"I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly"
This quote from Montaigne illustrates the whole raison-d'etre of Michael Pillsbury. Despite the degrees and accolades from America's most prestigious universities, Pillsbury didn't know that in the black and white scheme of life there are many shades of gray.
In 1978 Pillsbury was a research fellow at the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. While at Harvard, he must not have been aware of the Iranian Revolution, a pivotal event at the time. He served on the staff of four U.S. Senate Committees from 1978 to 1991. As a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies, he was the government apparatchik who failed the moment the country was in need. "What good is your expertise, your formulas and all your theories? When the enemy treacherously attacked us in 9/11, were you just as surprised?"
Michael Pillsbury's mental resources were put to use fighting an enemy which no longer existed. He wasn't aware of the empty supermarket shelves in Moscow and the imminent collapse of the "evil empire." Nor was he aware that the face of the enemy was changing into the bearded mullah. Michael Pillsbury needed to fight his fictitious enemy while Al Qaeda, Abu Sayyaf Group, Harakat Ul-Mujahidin, Gamaa Islamiya, Al-Jihad and Palestine Islamic Jihad were busy recruiting and training. The Raytheon corporation needed a spokesman. They found one, Michael Pillsbury.
In his role as Coordinator for Afghan Affairs, he was a major proponent for providing Stinger missiles to the Mujahedeen. The same analogy can be made of a crockery salesman handing out frying pans to a tribe of cannibals. Several thousand missiles were distributed with the American taxpayer footing the bill.
Pillsbury went to Afghanistan to inspect the training facilities of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Abdel Rasul Sayyaf, both poster boys for the Taliban. Sayyaf is the person who invited Bin Laden to come to Afghanistan. He was also responsible in recruiting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind 9/11. Pillsbury made sure Bin Laden's Arab "volunteers," were provided with what they needed. However, will later maintain that he "was not aware of any decision" on whether or not a conduit for supplying Osama Bin Laden by the government was ever established.
This response, a refrain heard so many times ad nauseam from government hacks, is the code of "omerta." More suitable to Sicilian gangsters than Harvard scholars. This is the point of convergence where the intellectual turns into the delinquent, the alluring turns unsightly, the palatable unpalatable. He was put in a position of authority but unable to think critically. And he is the fourth example of the "untouchables," too puffed up with self-importance to assume responsibility for his actions.
Pillsbury takes the credit for providing the weapon that defeated the Soviet Army. But his lack of foresight was manifested in 1989 when the Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan. The U.S. government, fearing one of these missiles could shoot down a commercial jet, immediately implemented a buy-back program. The taxpayers footing the bill a second time. Some missiles are known to have found their way into Iran, Qatar and North Korea. Pakistan has a newer and much improved version of the missile courtesy of Michael Pillsbury.
Michael Pillsbury is the intellectual who would have been more useful to the country had he lived fifty years earlier. His Stanford and Harvard training must not have included a lesson in Roman civics or philosophy. Pillsbury was more smitten by the wail of "Allah Akhbar!" when a Stinger was being fired rather than by the Roman dictum: "Cave ab homine unis libri." Beware of anyone who has just one Book.
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