re: #14 albusteve

the Taliban have been around much longer than AQ, and they are your Islamists…as for your theory, I never heard that one…in fact only the opposite…did they invite the Soviets to invade to provide a rallying call?

The Soviets invaded because the Marxist government they had previously installed was under attack. They came in to prop it up.

I’m suprised you’ve never heard that theory before, as it is not a theory, but part of Bin Ladens well documented set of conditions that he believed needed to exist in order to establish the Islamic Caliphate.

In order for the Greater Islamic Caliphate to come into existence, he needed to force the Western occupation of muslim lands. In this way,
muslims in those lands would rise up to everthrow what they saw as the puppet governments & dictators installed by the “Crusaders”. It would provide a rallying call to otherwise apathetic muslims. The crusaders would be driven out, the puppet governments toppled, the Caliphate established.