re: #690 Kenneth

There is a good deal of confusion about these various groups in Afghanistan. The US supported various mujaheddin factions in the Russian/Afghan war, but they did not support Osama bin Laden. The US supported only Afghani fighters, not any Arab groups. Some of the fighters the US supported later fought for control of Afghanistan in the civil war of the early 1990’s. The Taliban was formed in the early 1990s, from Afghan refugees who were trained in Saudi funded madrassas. Bin Laden formed Al Qaeda in the mid 1990’s. Some of the people the US supported later allied with the Taliban. The Taliban allied itself with Al Qaeda.

To be clear: the US did not support the Taliban or Al Qaeda, as they did not exist at the time.

Right. But we did fund the most extremist Islamic Fundamentalists in Afghanistan at the time, because we found that they were the most effective fighters. So we trained radical Islamists in guerilla warfare and bomb-making, and then armed them. And they fought the Soviets well. And then because they were still radical Islamists, they turned their attentions to global Islamic jihad. And from this muddled nexus of Islamic fundamentalism and western guerilla/bomb training emerged Al Qaeda among other groups.