On Sun, 11 Oct 2009, Bhaskar Sunkara wrote:
> The Russians didn't go into Afghanistan to rape it they were goaded into
> the conflict by a Carter administration that did everything it could to
> rollback the gains of the Saur Revolution and arm and incite
> reactionaries.
Actually Cockburn agreed when he wrote that Voice column that Dennis quoted. The rest of it is full of praise for the Soviets for bringing finally bringing modern civilization to a medieval land.
As for the goading by the Carter administration, that wasn't yet establishable as fact when Cockburn wrote, but it was as of 10 years ago, when Brzezinski gave his interview to William Blum for Le Nouvel Observateur. I get the impression you were alluding to this:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html
Michael