This historic interview with President Carter’s National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski confirms that the so-called “Soviet-Afghan war” was triggered and initiated not by the Soviet Union but by the United States.
It was published on October 15, 2001, in the week following the US-NATO led invasion of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001.
Introductory Note by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
America has been at war with Afghanistan for more than forty Years. It started in July 1979. It is still ongoing.
America’s War against the people of Afghanistan started on July 3, 1979, when President Carter, on the advice of his National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski “signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul”.
Confirmed by this 1998 interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the CIA’s intervention in Afghanistan preceded the entry of Soviet forces into Afghanistan in the context of a military cooperation agreement with the Kabul government similar in form to that reached between Damascus and Moscow in the context of the ongoing war in Syria. That agreement between Moscow and Kabul was signed on December 24, 1979.
Confirmed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Soviet forces (in a cooperation agreement with a secular Afghan government0 were fighting the Al Qaeda mercenaries who had been recruited by the CIA.
Amply documented, the recruitment, training and indoctrination of the Mujahideen was financed by the drug trade which was supported covertly by the CIA.
The terrorists were recruited starting in July 1979. They were used to undermine and destroy Afghanistan’s secular social structure. The decision of the Carter Administration in early July 1979 to intervene and destabilize Afghanistan’s secular government was conducive to Afghanistan’s destruction as a nation-state.
These are the realities of history.
The official justification for the US-NATO War on Afghanistan which started on October 7, 2001 was that an unnamed foreign power attacked America on September 11, 2001, and that consequently “the laws of war” apply, allowing the nation under attack, to strike back in the name of “self-defense”.
NATO’s North Atlantic Council meeting in Brussels on September 12, 2001, adopted the following resolution:
“if it is determined that the [September 11, 2001] attack against the United States was directed from abroad [Afghanistan] against “The North Atlantic area“, it shall be regarded as an action covered by Article 5 of the Washington Treaty”. (emphasis added)
The bombing and invasion of Afghanistan which commenced on October 7, 2001 was described as a “campaign” against “Islamic terrorists”, rather than a war.
And those same Al Qaeda affiliated Islamic terrorists had been recruited by the US starting in July 1979. They were supported and financed by the US.
What was initiated in 1979 is best described as “America’s War With Terrorists” whereby Al Qaeda recruits are used to destroy secular sovereign nations in diabolical covert operation which has now extended its thrust from the Middle East to South East Asia.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research Editor, 15 October 2001, August 22, 2021
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Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs [“From the Shadows”], that American intelligence services began their aid to the Mujahideen 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 Mujahideen began during the 1980s, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 December 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise.
Indeed, it was on 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.
*
emphasis added
Translated from French by William Blum
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