Why is Zbigniew Brzezinski considered so smart?

[Syrinx]

He funded the Mujahedeen! :crazy:

[Baikonour]

1. If he is smart, he certainly didn't pass it onto his daughter. n/t

[dipsydoodle]

2. Well you see

he had the foresight to arrange the supply of funding in the form of military goods to the Mujahedeen so that subsequently your military contractors could supply even more to help fend off the original supply. :sarcasm:

[izquierdista]

3. Because he can pronounce his own name?

Actually, any Polack can pronounce such a common easy name as his.

His problem is that his mind is still stuck in 1950's Poland, and he is still playing chess games with the Soviets. That was the only reason he funded the mujahadeen, they were fighting the Soviets. Instead of listening to bullshit artists like him who opposed the Communists, Carter should have kept up with "detente".

[Aviation Pro]

4. Cause you have to be smart to spell your own name....

.....

[Drunken Irishman]

5. Is that why George Bush spells his Gorge Boosh?

[Kip Humphrey]

6. Beat me to it... Because he has three Zs in his name.

[Prometheus Bound]

7. It's the accent.

[MrModerate]

8. Umm, deep experience and a broad worldview?

Sure he made mistakes. But try to remember that the Soviet Union (as in "we will bury you") had invaded Afghanistan and balance of power considerations meant that Carter couldn't just ignore it.

The people getting support from us weren't understood as the mujahadeen, but instead as "freedom fighters."

Different time, different point of view.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. He Wrote One Of The Seminal TextBooks On The Soviet System That Was Used In Grad Classes Everywhere

Plus he gives off the air of an intellectual.

[Ex Lurker]

10. his daughter is hot n/t

[Bonn1997]

11. because Pat Buchannan and Joe Scarborough make him look like a genuis every time he's on Morning Joe

[KharmaTrain]

12. I've Wondered That For Over 30 Years...

Of all the people in the Carter administration, he always wrangled me. He was respected during those days more cause of who he was...a Polish exile than what he stood for. Carter was constantly under attack for being too weak on defense and Brzinski played the "bad cop"...the cold warrior. But he never impressed me with being either too accurate or insightful on Eastern Europe then or now.

[stray cat]

13. which did help drive the soviets from Afganistan and free up the soviet empire

the problem may be that we used people and abandoned them