Brzezinski believes U.S. needs to shed paranoia

[Algorem]

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/112747512617590.xml&coll=2

Friday, September 23, 2005

...Our country has lost its sense of absolute security, Brzezinski said, and we're not handling it well. For the first time, we're feeling the vulnerability that other nations feel, he said.

"We're not used to this, so we have a tendency to dramatize the threat and to overstate the fear," he said, citing the war in Iraq.

The lack of global support for the war shows other countries knew our reasons were based on suspicion, not knowledge, Brzezinski said. That paranoia isolates us from the rest of the world and destroys our credibility, he said. The United States will need other countries to help with concerns such as North Korea and Israel, but first we need to regain their trust by cooperating, he said.

"If we want to be leaders," he said, "we have to have those who are willing to follow us."

[Verve]

1. I think shedding the president and his administration would solve this.n/t

[Algorem]

3. Says our reasons for Iraq were suspicion,not knowledge.Try lies.Seems

like he's just providing more b.s. to cover it all up.

[aion]

6. He can't make the same mistake in exposing the mistake

...that would only provide more fuel for the fire.

I likened the situation to a suspicious white man who sees a suspicious black man carrying boxes of roses into his wife. Would that suspicious white man be justified in kicking down the door of that suspicious black man? I mean, surely there could have been sawed off shotguns and all sorts of other mischief going in through those rose boxes.

We have lost sense of 'a priori' and 'probable cause'. And the world knows it.

[tanyev]

23. Exactly. I didn't have any paranoia about the U.S.

until that gang of thugs hijacked the White House.

[Burma Jones]

2. FDR had it right

Fear is our only true enemy.

[reprobate]

18. Sorry, but this administration is our true enemy. Of the entire world.

[The Traveler]

29. But it is fear

that gives them their power. If people were unfraid, Bush would hold no attraction. But since there are a lot of people afraid of several different things (terrorists, gays, etc.) Bush is empowered. So, in the final analysis, fear is the principle enemy.

[reprobate]

36. I see what you mean now. And I certainly agree with it.

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. The only way BushCo knows how to rule

is by using fear. Their paranoia gets old after awhile.

[The2ndWheel]

5. He's fun

"Brzezinski was recognized with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981 for his influence on foreign policy."

Certainly a well deserved award. And they say the Carter years were a failure.

http://www.usacc.org/contents.php?cid=2

Also involved with the US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. I'm sure they're big corn growers over there. Although no corn corporations in that chamber.

Brzezinski is just an empire builder of a more diplomatic look than some others.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. he predicted the fall of USSR and was scoffed at as a result

He talked about how Poland would be a moving force in the east, and they called him names. he said that Afghanistan would be USSR's viet nam, and the MSM made a decision to ignore him.

Who was that ancient truthsayer who was accurate, but destined to be ignored by all?

[calimary]

11. Cassandra. A good alternate name for so many of us here, too.

We all knew enough about bush and the people around him to try to warn everyone we thought might listen - NOT to vote for him. We tried. Dear God, we tried...

[htuttle]

12. He said Afghanistan would be the USSR's Viet Nam...

...because he was determined to make it their Viet Nam.

The initial funding of the Mujahadeen began under Carter and Brzezinski. They were just more responsible than the Reagan Administration with who they funded and what they funded them with.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

14. good point, but the money really increased under raygun.

Don't forget Iran Contra at the same time - major league $$$$ for kicks.

[anotherdrew]

22. he also made sure Carter let indonesia rape east timor nearly to death

fuck zBig he needs should pay for his past "policy crimes" before opening his mouth now.

[eridani]

30. He deliberately provoked the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan--

--for exactly that purpose.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

34. I cannot agree with this. I've studied some of the archives in Moscow

and the plans and intentions were laid down long before Zbig had anything to do about it. The increases in training, the forced conscriptions, the training for mountain fighting and the learning of local languages - all that preceded Zbig by many years. The USSR was not some bend in the wind reed, twisted by some nefarious plan of Zbiggie. There was nothing that zbiggie could do to provoke an invasion of a muslim nation by the USSR. They were going in regardless of what he or carter did.

The election, then the "revolution", followed by the "invitation" of soviet forces was a dance directed and choreographed by the Kremlin, not Washington DC. Did Big Zbig see an opportunity? sure. Was this born out of fear over oil supply lines, you betcha. Was the congress to GOoPered to provide overt support? absolutely.


Did the CIA funding of many millions make a difference? Not at first. For several years, the Soviet army ran roughshod over most elements. And for the most part, the afghans were poorly trained, poorly led, and poorly supported. Only when this was seriously expanded and included training, Stingers, and other high tech stuff, did they begin to make a dent into Soviet occupation and administration. Until the era of Raygun, the Soviets were winning the battle, the war, the everything.

Also recall Carter's reaction to this invasion. He stated in public that he was "surprised", "dismayed", and felt as though he finally understood the Soviets for the first time. An odd admission, given his life in the military, training to be in charge of an attack sub, with the express purpose of blowing up millions of Ruskies. Carter may have been a fine man (and I have no doubt that he still is), but as a detail oriented, picker of nits, naive and wishful, beholden to his religion, and believing that everyone should or would be too, he was not a shining example of great presidents in our time.

No, Zbig did not provoke the invasion (I, too, have read that revisionist history, and found it factually and logically wanting) and did not cause the Muhajadeen to organize into some real fighting guerrilla force. What he did do was set aside his vile hatred of the USSR and describe and analyze it clearly and rationally, which led to his predictions about the USSR's ultimate collapse.

[eridani]

37. He admitted as much in a 1998 interview

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html

Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs <"From the Shadows">, that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

38. uh huh. Let's see. one small step by the US; and one HUGE

invasion involving over 200,000 soviet soldiers, tanks, helicopters, armored personnel carriers, supplies, water, food, ammo, and communications systems. All waiting for Zbig to make a move.

right.

Excuse me, but, despite what he may have said two decades later, reality has to set in. The USSR, by its own account, spent years planning on invading Afghanistan. Before the fact. LONG before Zbiggie and his Carter pills.

Their problem, as they (the USSR) saw it, was huge. despite being a secular nation, except for the religious belief in Marxist-Leninist People's Socialist Republic, was a huge growing population of anti-USSR peoples in a whole bunch of countries ending with the last few letters of 'stan. Chechnya was their first and foremost problem, and the source of two decades of black market profiteering, and worse. some of the central-southern states were listening to voices from further south, and those voices were carrying nothing but Islam.

IF you take a HUGE reality check, take a look at all of the events of the late '70s, early 80s and some of the movements in the USSR's southern regions. Zbiggie had no, and I mean NO, input into their deccision to invade. That was made long, long before Carter even considered runnig for pres.

Please, take no offense. I know and have read the same sources that you have. But, sometimes, people's egos get in the way. Like Zbig's. Think about it. 200,000 troups, PLUS support staff, plus infrastructure, plus costs/money/etc - SIMPLY because Carter did one thing to support a small, ineffectual group of anti-Soviet Arabs?

hardly.

[Benhurst]

7. Maybe the American people will have to face up to the fact

that being "the World's Only Superpower" doesn't provide much protection.

Being able to blow up the world many times over certainly didn't provide much protection on September 11th. As a matter of fact, one would be hard-pressed to demonstrate it provided any protection at all.

All those weapons of mass destruction, all those trillions of Dollars spent (owed now to countries such as Red China) and little if any security.

It's time for some new priorities, America.

[hippiechick]

8. Paranoia would be George's middle name .... yup ...

40 years of booze and coke, combined with an Oedipal complex, tends to do that to people ...

[AzDar]

10. But paranoia is what allows Rove &co. to shove their loony agenda

down America's throat....

[Mountainman]

13. "our reasons were based on suspicion, not knowledge,"

It bugs me that people like Brzezinski still say things like that. He knows as well as we do that the reasons for going to war were PNAC related and not based on any information.

We need to stop acting like the war was a mistake and start telling the truth. It is in the DSM's so let's hear it from those who can tell it without risk like Brzezinski.

[tainowarrior]

15. Although Brzesinski is scum like Kissinger

At least he's not totally brainwashed in his own self-righteousness. He's an intelligent man, and a calculative one at that. He's right on this one.

[brentspeak]

26. Why is he a "scum"? n/t

[tainowarrior]

33. because

Are we all forgetting his aiding of the Mujahedeen, later Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban?

Brzesinski was in the decision making process for most foreign policy decisions of the United States for the last 30 years. He still believes the U.S. has the right to lead the world, as long as it PRETENDS to take their feelings into account.

Kissinger is an arrogant, imperial bastard. Brzezsinki is an imperial bastard, with some intelligence and a nice face.

Don't forget he's still a former National Security Advisor

[0007]

27. Absolutely no comparion between Kissinger & Brzesinski

Now if you said John Negroponte, I'd agree.

[DS1]

16. I have a co-worker that STILL goes on and on about 'commies'

and 'pinkos'

but then, he's a clueless idiot

[melody]

17. Not until "they" admit the election was stolen will "we" "shed" anything

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

19. Is it just me or anybody else think they'll call him an anti-Semite

because of this sentence? "The United States will need other countries to help with concerns such as North Korea and Israel..."

[TrogL]

20. As long as the United States continues its meme of "rugged individualism"

it will continue to be a pariah.

[0007]

21. People like Jerry Boykin and Pat Robertson are running this

country while junior & cheney count their shekels, while people like Abramoff and Frist have free reign to rip and tear.

[VegasWolf]

24. The only way to shed paranoia is to shed our current leaders. nt

[bemildred]

25. Brzezinski dimly glimpses the idiocy of the policies he long advocated. nt

[alfredo]

28. kick and recommend.

[eridani]

31. If we are going to be plagued by empire builders--

--we may as well have them connected to reality as Zbig obviously is.

[aion]

32. Shed?

An interesting choice of words, in my opinion.

[teryang]

35. Well that would defeat the whole purpose of the 911 "attacks"

...and the interminable "terror alerts" and the paranoid build up to the fraudulent wars.