From the Grand Chessboard to ISIS

[luvdovz]

This vid tells the story of Zbigniew Brzezinski's involvement in perfecting the doctrine of combating nationalism with religious fanaticism. It was none other but Brzezinski himself (along with Carter), one of Obama's mentors on foreign policy since day one, who initiated the strategy of importing Islamic fundamentalists from all around the world

Comments

[dexeron]

While the players (and pieces) now are different, so much of how this "chessboard" has been set up is the direct result of actions and counter-actions between the Soviet Union and the United States, both treating the developing world as their proxies in the so-called "cold war" that really never was quite as cold as any idealists would have liked to think. We armed the mujaheddin to counter the Soviet invasion to counter our arming the mujaheddin to counter the PDPA revolution to counter... We can see how this was repeated everywhere from the far east to the various conflicts between Israel and Egypt, and our poking and prodding (and delivering of arms on both sides

[sophia_sadek]

In The Bear Trap, former Pakistan intelligence general Mohammad Yousaf speculated that the Afghan communist policy that served as the straw that broke the camel's back for the Islamist opposition was required education for girls. Although it is true that the Carter administration officially backed the Mujaheddin, it did so only after the CIA's Afghanistan station chief had already begun a rogue operation to support them. The Soviets invaded to topple a communist hard-liner who appeared to be courting CIA support. Many of his troops sided with the Mujaheddin after the invasion. Also, the policy to primarily fund and arm the most rabid Islamists may not have been made by the Carter people. It was a policy supported by Pakistanis who saw Afghanistan as part of their own strategic territory.

The idea of pouring a half billion dollars of military aid into Syria to perpetuate the bloodshed and suffering there seems to be rather indecent. Obama has more in common with Bush and Cheney than his supporters will admit.

[unnamed525]

They're both right-wing authoritarians.

[luzribeiro]

And in all his cynicism, Brzezinski is now pontificating about the imminent "prolonged long haul".

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Zbigniew-Brzezinski-ISIS-Iraq/2014/09/11/id/594060/

Thanks, Zbigniew!

[htpcl]

On a side note, I wonder if anyone knows how 'Zbigniew Brzezinski' is pronounced. ;-)

[mikeyxw]

Just like it's spelled.

[htpcl]

And how's that? Because there are some weird-looking letter combos over there that I'm not sure a non-Slavonic-speaker would figure out naturally.

[mikeyxw]

Going by what I remember from the talk shows in the 90's when he made the rounds, Z'big-new Brr-za-zin-ski. They usually called him Zbig, so I assume they knew him well enough that they knew how to pronounce his name. Either that or he gave up correcting people and went with the most common mispronunciation that was inflicted upon him.

[johnny9fingers]

Having let this genie out of the bottle, and armed it and dealt with it, how can we easily repudiate its actions?

This post is an excellent summation of how we got from '79 to here. But try blaming the blowback on our own policies and we are being unpatriotic.

It is our own fault, and we can't be bothered to fix the mess properly. Responsible, yes, accountable, no.

[luvdovz]

The saddest thing is that I keep hearing the sentiment that it's not your mess, or at least you guys already chose to leave it, so it's no longer your business - and from those same guys who were the first to beat the war drums, as soon as GWB yelled his battle cry.

[johnny9fingers]

I know...pisses me off, and I'm hardly a righteous sort of chap

[mikeyxw]

Well, Afghanistan was just about everyone's mess. The Soviets supported a coup to kick off decades of war. The US and UK paid the ISI to support one faction of Mujahedeen, the Iranians supported another. The Chinese even got into the act and supported their group. The Saudis were pumping over a half billion dollars per year to support their group, mostly Wahhabi extremists, along with a few other gulf states. Go figure that it didn't turn out well for the Afghans.

Sad thing is, when everyone is responsible for a mess, nobody is.