Zbigniew Brzezinski died last night.
Romans used to speak no ill of the dead. Not being Roman, and having lost my country in part due to Brzezinski's delusions of Empire, I'll speak my mind instead.
I once called him the "Sith Lord of the Democratic foreign policy cult," with Mad Madeleine Albright his dark apprentice. I stand by those words.
The Polish-born Brzezinski was precisely what the Founding Fathers warned against. He worked his entire life to bend his new country to the service of his old, and harness its power to the carriage of his personal affections and animosities.
In the course of this pursuit, he urged President Carter to back a jihad in Afghanistan - not after the Soviet Union sent in the troops, but months before - indeed, hoping to provoke a "Soviet Vietnam." He admitted this in the 1998 interview with the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur.
Asked if he regretted anything, Brzezinski said no:
"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 that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire."
Asked if he regrets giving "arms and advice to future terrorists," Brzezinski was likewise nonplussed.
"What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?"
What did any of it have to do with the United States of America, though?
John Quincy Adams, a founder's son, a diplomat, and the sixth president in his own right, famously said his country "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."
What, then, should we make of someone who came to America and used it to unleash head-chopping barbarians - whether Al-Qaeda, ISIS, or any "moderate" flavor in between, from Bosnia to Borneo - on the world, in pursuit of Old Continent grudges and interests?
Not only did Zbigniew Brzezinski do evil - and made America do evil too - he argued it was doing good instead.
May God have mercy on his soul.
Romans used to speak no ill of the dead. Not being Roman, and having lost my country in part due to Brzezinski's delusions of Empire, I'll speak my mind instead.
I once called him the "Sith Lord of the Democratic foreign policy cult," with Mad Madeleine Albright his dark apprentice. I stand by those words.
The Polish-born Brzezinski was precisely what the Founding Fathers warned against. He worked his entire life to bend his new country to the service of his old, and harness its power to the carriage of his personal affections and animosities.
In the course of this pursuit, he urged President Carter to back a jihad in Afghanistan - not after the Soviet Union sent in the troops, but months before - indeed, hoping to provoke a "Soviet Vietnam." He admitted this in the 1998 interview with the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur.
Asked if he regretted anything, Brzezinski said no:
"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 that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire."
Asked if he regrets giving "arms and advice to future terrorists," Brzezinski was likewise nonplussed.
"What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?"
What did any of it have to do with the United States of America, though?
John Quincy Adams, a founder's son, a diplomat, and the sixth president in his own right, famously said his country "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."
What, then, should we make of someone who came to America and used it to unleash head-chopping barbarians - whether Al-Qaeda, ISIS, or any "moderate" flavor in between, from Bosnia to Borneo - on the world, in pursuit of Old Continent grudges and interests?
Not only did Zbigniew Brzezinski do evil - and made America do evil too - he argued it was doing good instead.
May God have mercy on his soul.
