[thechat] Quote of the day for September 18, 2001

[Dave McLean]

Q. You wrote a couple of years ago for The Atlantic on the phenomenon
   known to the American intelligence community as "blowback." Can you
   briefly describe what this is?

A. Essentially, it means "fallout": the unintended consequences or
   ramifications of an operation or a policy that, ultimately, goes
   very wrong and comes back to haunt you one day.  Afghanistan, about
   which I wrote in my article on blowback, was one such American
   casualty.  For over a decade, the CIA underwrote a fratricidal,
   anti-American alliance of Afghan resistance groups, known as the
   mujahideen, in order to, in the words of the Reagan Administration,
   "bleed the Soviets."  And, in the process, the CIA helped to train
   and arm some 25,000 Islamic militants, from over fifty countries
   around the world, who had streamed into Afghanistan to fight in the
   jihad.  They bonded with one another; they networked and forged
   ties; and they set up support networks that today reach from Egypt
   to Algeria, and from Saudi Arabia to the Philippines.

 - journalist Mary Anne Weaver, interviewed by Toby Lester in The
   Atlantic in 1999.  (See the entire interview at
   http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/bookauth/ba990217.htm)

    Submitted by: Mike Krawchuk
                  Sep. 14, 2001
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