Brzezinski denied the accuracy of the Le Nouvel Observateur quote. Still he admitted that aid to the Mujahedeen started before the Soviet invasion. Brzezinski also admitted that after the Soviet invasion he sent a memo to President Carter saying that:
"We have the chance to give the Soviets their Vietnam."
Whether or not Brzezinski said what he said before or after the Soviet invasion is not as important as it is that the US did give the Soviets their "Vietnam". Whether or not that was such a good idea is looking more and more dubious. By giving the Soviets their "Vietnam" the US inadvertently got itself stuck in a quagmire of another "Vietnam" in Afghanistan itself, and in the Global War on Terror.
In that same Le Nouvel Observateur interview Brzezinski also reportedly said:
"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."
So Brzezinski said in 1998 that there isn't a Global Islam, and to say so was "nonsense" and "stupid". He was right too. But that was before 9/11.
And that was before the Global War on Terror. That was before Bush said everybody is either for us or against us. That was before GITMO. That was before Abu Ghraib. That was before Koran burnings. That was before the US support of Israel bombing Gaza. That was before everyone had to have their genitals scanned by TSA before getting on an airplane. That was before NSA spying on everybody. That was before the Boston Marathon Bombing. That was before Charlie Hebdo. That was before kids old enough today to join the military were even born. That was before demagoguery and emotion ran rampant with Islamophobia.
Still, what Zbigniew Brzezinski said was true in 1998, and is also true today. There is no monolithic Islam of 1.5 billion Muslims. Muslims are as diverse today as they were in 1998. It is still "nonsense and stupid" to talk about the threat of Global Islam. We still need to be rational and stop looking at the world's leading religion with demagoguery and emotion. (HERE)
Many of our wounds and scars from the Global War on Terror have been self-inflicted, as I have tried to show with this short review of the Afghanistan War. The US has often been the perpetrator instead of a victim of terrorism.
Droning wedding parties and funerals is terrorism. Night raids are terrorism. Torture is terrorism. The War on Terror is terrorism. America and its allies do not have clean hands when condemning Muslims, Islam and Arabs as backward, barbaric, disrespectful of human rights and prone to violence.
Someday the War on Terror will be over. How will history judge it?
(Article changed on Aug 19, 2021 at 8:54 AM EDT)
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