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Politics : Attack Iraq? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Victor Lazlo who wrote (2460)	10/12/2002 10:24:12 AM
From: minorejoy2000	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8683

(<<)<<He added: "I hope it will help strengthen what Carter has to say. He has a more moderate point of view than the sitting administration." >> The Soviets invaded Afghanistan on Carter's watch because they accurately percieved him as being weak and indecisive. Europe gave us South African Apartheid, Napolean, King George III, Hitler, Moussalini, the Red Brigade, the IRA, the Protestant Orangemen, the brutal, imperialistic regimes of England, France and other horrors of political nightmares. And we're supposed to listen to their 'wise' counsel? LOL ! >> OK, Victor, I felt I had to say something only because I feel split by your words. I'd agree with all but the word "accurately" However, if we are still operating under the tens of millions of years' influence of our reptilian brain, and thus doomed to violence forever, then you would definately be right.

To: Victor Lazlo who wrote (2460)	10/12/2002 11:51:44 AM
From: haqihana	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8683

Victor, Carter is an appeaser just like Chamberlain in the beginning of WW2. Appeasment merely gives the enemy more reason to consider us weak, and ineffective, as Carter's administration was. He couldn't even get our hostages back from Iran, but Reagan did. Carter got no one rescued from Iran, but (regardless of what anyone may think of him) Ross Perot got his men out in a privately run operation. Carter is, and always was, a weak mamby-pamby peanut farmer that had no business being President. As a humane builder of houses for the poor, he does a great job, but that requires no courage.

To: Victor Lazlo who wrote (2460)	10/12/2002 2:01:36 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 8683

Victor, Re: The Soviets invaded Afghanistan on Carter's watch because they accurately percieved him as being weak and indecisive. I've recently discovered an eye-opening interview regarding the role U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan prior to the Soviet invasion. I'd be interested in your take on this episode in realpolitik Source: fair.org <COPY> "One of the most fascinating items of Internet samizdat is a 1998 interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor, conducted by the French publication Le Nouvel Observateur. In the interview -- translated by author and CIA critic William Blum -- Brzezinski boasts that the CIA was supporting guerilla activities inside Afghanistan six months before the Soviet intervention, taking steps to “induce” the Soviets to intervene: BRZEZINSKI: According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujaheddin began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, Dec. 24, 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. LNO: 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? BRZEZINSKI: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would. LNO: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today? BRZEZINSKI: 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? The day the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.… LNO: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists? BRZEZINSKI: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war? Interviewed in Oct. 2001 by columnist David Corn, Brzezinski said he still had no regrets about launching the Afghan covert operation, knowing it would likely induce the Cold War foe to fall into a trap." <END COPY> Brzezinski seems to be contradicting your opinion. Is he lying? Or would you consider that the reality of U.S. foreign policy is far more complex and devious than you seem to indicate? -Ray [[PS: I'm curious as to how you happened to consider "Victor Lazlo" as a Net handle? You remind me so much more of Henri Pétain. ]]