Interview: Milton Bearden
I’ve got an interview up on the main site with Milton Bearden, a former CIA agent who led the effort to arm the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s. Here’s an excerpt: "People have criticized the CIA effort in Afghanistan because we gave weapons to Islamic fundamentalists," he said. "Well, I don’t know how many Presbyterians ...
I've got an interview up on the main site with Milton Bearden, a former CIA agent who led the effort to arm the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s. Here's an excerpt:
I’ve got an interview up on the main site with Milton Bearden, a former CIA agent who led the effort to arm the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s. Here’s an excerpt:
"People have criticized the CIA effort in Afghanistan because we gave weapons to Islamic fundamentalists," he said. "Well, I don’t know how many Presbyterians there are over there. The implication is that if only some history professor could have told us who to give the weapons to, we would have found the Methodists and the Presbyterians. You can try, but you can’t do that very well. It’s their rebellion. They have their agenda. Our agenda now is to turn up the heat on Bashar al-Assad. [The rebels] have an agenda that goes beyond that, and certainly beyond what they understand on Capitol Hill."
Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating
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