Democratic Underground Latest Greatest Lobby Journals Search Options Help Login
Google

More on the Brzezinski endorsement of Obama from Steve Clemons writing for TPMCafe

Printer-friendly format Printer-friendly format
Printer-friendly format Email this thread to a friend
Printer-friendly format Bookmark this thread
This topic is archived.
Home » Discuss » Archives » General Discussion: Presidential (Through Nov 2009) Donate to DU
 
flpoljunkie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-24-07 05:28 PM
Original message
More on the Brzezinski endorsement of Obama from Steve Clemons writing for TPMCafe
Edited on Fri Aug-24-07 05:29 PM by flpoljunkie
Someone who recognizes the deteriorating state of America's moral credibility in the world and the increasingly eroded national security portfolio of the county is Carter administration National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Sending an important signal, Brzezinski has just endorsed Barack Obama's candidacy over Hillary Clinton's. Brzezinski is one of the greatest strategic minds alive today and does understand the need to make changes in policy today to generate different outcomes tomorrow.

Influential foreign affairs columnist David Ignatius anticipated the themes of Brzezinski's statement in an important Washington Post piece, "The Pragmatic Obama," earlier this week.

In an article just published by Bloomberg's Janine Zacharia, Brzezinski is reported to have said that "Obama recognizes that the challenge is a new face, a new sense of direction, a new definition of America's role in the world.''

Brzezinski made the comments in an interview on Bloomberg Television's "Political Capital with Al Hunt." (Here is full transcript, courtesy of Bloomberg)

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/brzezinski%20trans.htm

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/aug/24/brzezinski_endorses_obama_calls_hillary_clintons_foreign_policy_very_conventional
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
Ethelk2044 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-24-07 05:32 PM
Response to Original message
1. A Great Endorsement to have!
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
sandnsea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-24-07 05:50 PM
Response to Original message
2. Zbig endorsed Obama?!?
:wow:

That's a very big deal. Wow!

:applause:
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Colobo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-24-07 05:54 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. I'm very excited about this endorsement! Gobama!
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
flpoljunkie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-25-07 09:18 PM
Response to Original message
4. Video link to portion of Bloomberg's Al Hunt's interview with Brzezinski
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
ConsAreLiars Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-26-07 12:33 AM
Response to Original message
5. The guy who thought organizing and arming the Bin Laden types was a really cool idea?
Edited on Sun Aug-26-07 12:49 AM by ConsAreLiars
Just what America needs. Another president who will be a tool of multinational corporate imperialism and create enemies that never previously existed.

Be afraid.

(edit to change a phrase and a typo.)
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
killbotfactory Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-26-07 12:57 AM
Response to Reply #5
6. Afghanistan has been a victim of imperialism for centuries
At that point in time, they were victims of Soviet imperialism. Tens of thousands of people were being rounded up and murdered by the pro-Soviet government in the late 70's.

Carter and Brzezinski got the ball rolling in funding the mujahideen. Reagan, however, greatly expanded that aid, and Bush 1 abandoned them after the dirty work was done and the soviets withdrew. The result being a repressive Islamic regime replacing a repressive soviet regime after nine years of war.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
ConsAreLiars Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-26-07 01:12 AM
Response to Reply #6
7. Uh, actually, Brzezinski claims credit for using the CIA to provoke Soviet involvement there.
Edited on Sun Aug-26-07 01:15 AM by ConsAreLiars
As for you belief that the the mujahideen were NOT Islamic fundies, well, Brzezinski explains that they were useful surrogates just because they were religious zealots and thus useful in toppling a secular state.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Brzezinski#Afghanistan :
Brzezinski, known for his hardline policies on the Soviet Union, initiated a campaign supporting mujaheddin in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which were run by Pakistani security services with financial support from the CIA and Britain's MI6. This policy had the explicit aim of promoting radical Islamist and anti-Communist forces to overthrow the secular communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan government in Afghanistan, which had been destabilized by coup attempts against Hafizullah Amin, the power struggle within the Soviet-supported parcham faction of the PDPA and a subsequent Soviet military intervention.

June 13, 1997, in a CNN/National Security Archive interview, Brzezinski detailed the strategy taken by the Carter administration against the Soviets:

We immediately launched a twofold process when we heard that the Soviets had entered Afghanistan. The first involved direct reactions and sanctions focused on the Soviet Union, and both the State Department and the National Security Council prepared long lists of sanctions to be adopted, of steps to be taken to increase the international costs to the Soviet Union of their actions. And the second course of action led to my going to Pakistan a month or so after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, for the purpose of coordinating with the Pakistanis a joint response, the purpose of which would be to make the Soviets bleed for as much and as long as is possible; and we engaged in that effort in a collaborative sense with the Saudis, the Egyptians, the British, the Chinese, and we started providing weapons to the Mujaheddin, from various sources again—for example, some Soviet arms from the Egyptians and the Chinese. We even got Soviet arms from the Czechoslovak communist government, since it was obviously susceptible to material incentives; and at some point we started buying arms for the Mujaheddin from the Soviet army in Afghanistan, because that army was increasingly corrupt. Full Text of Interview

Milt Bearden wrote in The Main Enemy that Brzezinski, in 1980, secured an agreement from the Saudi king to match American contributions to the Afghan effort dollar for dollar and that Bill Casey would keep that agreement going through the Reagan administration.<14>

January 18, 1998, Brzezinski was interviewed by the French newspaper Nouvel Observateur on the topic of Afghanistan. He revealed that CIA support for the mujaheddin had started before the Soviet invasion and was indeed designed to prompt a Soviet invasion, leading them into a bloody conflict on a par with America's experience in Vietnam. This was referred to as the "Afghan Trap." Brzezinski viewed the end of the Soviet empire as worth the cost of strengthening militant Islamic groups. Full Text of Interview

In his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski says that assistance to the Afghan resistance was a tactic designed to bog down the Soviet army while the United States built up a deterrent military force in the Persian Gulf to prevent Soviet political or military penetration farther south (see: the Carter Doctrine).

(edit to add, the "Full Text of Interview" link is at http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html )
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
killbotfactory Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-26-07 01:26 AM
Response to Reply #7
9. I never said the mujahadeen were not fundies.
Of course they were. They were also fighting an oppresive, Soviet imperialist government. It may have been secular, but it was still brutal.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
ConsAreLiars Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-26-07 01:40 AM
Response to Reply #9
10. Brutal. Well, they forced the people to let both boys and girls go to
school, against popular sentiment. But compared to the Taliban that US policy put in power?

Different strokes, different standards, and different values, I guess. I would have preferred that the US had not caused the mass murder and suffering in Afghanistan that the was the result of arming of the Islamist fundies. Or the blowback here. But that's just me. You and Ziggy have different values. As the brilliant agent of imperialism says in that rather short-sighted 1998 interview:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.

B: Nonsense! 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.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
illinoisprogressive Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-26-07 01:23 AM
Response to Original message
8. Important voices are coming out about this. Very cool.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
DU AdBot (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view 
this author's profile Click to add 
this author to your buddy list Click to add 
this author to your Ignore list Wed Apr 24th 2024, 12:10 PM
Response to Original message
Advertisements [?]
 Top

Home » Discuss » Archives » General Discussion: Presidential (Through Nov 2009) Donate to DU

Powered by DCForum+ Version 1.1 Copyright 1997-2002 DCScripts.com
Software has been extensively modified by the DU administrators


Important Notices: By participating on this discussion board, visitors agree to abide by the rules outlined on our Rules page. Messages posted on the Democratic Underground Discussion Forums are the opinions of the individuals who post them, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Democratic Underground, LLC.

Home  |  Discussion Forums  |  Journals |  Store  |  Donate

About DU  |  Contact Us  |  Privacy Policy

Got a message for Democratic Underground? Click here to send us a message.

© 2001 - 2011 Democratic Underground, LLC