Their destruction was considered an appropriate means to and end, as long as it would take down the USSR:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/12/EDD4142N5B.DTL"It was decades later that the truth came out that the Soviets invaded only after being deliberately provoked by U.S. hawks. One of them was Robert Gates, who worked for Brzezinski in the Carter administration and who is currently the Secretary of Defense, now being considered by President-elect Obama to retain that position. A 1996 press release promoting Gates' memoir promised the revelation of "Carter's never-before-revealed covert support to Afghan mujahedeen - six months before the Soviets invaded."
The Gates revelation prompted an interviewer for the French publication, Le Nouvel Observateur, to ask Brzezinski in a 1998 interview whether he regretted "having given arms and advice to future terrorists," and Brzezinski replied:
'Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? .... What is most important to the history of the world? ... Some stirred up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?'"
Clearly, now that the "history of the world" is writing about 9/11, and the effects thereof, this seems like a short-sighted view from Carter's men. You can read more of that interview here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x317512