Here's an earlier chapter in the untiring efforts of the U.S. government to bring
freedom and prosperity to the Afghan people:
INTERVIEW OF ZBIGNIEW BREZINSKI
National Security Adviser in the Carter Administration
Q: 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.
