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Operation Cyclone - How Global Jihad was Created

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Category: International Politics

The quote is from Zbigniew Brzezinski's book The Grand Chessboard when he informed President Carter that the Mujahideen fighters were now ready to confront the Soviets, should they attempt to invade Afghanistan. On 3 July 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed a secret order authorising the CIA to conduct Operation Cyclone that funded Islamic terrorists in a US bid to destroy what was then an Afghan government friendly to Russia - and which by treaty, the former Soviet Union was obligated to defend.

And it worked! The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 and the war lasted for 10 years, killing over 14,000 Russian troops, over 90,000 Mujahideen fighters, and up to 1.5 million innocent civilians. Intentionally or not, the Mujahideen then took power and gradually morphed into a global terrorist network under various names like al-Qaeda, The Taliban, Islamic State, etc. The rest is history.

For more details, see this article: How the CIA created Osama bin Laden

Background image is a cover illustration from Andrzej Lubowski's book "ZBIG - The Man Who Cracked the Kremlin", modified by me. The smaller photo was originally scanned from the New York Village Voice. Photo credited to the Sygma/Corbis Agency, Paris.
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gnomishblend's avatar
I'm sure some people truly believe that in 1979 Jimmy Carter, the DoD,  and the CIA concocted a 20 year plan to create and fund al-Queda, the taliban, and Isil.