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Gorbachev: The US Must Take Blame for Fanning Islamic Fundamentalism
Britain should pull out of Afghanistan, says the ex-Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev, the former president of the Soviet Union, has called for fundamental change to world politics against the background of uprisings across North Africa, saying that the will of the people can no longer be ignored.
Gorbachev portrays the war against Islam as a conflict partly of the US's own making.
(Photo/Valeri Nistratov) In a wide-ranging interview with The Independent on Sunday, marking his 80th birthday on Wednesday, Mr Gorbachev also calls on David Cameron to withdraw British troops from Afghanistan. And, in comments that risk provoking outrage in the US, he portrays the war against Islam as a conflict partly of the US's own making.
"It's called the historical and political boomerang," he says, referring to the US's secret funding of Islamic extremists during the 1980s, when the Americans were fighting communism. "[The Americans] were working in secret with those forces with whom they are now fighting. They should accept their part of the blame. Let them say so. I think God has some mechanism that he uses to punish those that make mistakes."
The former communist also expressed disgust at the extravagances of Roman Abramovich, owner of Chelsea Football Club, saying he felt "ashamed" to read of his wealth.
Drawing on his experience of six years governing the USSR, from 1985 to 1991, when he helped end the Cold War and oversaw the collapse of communism, Mr Gorbachev condemns the Western occupation of Afghanistan, and issues a direct appeal to Mr Cameron to act. "I am using this interview to appeal to the Prime Minister to go in the right direction on Afghanistan," he says. "I am appealing to him to set that goal. And I am not saying that he should do it exactly the same way we did it."
Mr Gorbachev became President after Soviet forces had occupied Afghanistan, and oversaw the eventual withdrawal of troops in 1989. He points out that Britain advised against the Soviet invasion, saying the Afghans are a special people who live by their own rules, and that Britain should now heed its own advice.
Earlier this month, Mr Gorbachev welcomed the uprising in Egypt: "The people have spoken and made clear they do not want to live under authoritarian rule." In today's interview, he appeals to a generation of young people to enter politics and the media, to regain control, and to restore democracy, describing himself as an idealist.
At a press conference in Moscow last week, Mr Gorbachev criticised Vladimir Putin's administration as "a sham democracy", saying: "We have institutions, but they don't work. We have laws, but they must be enforced." In today's interview, he repeats this, calling on Russia's leaders to reflect. "Sometimes it's difficult to accept, to recognise one's own mistakes, but one must do it," he says. "I was guilty of overconfidence and arrogance, and I was punished for that.... I am sharing my experience with [Putin and Medvedev], because I don't want them to go astray by making similar mistakes."
Asked if Russia would ever be a superpower again, he says: "I don't think this should be Russia's goal. I think even the US doesn't need to be a superpower. China doesn't need to be a superpower. It's a different world. Relations in the world are different.
"When certain people arise and get power, with such ideas of superpowership, I think such people should be rejected. They should not be allowed to have the mandate of support."
At last week's press conference, Mr Gorbachev also announced the launch of an annual award honoring people "who have changed the world".
Mr Gorbachev has enjoyed strong links with Britain since Margaret Thatcher declared he was a man she "could do business" with. In the interview, Mr Gorbachev reveals his admiration for Mr Cameron and the Big Society. "I welcome David Cameron's work. This idea, or program, as I understand it, means that the gaps between different groups of people should be bridged. I think this is a very democratic idea, and I support that. So may Britain have its own 'perestroika', but I'm sure the British will find their own way of calling it."
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47 Comments so far
Show AllI admire Mr. Gorbachev and his honesty during these times. We have so few elders that speak for the people. It is refreshing. Happy 80 years, and many more!
I wonder how much longer it will take before he's generally recognised as one of the world's great statesmen, orders of magnitude the superior of any of his contemporaries or their/his successors.
The attempted coup that eventually replaced him with that Capitalist drunk El'tsin was a CIA op. I'd bet serious money on it.
Gorbachev is a great man, but much despised in his own country, for bringing down the Soviet empire.' Capitalist drunk is an excellent description of Yeltsin. I think your bet would be well placed. I confess I was with Yeltsin for a while, but when he bombarded the Parliament with tank fire, I gave up on him completely.
"I confess I was with Yeltsin for a while, but when he bombarded the Parliament with tank fire, I gave up on him completely"
Running amok with the tanks is like totally discreditiing.
You're a few years late I think. (grin) Ever since he decided not to back up the totalitarian states of Eastern Europe, since he allowed for the mostly peaceful collapse (compared to what it could have been anyhow) of the USSR, he's been one of the world's great statesmen. Well I think so, and I think there are many in the rest of the world who think so as well.
Sure, from the perspective of someone who lauds power, and thinks that the only goal of a nation state is to dominate other states, Gorby's no statesman. But that sort of person is a fool.
I'd be happy to take your money. Grin. The CIA is not all powerful. But you're quite right about Beltsin being a drunken capitalist stooge.
"When certain people arise and get power, with such ideas of superpowership, I think such people should be rejected. They should not be allowed to have the mandate of support."
Wise words, from an elderly statesman who understands how the world has changed and changes everyday. Those intoxicated with power and greed will either stay behind or destroy human kind...
"It's called the historical and political boomerang," he says, referring to the US's secret funding of Islamic extremists during the 1980s, when the Americans were fighting communism."
I must correct this factual error, commonly found in the corporate media. US support for Islamic extremists did not stop in 1989 when the Soviets got out of Afghanistan, nor was it limited to Afghanistan. The CIA trained and armed hundreds of mujahideen mercenaries in Azerbaijan in 1991; the US also used Al Qaeda as a proxy army in the Balkans in its war against Yugoslavia between '92 and '95. In 1998, despite the State Department's designation of KLA as a terrorist organization, the CIA was training KLA fighters and then infiltrated them into Kosovo from Albania. And. as former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds has said, Osama Bin Laden was a US intelligence asset right up to the day of Nine Eleven.
You forgot the support the USA continues to give to the other terrorist groups in Iran, the KLA is only one of them I think. I could be wrong tho...
It's telling that, according to a recent news conference, Gaddafi sees Al Qaeda behind the current 'popular revolt' in Libya. He might have a point. If Al Qaeda and the CIA work together on behalf of big oil then that would explain why the main oil port is now in 'rebel' hands.
For Amerikan empire conservatives, taking the blame for the disasters they cause would be a sign of weakness
What a nice breath of fresh air from a thoughtful, powerful man. Can someone please forward this post to our friend in the White House? I'm sure it would help him and others to find their collective backbone.
I'm going to forward this to the Whitehouse, Elisabet. However, I need to tell you that the Whitehouse doesn't usually follow my ideas.
Gorbachav sees what is happening to the West is what happened to Russia.
The Empire of War Economy is in the End Time.
Peace is taking too long for most but it is gonna happen.
The promotion of Islamic fundamentailsm did not start in 80s. It started in 1953 ( or before ) with Eisenhower adminstration's policy of promoting "Wahabism" in Saudi Arab.
This is true. However, it was in the 80's when corporate Amerika, fronted by Imperial Amerika that we taxpayers started backing this support for fundamentalism with billions of dollars and weapons of mass destruction. Before the US-Israel wedding (you pick the bride), there was at least some stablity in the region. It wasn't the stability that The US nor Israel wanted. But, that stability was working to some degree for the people of the Middle East. There is not enough money in the world to fix what the US and Israel has broken.
so true Seaweed
'Before the US-Israel wedding (you pick the bride),'
I always thought of that 'special relationship' as a sort of gay wedding, one in which two sadistic tops got married...
Kah,
I know that Eisenhower overthrew democracy in Iran in 1953, for the benefit of the oil company now known as BP (and look how they thanked us!), but I have never heard of his support for Wahhabis (use two H's) in Saudi Arabia.
Could you clarify?
Modern Islamic fundalism started before World War I in response to the rise of Zionism.
Not to British empire? One wonders how they would have picked out the Jews from amongst the British soldiers and administrators.
I have always admired Mr. Gorbachev also. It's encouraging that somehow a person who has the authentic interest of the people of the planet as his priority could manage to make it to the top echelon of any political system.
I always think of him as the soviet Ralph Nader. Unfortunately, in our 'democracy" the system encourages $$$ to act as a barrier to reformers such as these.
That exclusionary deficit will be either the catalyst to revolutionary change or the complete disintegration of the system into authoritarian fascism (some would say we're already there.)
Thanks to the people of the middle east for providing a model of a more hopeful future for us to follow.
And happy birthday Mikhail, thanks for your good works.
[I have always admired Mr. Gorbachev also. It's encouraging that somehow a person who has the authentic interest of the people of the planet as his priority could manage to make it to the top echelon of any political system]
I admire the man as well. But let's not get carried away. He would not have reached the pinnacle of Soviet society and government if he had any 'authentic interest in the people' or planet. What's most admirable about Gorby is that he recognized that to maintain the USSR, he'd have had to be more brutal than Stalin was. Once he realized that, he decided that it wasn't worth the effort, the money or the time required to delay the inevitable collapse of the USSR.
I was pleased but not really surprised to read Gorbachev's remarks. As an elder statesman, like Bishop Tutu and Jimmy Carter, he's free to speak truth to power, now that he no longer holds power. Ironic, is it not? But as a former power-holder (unlike any of us) he can get heard.
Good news item, but I can't understand why they threw in that paragraph about the soccer player. Put that on the sports page.
Because it was "a wide-ranging interview" with a British paper, and perhaps also because the owner--not player--of the football club is a Russian jerk not a British one. Context is all.
He deserves much more credit as the key to the downfall of the Soviet Union than Reagan, imo. Gorbachev is laudable for how instrumental he was in getting the people of Russia and its client states to reform their self-image. Once he brought his honest humanity and sense of hopefulness to the fore, the people couldn't shake it off. Something had been planted and it needed to keep growing. Too bad Putin is not made of the same stuff as Gorbachev.
So in this case, I wouldn't say his speaking up now is so ironic. It's really what I've come to expect from him.
I've always had a lot of admiration for Mr. Gorbachev. Here is a story you may enjoy.
In 1991, right after I retired, I was on a delivery passage of an old schooner from San Francisco to Singapore. We were south of the Marshall Islands and I went below to see if I could pick up some classical music on the short wave. This was usually Radio Moscow. I settled down to listen to the end of the concert. Then the announcer came on.
"And now the news. President Gorbachev has announced his retirement and the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union, tomorrow at ten o'clock."
I went up on deck and said, "Guys, you're not going to believe what I just heard!"
I'd spent most of my adult life working for world peace and an end to the cold war. I thought, "Wow, they did it without me." ;-)
Unfortunately, we didn't get an end to the cold war and world peace. This is still to come.
Happy Birthday, Sir. May you stick around to see your dream.
I do like the boomerang effect better than the snake eating its tail. Packs more of a wallop...and we can also say Obummerang...did you hear that big gong from the old Gong Show? LOL
ODE TO WHORPOCRACY
Oh what they have wrought,
With narry dither a thought,
Their pockets lined
with weapons bought.
Oh my, what crime they've brought
To blessed children
Disform, disease, or worse,
What Father's hand does swing
In tempered moments of wars
Painful memory death.
Oh, My, what have they wrought?
In our name,
In our shame...
America is behind the forces that created the Taliban, no question.
But when the monster turns on the creator, it's only the monster who's the villain. Look at Saddam, Gaddafi, Mubarak, countless others.
America's on its way to be responsible for more damage and bloodshed than Hitler and Stalin combined. I don't have access to the body count but it might have even surpassed them.
Re-read Frankenstein.
The creator is responsible for the actions of its creation. Why else would (in another work of fiction) god have sacrificed his own son - who was also himself - to atone for the sins of mankind?
Not meaning any disrespect but Chalmers Johnson termed it 'Blowback'. But it does have a nice ring to it as in 'boomerang w, dick and o' does as always coming back and getting in the perpetrator's face.
Seems strange but enlightening to admire and respect someone as Gorbachev ever more so than any person in the u.s. government, military, corporation or MIC. But those latter I list have gone above and beyond any means of being respected or admired because of their actions through greed and paranoia.
Runny reagan could never hold a candle to Gorbachev and he surely wasn't worthy of polishing his boots.
I would like to hear what Mr. Gorbachev might have to say about the schemes of corruption which flourished in Russia after Obama's great flatulent advisor Larry Summers "helped" them set up their branch Wall Street office.
It's telling that, according to a recent news conference, Gaddafi sees Al Qaeda behind the current 'popular revolt' in Libya. He might have a point. If Al Qaeda and the CIA work together on behalf of big oil then that would explain why the main oil port is now in 'rebel' hands.
"So may Britain have its own 'perestroika'"
Gorbachev is being far too diplomatic while speaking truth to power. The diplomatic part enables people to paper over the truth to power part. This is the danger of course as elites can claim that they are addressing the people's interests while at the same time crushing them. Very devious ploy eh?
I'm indicating that Gorbachev and the rest should cut the diplomacy kaka. He should have stated the obvious, that Britain has absolutely no excuses for falling down into imperial thuggery in the first place. The wisdom of the ages is ages old, ehh? Give the elites no quarter. It will be a century of their humility before they can even come close to earning their rights back. Jail them all now. It's the only way to achieve universal equity/justice.
I am surprised that no one has commented yet on his praise of the Cameron Government. Gorby sounded pretty good until that point, them blew it. Doesn't anyone here know that PM Cameron is presiding over a savagely neoliberal-capitalist, anti-worker austerity program that would make even Walker in Wisconsin or the tea party wackos in the US Congress blush?
Michael Gorbachev makes some good points here, but David Camerson's government as it's called in a parliamentary system, as they both administer and pass laws by their control of the country's chief law making body, in this case the British House of Commons, is a mess even with or maybe even because of the Lib Dems in the mix.
Lib Dems have shown they put their being in power and their privileges before any principles, Thus we have it, and Labor just weasels their way along under the 'leadership" of Ed 'the man" Milliband. Labor could easily at its last confernce have
chosen a real leader, Dianne Abbott. Why the hell didn't the party/ Was it the fear of actually having a real winner and real socialist at the helm? "I really want to know" as that Who song says.
"I took the tube back out of town/back to the rolling pin/I felt a little like dying clown with a streak of Rin Tin Tin. . ;' OK I didn't quite do that except while on holiday in Blighty. But it was nice while it lasted.
Michael Gorbachev makes some good points here, but David Camerson's government as it's called in a parliamentary system, as they both administer and pass laws by their control of the country's chief law making body, in this case the British House of Commons, is a mess even with or maybe even because of the Lib Dems in the mix.
Lib Dems have shown they put their being in power and their privileges before any principles, Thus we have it, and Labor just weasels their way along under the 'leadership" of Ed 'the man" Milliband. Labor could easily at its last confernce have
chosen a real leader, Dianne Abbott. Why the hell didn't the party? Was it the fear of actually having a real winner and real socialist at the helm? Hey, it's long way back to Harold Wilson's glory days, and even he had problems with being too much of Zionist on the Middle East and was no Jack Kennedy though he wanted to be the British version of same.
Oh, and no British Tories or Conservatives today are to the left of the current US president. All mainstream Western European political parties are to the left of the US Democrats and even the liberal Republicans such as Mitt Romney which might seem confusing to Brits and other West European and Canadian folks, but the USA has politics with no party discipline and no real accountabilty and a democracy deficit to match its political prostitution now made institutionalized by a supreme court decision-- the for sale sign is up on the White House and Capital Hill. It's the biggest political whorehouse either side of the Atlantic or Pacific. A struggle is on now to bring back democracy which the indigenous people had in this country before the Calvinist religious fanatic Pilgrims showed up. Four hundred years of despotism is long enough to paraphrase a student body president from my uindergraduate university years.
There are some aspects where British or Canadian conservatives are certainly equivalent to US Republicans. I had heard that the Tory/Lib Dem Coalition is proposing laying-off (or as you Brits say, "make redundant") half of the civil service workforce. Nothing that severe is being contemplated here.
Yes, I know how parliamentary systems work.
Gorby for UN GenSec. Wait a minute...nice words for David Ponce Cameron? I take it back.
There is no such thing as Islamist terrorism. And NO!... There is no connection between CIA support for the Afghan resistance against the Soviets, except for whatever training the current commanders may have received from us and any weapons they still possess that they received from us.
The truth is that the Muslim world is facing a crusade from Christian/Zionist/corporate fundamentalism. Most Muslims want us to be taught a lesson for arrogantly and mercilessly bombing their cities, illegally occupying their lands, killing and crippling their children, sexually torturing their family members, installing and arming puppets over them who make their lives miserable across generations, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, ... AND HAVING THE GULL TO PAINT THEM AS TERRORISTS.
Most of the American sheeple don't realize it, but MEDIA CONTROL is the elephant in the room. MEDIA CONTROL is what has dumbed down Americans enough for us to accept all the nonsense the government and their Zionist bosses are telling us.
For those of you who would glamorize and praise this man as a great and wise man, what is he doing praising Cameron and the Tories? Something tells me that although many of his basic impulses are good, he's a bit out of touch with what's evil in the current world.
As an aside, when Reagan made his famous stupid remark about the bombing of Russia beginning in ten minutes, unwittingly unaware that he was being broadcast live on radio, Gorbachev convinced Andropov not to 'go ballistic' to pre-empt the American 'attack'.
And so, Gorbachev literally saved the world. That should count for something.
Besides this, he could have waged civil war in the Soivet Union. And he didn't. That should also be right up there in altruistic statesmanship. And he pulled out of Afghanistan, as he realized that Russian forces were not anymore able to help a crumbling Afghan secular government battle fundamentalist religious terrorists, backed by the US, that were utterly destroying the country. What a contrast to US leadership recently.
Too bad the transnational capitalists, led by Larry Summers, looted Russia (see THE SHOCK DOCTRINE) in the 1990's. This led directly to the oligarchs that Gorbachev is ashamed of. Of course, now the ubercapitalists have turned on the US. Blowback is a bitch.
Step aside Slick Willie...
GORBY for President of the Wwwooooorrrld!!!
'Ol Gorby is getting some age on him. Good thing I haven't changed.
Gorbachev, the "socialist" who tried to apply capitalist solutions to the crisis of socialism. What a loser.
Sorry, Gorby. The 'Big Society' scam is nothing other than an Orwellian representation of the US 'Small Government' bullshit. Cameron and his buddies don't visit US just to see Disney World. They follow on from Thatcher and Blair attempting to finally destroy society for the benefit of the corporations and oligarchs.