Zbigniew Brzezinksi on Bush's "crusade"

[imenja]

(I posted this within another thread but I think it's worth reposting here so that DU members might listen to the audio file of this broadcast if it interests you).

The Jan. 20 broadcast of the NewsHour (PBS) had a very interesting discussion of the inaugural speech. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Walter Russel Mead debated the language and message of Bush's speech. Brzezinski referred to it as empty rhetoric that sounded lovely but in practice is impossible to implement. The US, he noted, only insists weak nations uphold "democracy" and "freedom," while powerful countries like China and Russia repress with impunity. If the speech represents a real articulation of Bush's policies, Brzezinksi noted, this administration is embarking on a perilous crusade. Mead noted that the White House does not see Iraq as a failure, and that the prospects of invading Iran are not frightening to them as it is to the rest of us. It was pretty scary stuff actually. Meade represented the pro-administration position, and he was essentially verifying Hersh's reporting (without directly saying so).

There was a funny moment when Brzezinski asked Meade what this proclamation of support for "freedom" would mean in China. Mead said we would be "nicer" to dissidents. Brzezinski didn't saying anything, but you could read his facial expressions: "Since when does being "nicer" constitute strategic foreign policy? Can you possibly be serious?!" It's worth watching or listening to the discussion.

Find audio and video files here, under inaugural address: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/newshour_index.html

[PROGRESSIVE1]

1. THANK YOU

..

[BlueEyedSon]

2. kick

watching now

[ChiciB1]

3. Thanks... this is GREAT!

For a while I wondered about Brzezinski, especially during the Reagan years. He was sounding pretty RW!

Glad to see him speaking out again! Unfortunately, he got stuck with a doozey of a moniker!

[imenja]

5. He's been very critical of Bush

at least since the drum beat leading up the war. I recall thinking he was a right winger too, but I guess as the country has moved further right, he doesn't seem so any more. More importantly, he is a realist, not an ideologue like Bush. He doesn't approve of a policy that clearly compromises our national security.
I also have to say the guy is as sharp as ever. Age has not dulled his faculties in the slightest.

[ChiciB1]

27. Well Thank The Great Spirits!

We're headed down a "rat hole" with THESE PEOPLE running the country!!

Posted on another thread this AM about HOW ANGRY I am from just reading today's paper! It's filled with how the Bush REGIME (Nazi connotations intended) is spreading all over!

I'm so PISSED!

[IndianaGreen]

4. Brzezinski supported Islamic fundamentalists that gave rise to Taliban

Brzezinski also confessed to having created conditions that forced the fledging secular Afghan government to ask for Soviet intervention to put down the mujahedin, who formed the basis for the future Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

Brzezinski is a war criminal!

[imenja]

6. that doesn't mean he isn't capable of some cogent analysis of this govt.

and if you proclaim Bzezinksi a war criminal, you need to indict Jimmy Carter as well. The ultimate responsibility for the Afghanistan policy lies with him.

[IndianaGreen]

7. I have no problem indicting Carter as well

His idiotic opposition to the Marxist government in Afghanistan resulted in an end to women's rights to vote, wear Western clothes, and equality with men.

Imagine that! Carter's greatest accomplishment as President was keeping our athletes from competing in the Moscow Olympics. What a bum!

Jimmy Carter's record as a private citizen is an entire matter altogether and should be evaluated on its own.

[Senator Lamb]

8. booooooo

leave Jimmy alone, no peanuts for you!

[IndianaGreen]

9. The women of Aghanistan were betrayed by the likes of Carter and Reagan

Why should we endorse American politicans that shit on women's rights all the time?

[imenja]

10. I think you know that isn't true

Carter began funding the Mujihadeen and Reagan continued the policy. When the Soviets withdrew, the US forgot about the place. That is when the Taliban took hold and destroyed women's rights. So if the US had continued some involvement and aid to Afghanistan after the Soviet withdraw, the Taliban might never have come to power. You are suggesting that Carter and Brzezinski be indicted for something that happened over 10 years after they left office.

[IndianaGreen]

11. It was the Marxist government that gave Afghan women full equality

and shutdown the Islamic schools that taught anti-Semitism and misogyny. Carter has blood on his hands for it was Osama bin Laden that came to Afghanistan to participate in the CIA-run war.

[imenja]

12. women don't need Marxists or anyone else to "give" us equality

It's our natural right, despite the widespread misogyny demonstrated on a daily basis by so-called leftists on DU and other forums. Read this review on the US in Afghanistan. Carter or the CIA did not fund Bin Laden.

The Rise of bin Laden
By Ahmed Rashid New York Review of Books
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
by Steve Coll

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17114

[IndianaGreen]

13. Explain why Soviet women had full abortion rights in 1920 while American

women have never achieved such freedom of choice, even under Roe before it was gutted by Casey, and have seen their limited abortion rights taken away step by step by Congress banning specific surgical procedures.

BTW, you better read up on the history of the women's movement, it is full of socialists and anarchist women that gave their all to the simple concept that women should be equal to men.

Here is James Bamford's review of Coll's book:

In retrospect, one now wonders how much better off the United States would have been had the CIA stopped with the ouster of the Soviet military and simply left the Russian puppet, Najibullah, in office. The Taliban might never have come to power..

Instead, in the long CIA-ISI war to replace Najibullah with its own U.S.-Pakistani puppet, thousands were killed and maimed. Many of the proxies used to fight the battles were Islamic fundamentalists. Terror tactics were often employed. At one point Najibullah warned, "If fundamentalism comes to Afghanistan ... Afghanistan will be turned into a center for terrorism." He was right. "Najibullah could see the future," wrote Coll, "but there was no one to listen."

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/ae/books/reviews/2524310

[American Tragedy]

15. Frankly, the Soviet Union fucked up too.

In fact, their mistakes in trying to push their government system were eerily similar to those in our own Middle Eastern experiment.

Some observations from reading the George Washington University National Security Archives:
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/soviet.html

-The Soviets were surprised to find that they were not viewed as liberators but rather as foreign invaders.

-Party ideologues ignored the realities of a highly religious tribal society in their blind assumption that all nations would instantly embrace their values and their version of socialism.

-They were vastly ill-prepared for guerrilla warfare, and in their own incompetance killed the civilians that they were ostensibly freeing, which undermined their own ill-defined and constantly changing mission.

-The image of the Soviet Army fighting against Islam in Afghanistan contributed to a rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Central Asian republics.

[IndianaGreen]

16. The Soviets had defeated the Islamic fundamentalists

most of which had slipped back into Pakistan (does this sound familiar?). Unfortunately the US Government chose to sleep with Satan and by providing the Mujahedin with Stinger missiles it gave our post-9/11 opponents a military edge that they successfully exploited.

[imenja]

17. it's your patronizing attitude I resent

not socialists or anarchists. You somehow imagine that we as women have to wait for men to "give" us our rights. Women have asserted their rights. That is the only reason we have any.

The quote you include provides no evidence of your assertion that Jimmy Carter is guilty of war crimes. One thing I am quite certain of: Despite your sanctimonious attitude, Jimmy Carter has done far more for human rights and the world at large than you or I will ever do.

In assessing Carter's presidency, you have forgotten the peace he negotiated between Egypt and Israel, an agreement that lasts to this day. You might recall, Saddat and Begin won the Nobel prize for that agreement.

[IndianaGreen]

19. Jimmy Carter and Human Rights: Behind the Media Myth

Some people don't wear rose colored glasses when it comes to the former President, as the following article published by FAIR illustrates. I will also point out that it was Carter that put Carlyle Group head and former CIA assassin Frank Carlucci in charge of the Pentagon. Carlucci was involved in the murder of Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the Congo Republic.

Jimmy Carter and Human Rights: Behind the Media Myth
By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon
Media Beat, September 21, 1994

Jimmy Carter's reputation has soared lately.

Typical of the media spin was a Sept. 20 report on CBS Evening News, lauding Carter's "remarkable resurgence" as a freelance diplomat. The network reported that "nobody doubts his credibility, or his contacts."

For Jimmy Carter, the pact he negotiated in Haiti is the latest achievement of his long career on the global stage.

During his presidency, Carter proclaimed human rights to be "the soul of our foreign policy." Although many journalists promoted that image, the reality was quite different.

Inaugurated 13 months after Indonesia's December 1975 invasion of East Timor, Carter stepped up U.S. military aid to the Jakarta regime as it continued to murder Timorese civilians. By the time Carter left office, about 200,000 people had been slaughtered.

Elsewhere, despotic allies -- from Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines to the Shah of Iran -- received support from President Carter.

http://www.fair.org/media-beat/940921.html

You somehow imagine that we as women have to wait for men to "give" us our rights. Women have asserted their rights. That is the only reason we have any.

No, we marched and demonstrated and applied pressure to get rights that rightfully belonged to us, and we were led by women that were socialists, anarchists, communists, and even some that were lesbians. One of the problems that the women movement had is that some white women refused to accept the fact that "colored" women were their equal, and were entitled to full rights and privileges of citizenship. Socialists never had such problem, for socialism rejects racism and sexism outright as elements of capitalist oppression.

Simply asserting a right does nothing! One must take that power away from a patriarchal hierarchy that is also reactionary and capitalist.

[imenja]

20. the Nobel prize committee

has obviously been taken over by the pro-Carter media. Fox, I suppose, was their primary source. May I ask what you yourself have done considering you consider yourself a human being far superior to the rest of us?

[IndianaGreen]

21. I don't see why you are engaging in an ad hominen attack

when all I have done is challenge some mainstream assumptions some people have about our former President.

[imenja]

23. Carter

I resent this your attacks on a man who has done a great deal to advance human rights and democracy since leaving office. His presidency is among the most maligned in American history. It is hardly novel to criticize the Carter administration. You can hear the same stories on Fox news every time Carter speaks at all critically of Bush. Where Carter has distinguished himself, however, is in his actions since he has left office. The Carter center does an amazing amount around the world, to aide victims of famine, research and treat diseases forgotten by other organizations, and they oversee the most extensive international mental health program in the world. They also monitor international elections, including the recent one in Palestine. His activities are not a "media myth." I suggest you look at the website of the Carter center. http://www.cartercenter.org/default.asp?bFlash=True

Since you have decided his contributions have no merit and that he is instead a criminal, it is only natural that I should ask you what you have done that surpasses him. Usually people who most readily pass judgment on others are the ones who do the least themselves. Obviously I don't know you or what you have done, but to blithely attack someone who does more in a week that most of us will ever do in our entire lifetimes strikes me as narcissistic. As for myself, I know I will never approach his contributions, even if I devoted every moment of the rest of my life trying to do so. If people who work as diligently as Carter to better the the world are met with such venomous attacks, no wonder so few bother.

[IndianaGreen]

24. Carter's deeds as a private citizen are not the issue

It is what he did as President that is the issue, as the FAIR article indicated.

But as a fellow DUer who is part Haitian would say, Carter has blood on his hands when it came to Haiti:

From Latin America to East Africa, Petras wrote, Carter functioned as "a hard-nosed defender of repressive state apparatuses, a willing consort to electoral frauds, an accomplice to U.S. Embassy efforts to abort popular democratic outcomes and a one-sided mediator."

Observing the 1990 election in the Dominican Republic, Carter ignored fraud that resulted in the paper-thin victory margin of incumbent president Joaquin Balaguer. Announcing that Balaguer's bogus win was valid, Carter used his prestige to give international legitimacy to the stolen election -- and set the stage for a rerun this past spring, when Balaguer again used fraud to win re-election.

In December 1990, Carter traveled to Haiti, where he labored to undercut Jean-Bertrand Aristide during the final days of the presidential race. According to a top Aristide aide, Carter predicted that Aristide would lose, and urged him to concede defeat. (He ended up winning 67 percent of the vote.)

Since then, Carter has developed a warm regard for Haiti's bloodthirsty armed forces. Returning from his recent mission to Port-au-Prince, Carter actually expressed doubt that the Haitian military was guilty of human rights violations.

http://www.fair.org/media-beat/940921.html

[imenja]

25. "the media myth'

"Jimmy Carter and Human Rights: Behind the Media Myth." You did indeed question his value as an advocate of human rights. There is no "media myth" exalting the Carter administration. Most TV pundits, journalists, and Americans describe his presidency as among the least successful in American history. Your arguments are entirely typical.

[IndianaGreen]

26. Let's say that Carter's support for human rights is not according to Hoyle

as many DUers will recall Carter's strange behaviour about the time the US was plotting to topple democratically elected President Chavez of Venezuela.

July 8, 2004

The Venezuelan Referendum
Beware Jimmy Carter!
By JAMES PETRAS

The two faces of imperial power include the iron fist military intervention and the "soft sell" of electoral frauds, intimidating diplomacy and democratic blackmail. Jimmy Carter is "the quiet American" of Graham Greene fame, who legitimates voter fraud, blesses corrupt elections, certifies murderous rulers, encourages elections, in which the opposition is funded by the US state and semi-public foundations, and the incumbent progressive regime suffers repeated violent disruption of the economy.

Behind the simple and humane façade, Carter has a strategy to reverse progressive regimes and undermine insurgent democrats. Carter and his "team" from his Center probe and locate weaknesses among insecure democrats, particularly those under threat by US-backed opponents and thus vulnerable to Carter's appeals to be "pragmatic" and "realistic"--meaning his barely disguised arguments to accept fraudulent electoral results and gross US electoral intervention. Carter is a quiet master in mixing democratic rhetoric with manipulation of susceptible democrats who think he shares their democratic politics. The international mass media feature his self-promoted overseas trips to conflictual countries and above all his phony "human rights" record. The mass media provide Carter with the appearance of democratic credentials.

In fact, his frequent political interventions have been dedicated to sustaining dictators, legitimizing fraudulent elections and pressuring popular democratic candidates to capitulate before US-backed opponents. Carter has deliberately and systematically worked over the past quarter of a century to undermine progressive regimes and candidates and promote their pro-imperialist opponents.

Today in Venezuela, faced with a referendum of dubious validity, backed by the most rancid reactionaries, Carter once again poses as a "neutral monitor" while working with the anti-Chavez opposition to first legitimate the referendum then to provide opportunities for its favorable outcome. Carter has said absolutely nothing about strenuous US funding of the opposition--a blatant violation of any democratic, electoral process -- activities which would be felonious in his own country, the USA. He calls for "fair reporting" by the hysterically anti-Chavez mass media, knowing full well that, with a wink of his eye, they have free rein to provide exclusively favorable coverage of the opposition and uniformly negative disinformation about Chavez. In exchange Carter secured from Chavez a promise to avoid compulsory national chain broadcasts. Carter refuses to recognize that the electoral playing field is not equal, yet under the guise of "free press" he defends the right of the media oligarchs to voice venomous lies, denying the electorate the right to hear both sides. Carter refuses to recognize the intimidating effects of US military maneuvers in the Caribbean, the belligerent statements of undersecretary of state of Latin American Affairs Noriega against Chavez and the hyperactivity of the US Ambassador Shapiro in support of the anti-Chavez forces. Above all Carter ignores the plots, fraudulent practices and paramilitary activities leading up to and beyond the referendum. Focusing on enforcing the Government's compliance with electoral procedures and ignoring the highly prejudicial context of the election, Carter is fulfilling his role of a "set-up man" for either an electoral victory of the opposition or in the event of a defeat, for a post-election pretext for violent coup. Carter's history provides an extremely useful context for substantiating these observations and affirmation.

http://counterpunch.org/petras07082004.html

[imenja]

34. Carter certified the Chavez referendum as legitimate

in face of controversy from other international observers.

Carter is a proponent of democracy. Chavez authoritarian maneuvers, commented on by socialists like Eduardo Galeano, doubtless concerned him, as they did many Venezuelans. I find it amazing how Chavez has suddenly become a hero of American leftists following the attempted coup. It's amazing what a coup can do for one's press coverage.

Chavez is not a socialist. He is a traditional Latin American caudillo who bestows benefits to the poor as gifts, in exchange for political support, rather than as a right. You need only to look to the nineteenth century for countless other examples of men like Chavez. Consider his exaltation of Simon Bolivar--a hero of the northern campaigns for independence to be sure, but also a man who viewed the poor and mixed races with disdain.

I admire Petras' work on many subjects, including Chile, but this particular piece is hyperbole without evidenciary support.

[imenja]

18. Which occupations are acceptable: Soviet but not American?

Apparently you believe it's okay for the Soviets to occupy sovereign territories and impose governments on the population. Does that make the American occupation of Iraq acceptable too. Or the Israeli occupation of Palestine? Or are occupations only acceptable when you yourself happen to like the government, regardless of what the population being occupied thinks?

The world was a lot simpler during the Cold War. None of the current problems with terrorism would exist if the Soviets remained in power. Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism has flourished in the post-Cold War era, for a number of reasons. The problem is not limited to Afghanistan. Though clearly the way the US carried out that policy, like so many others, was short sighted and led to developments that worked against US interests. There are many other examples of similar results from American policies carried out under presidents other than Jimmy Carter.

If the US were a signatory to the International Criminal Court, I would guarantee you that Europeans would not share your determination to prosecute Jimmy Carter. Kissinger and Rumsfeld, however, would be among the top of the list.

[IndianaGreen]

22. If the US were a signatory to the International Criminal Court...

You will find every President that is still alive as a defendant for crimes against humanity. While Bush is clearly our petite Hitler, Clinton also engaged in an 8-year campaign of bombing and starving Iraq resulting in the deaths of over one million children. Clinton's Plan Colombia is nothing more that genocide disguised as counter narco-trafficking.

[E_Smith]

35. are you a communist?

just curious. not accusatory, just curious.

[IndianaGreen]

37. "Are you now or have you ever been a member of..."

Although not a party member, I do support the Debs Tendency of the Socialist Party USA which can be found here:

http://www.debstendency.org/pointsofunity.html

[radric]

31. I believe it's obvious by now..

a Maxist occupation is A-OK.. tis after all a Worker's Paradise after this occurs.

[proud patriot]

14. Thanks

:D

[many a good man]

28. Brzezinski is a realist opposing the neocons

In his book The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership Brzezinski clearly lays out the case for maintaining the global balance of power through internationalist means. He vividly shows how the unilateralist approach of the neocons is destabilizing and already showing great signs of failure. In theory his writings sound great but its the specific implementations that cause us to shudder.

IMHO the neocons even make Henry Kissinger look reasonable.

[bluedonkey]

29. I wouldn't go that far

saying Brzezinski opposes the Neocons.
Apparently he was heavyly involved in turning the Ukrainien election.
Read the article below.He's in bad company with Kissinger and Powell!
I never trusted him and probably never will.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/GA20Ag01.html

"..Brzezinski is directly involved in Ukraine events, and has openly condemned the initial November election results, along with former US secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell."
<snip>
"Former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski has been directly involved on behalf of the Bush administration in grooming Yushchenko for his new role."

[IndianaGreen]

30. Don't trust anything that involves the likes of Kissinger and Powell

Let's recognize that there is another cabal in the Democratic Party that is the counterpart to the PNAC neocons. People like Zbig and Joe Biden are prime examples of this modern version of Manifest Destiny and Imperialism. They are as much our enemy as the GOP!

US client Yushchenko to assume Ukraine presidency
By Justus Leicht
6 January 2005

According to the election programme, the promises of social improvement are to be financed by a “tenfold increase in investments in the Ukraine economy” and measures taken against the country’s oligarchs.

These are just empty words. The whole economy, as well as the parliament and Yushchenko’s own movement, are dominated by oligarchic interests. Yushchenko’s main source of finance is controversial big businessman Petro Poroshenko, who owns numerous companies and a television station, and is regarded as a potential candidate for the post of prime minister. Most of the oligarchs who supported the defeated candidate Yanukovich during the campaign are also making plans to fall in line with the new president.

Yushchenko has advocated that in the future the oligarchs should also be forced to pay taxes. His opposition movement has estimated that half of the Ukrainian economy belongs to the so-called “shadow economy.” In light of the extremely low tax rates and the huge fortunes made by the oligarchs, it should be possible for them to pay such taxes.

However, this point of his programme should not be taken too literally. Yushchenko has also announced plans to abolish the enforcement staff of the revenue office and will reduce tax examinations for enterprises. Under Kuchma such examinations by tax officials were often a means of regulating competition between different cliques of oligarchs or simply as a means of extortion. Yushchenko’s election programme puts the matter rather ingenuously and declares: “If taxes are fair, then all citizens will pay them.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jan2005/ukra-j06.shtml

[imenja]

33. How about listening to what the man has to say in the interview

and evaluating that. Walter Russel Mead's comments are also instructive, because they show how the administration imagines it's policies are achievable.

Also, the fact that the traditional realists of American foreign policy are so alarmed by this administration should tell you something about just how dangerous this crowd is. The point is not that Brzezinski is some sort of saint or even a good guy. The issue is Bush's is policy is disasterous, and Brzezinski says so.

[imenja]

32. of course, I forgot

People only have a right to choose their own leaders if the outcome is a candidate Bush despises. If the West approves of the candidate, by nature the election is fraudulent.
The arrogance of Americans on these issues is appalling, as though the entire world were no more than an extension of a power play between competing political interests in our own country. Talk about hypocrisy.

[many a good man]

36. Same objective, different means

Maintaining US hegemony and the global balance of power. This has always entailed having to destabilize large parts of the world. The realist way is much more "manageable" and not quite as offensive. The neocon method can blow up quickly and ruin everything.