posted on July 27, 2008 15:23
Brzezinski is an Obama foreign policy advisor, so yeah, he's already been hired, but it's to sink us deeper in the mess, not get us out.
Posted by Bruce | July 27, 2008 7:32 PM
Posted on July 27, 2008 19:32
of note, pulled back out of the Memory Hole:
The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives (Paperback)
by Zbigniew Brzezinski (Author)
# Publisher: Basic Books (September 17, 1998)
# ISBN-10: 0465027261
# ISBN-13: 978-0465027262
The New York Times Book Review, Bernard Gwertzman
Brzezinski has now stated and restated his concerns. His books are there for any political leader to use as material for future policy declarations. But it is difficult in the current situation* to imagine much of a competition to take up Brzesinski's ideas, however well they are argued here.
*pre 9/11 at that time. How things have changed...
The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, Walter Russell Mead
At its best, The Grand Chessboard makes permanent contributions to the national debate over American foreign policy and power. At its worst, it demonstrates the need for contemporary statesmen and political thinkers to immerse themselves more deeply in the rich tradition of Anglo-American strategic thought that brought first Britain and now the United States to global preeminence at an astonishingly low cost*.
*re: Obama: We'll do it more efficiently, and for less than Bush Co.!
Posted by JJR | July 30, 2008 9:29 AM
Posted on July 30, 2008 09:29