The current issue of the well—respected magazine The National Interest leads off with a short article by Dmitri Simes outlining the chronology of American actions and mistakes that nurtured the growth of jihad. The lead actors are none other than Zbigniew Brzezinski and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter.

While skirting their feckless and disastrous response to the Iranian Hostage taking  and their abandonment of the pro—American Shah, the author uses Zbig's own words to portray his and Carter's actions that deliberately led to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Brzezinski pushed for clandestine involvement in Afghanistan before the invasion and  knowingly predicted that "this aid was going to induce a Soviet military invention."

Even in hindsight, Brzezinski thought the secret operation was an "excellent idea" because "it had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap" and exploited "the opportunity of giving the USSR its Vietnam War." Of course, neither he nor Carter told Congress or the American people this "strategy" at the time. More recently, Brzezinski has acknowledged that one of his motives in entangling the Soviet Union in Afghanistan was promoting the liberation of Central Europe by  diverting Soviet attention from responding forcefully to the rise of Solidarity in his homeland—Poland.
 
After the Soviets invaded, as Simes points out, the US had little choice but to support the resistance. But that this is far different from intentionally increasing the probability of a Soviet invasion. This invasion sparked the modern age of jihad, as the war with the godless Soviets to liberate Muslim lands became a religious rallying point for extreme Muslims around the world. The multi—year war led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and Afghanistan/Pakistan/Saudi Arabia became training grounds of the terrorists now killing Americans and others around the world.
 
The irony of this tragic state of affairs is that Brzezinski and Carter are lionized as critics of the Bush policy, while no one seems to be able to point out their own prominent roles in sparking the jihad. Zbig seems to have put the liberation of his fellow Poles over and above the lives of Afghans and the rest of us who now suffer from the threats of jihad. Thanks, Zbig. Your behavior is especially repugnant  from someone who always seems eager to disparage American Jews who support Israel during these times of peril.
 
By the way, Israelis are the prime victims of this extremism afflicting the Muslim world. Both Carter and Zbig are well—known (and certainly well—respected in many circles) for their antipathy to Israel . Had Carter won a second term, according to his Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, he "would have sold Israel down the river."  Who knows? Maybe deep down in the recesses of Carter and Zbig's brains are pleasure centers being nourished by the Islamic jihad's effects on the people of Israel.

Ed Lasky   1 07 06