PRESS RELEASE

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Putin on Terrorism: Western Support for Afghanistan Extremists Let the Genie Out of the Bottle

Feb. 16, 2015 (EIRNS)—Yesterday Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Russian veterans’ organizations, on the 25th anniversary of the departure of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. His pointed remark to them, concerning the roots of today’s terrorism, was featured on national television.

Putin said,

"The world is becoming even less safe. Back then, our forces in Afghanistan found themselves facing what the world today calls political Islam. Extremist organizations were in an embryonic state at that time, but got fed artificially from outside. Those who did this went on to suffer later from their acts. We know the tragic events that took place in the United States and many other countries. We recently witnessed more such tragic events in Europe."

Putin did not name names, but he was talking about the strategy of backing the mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, promoted by such geopolitical scenarists as Britain’s Bernard Lewis and Alexandre Bennigsen of the Sorbonne, and implemented thanks to National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski in the U.S. administration of Jimmy Carter.

He continued, with unmistakable allusions to the situation in Ukraine:

"The genie was out of the bottle: and there was no returning to the past. Instead, we must confront this situation, and we will do so consistently. Of course, we need to fight not Islamist extremism alone, for there is more than enough extremism of various kinds in the modern world."

Looking back a quarter century,

Putin said, "as the years pass and more facts come to light, we gain an ever greater understanding of the reasons and motivations for sending Soviet troops to Afghanistan back then. Many mistakes were committed of course, but there were real threats too, and the Soviet authorities attempted to prevent them from growing by sending our troops to Afghanistan."