Quotes by Zbigniew Brzezinski

Question:... do you regret having supported the Islamic [integrisme], 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?

According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the mujahiddin began during 1980, that is after the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. But the truth, kept secret up to now, is quite different: it was in fact on July 3rd, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive on clandestine aid to opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And on that very day I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my view aid was going to bring about a Soviet military intervention...
That secret operation was an excellent idea. Its effect was to draw the Russians into the Afghan trap... The day the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter roughly the following: "We now have the opportunity to give the USSR its own Vietnam War".