Zbigniew Brzezinski: A sorry foreign policy

[struggle4progress]

October 14, 2005

ABOUT 60 years ago Arnold Toynbee concluded, in his monumental Study of History, that the ultimate cause of imperial collapse was "suicidal statecraft". Sadly for President George W. Bush's place in history and, much more important, ominously for America's future, that adroit phrase increasingly seems applicable to the policies pursued by the US since the cataclysm of September 11. <snip>

That war, advocated by a narrow circle of decision-makers for motives still not fully exposed, propagated publicly by rhetoric reliant on false assertions, has turned out to be much more costly in blood and money than anticipated. It has precipitated worldwide criticism. In the Middle East it has stamped the US as the imperialistic successor to Britain and as a partner of Israel in the military repression of the Arabs. Fair or not, that perception has become widespread throughout the world of Islam. <snip>

There is an obvious political thread connecting these events: the targets are America's allies and client states in its deepening military intervention in the Middle East. Terrorists are not born but shaped by events, experiences, impressions, hatreds, ethnic myths, historical memories, religious fanaticism and deliberate brainwashing. <snip>

Compounding such political dilemmas is the degradation of America's moral standing in the world. The country that has for decades stood tall in opposition to political repression, torture and other violations of human rights has been exposed as sanctioning practices that hardly qualify as respect for human dignity. Even more reprehensible is the fact that the shameful abuse and/or torture in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib was exposed not by an outraged administration but by the US media. In response, the administration confined itself to punishing a few low-level perpetrators; none of the top civilian and military decision-makers in the Department of Defence and on the National Security Council who sanctioned "stress interrogations" (aka torture) were publicly disgraced, prosecuted or forced to resign. The administration's opposition to the International Criminal Court now seems quite self-serving. <snip>

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16910051%5E7583,00.html

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Nominated for the "Suicidal Statecraft" frame/meme.

[IndianaGreen]

2. We will survive the collapse of America as a superpower

and we will better off for it.

Once free of the drug addiction of empire building, we will learn to live as civilized nations do, without interfering in other peoples affairs and respecting their sovereignties.

We will also be free from the burden of maintaining a permanent imperial army on the ready.

[Boo Boo]

5. I suppose that economic collapse could conceivably "free" us from

the military burden, but, otherwise, at the rate that China is being turned into a industrial powerhouse by U.S. corporations and others, I think that justification for military spending is going to be pretty easy to come by. They're building a navy, fighter planes from russian designs, missiles, space capability, anti-satellite weapons... And competing with us for dwindling Oil supply.

Sounds like a recipe for continued defense spending to me.

[Skinner]

3. That's a good read.

Thanks for posting it.

[struggle4progress]

4. Great website!

Thanks for runnin it! :)

[lostnfound]

6. Oh great irony: Careless creator of "stirred up Muslims" sees clearly now.

Didn't Zbigniew Brzezinski help escalate the Soviet war in Afghanistan? In Rasheed's 'Taliban!' the roots of al qaeda are traced back to Brzezinski's plan 'to give the Soviets their Vietnam' by bringing together young Arab men from around the world to Afghanistan where they could be trained in guerrilla terror techniques. And in an interview years later, didn't Brzezinski say he had no regrets, it was his finest hour, because bringing down the Soviet Union was far more significant than "a bunch of stirred-up Arabs"?

Now he sees and writes about W's foreign policy clearly, which is good. Wonder how he feels about his own role in creating the brutal world we are living in today.

I hate hawks. Even those who ran with relative doves like Jimmy.

Of course, people change and we need every voice we can get. Too bad this hasn't been printed in the NYT or WSJ too.

[Cults4Bush]

7. Damn I really wanted to post all of that! Though I find it very

satisfying to read his words as such.

[Captain Hilts]

9. It was the smart thing to do at the time.

This is the guy who predicted the collapse of communism.

[lostnfound]

11. It was the Machiavellian thing to do at the time...

and only God knows the score of how many lives were shattered by it compared with how many lives were made whole.

Men in power who play God with the lives of hundreds of thousands of strangers are responsible for a whole lot of suffering in the world.

[yebrent]

8. My favorite line. quite the metal image.

Flailing away with a stick at a hornets' nest while loudly proclaiming "I will stay the course" is an exercise in catastrophic leadership.

[Wind Dancer]

10. Great article!

"Terrorists are not born but shaped by events, experiences, impressions, hatreds, ethnic myths, historical memories, religious fanaticism and deliberate brainwashing."

Ain't that the truth!

[Gman]

12. Very interesting coming from a PNAC'er

Good read.

Also read The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, a great read by Zbigniew Brzezinski on American hegemony.

[bemildred]

13. Zbigniew Brzezinski: A sorry SOB. nt