[thechat] Quote of the day for September 18, 2001
Dave McLean
thechat at dwcreative.com
Tue Sep 18 13:44:54 CDT 2001
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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