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Politics : Libertarian Discussion Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gulo who wrote (5082)	4/10/2002 11:01:38 AM
From: TimF	Respond to of 13056

Yes, we (i.e., the U.S., mostly CIA) had a major role. We provided the training and arms for both afghan and arab fighters in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion/occupation. That might be used in an argument that we created the Taliban, not Al-Qaida. Bin Laden had his own money not money from the CIA. Also it would be weak even as an argument for the Taliban's creation unless you figure that the Soviets would have won had we not helped the resistance. If the Soviets had won there might not have been a Taliban, but then the cold war might have gone on longer or ended worse. We encouraged Pakistan to foster the Madrassa school system for recruiting more martyrs. We didn't oppose Pakistan's funneling of a lot of the money to Islamic extremists but that isn't the same as supporting it. Its fair to criticize our government for not opposing this but that's hardly the same as creating Al-Qaida. Pakistan was funding this stuff for its own purposes and would have done so with out without our involvment against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Would the fanatics have tried to organize and commit terror in the absence of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan? Of course they would. But we showed them how to do it and gave them the means. The training we provided was basically infantry training and guerilla warfare training. Some of that is useful to terrorists, but it was not specialized terrorist training. Also the amount of training we provided frequently was not to extensive. Its not that hard to find someone to give you basic infantry and guerilla warfare training if you have money or people who are ideologically or religiously connected to you. The means on 9/11 where box cutters, the means in other attacks where explosives, which we did not leave a large supply of and which are not hard for terrorist groups to get. We did provide small arms but you can get them anywhere including all over Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many of the small arms the Taleban has where taken from the Soviets. Russian soldiers where even selling fuel and weapons to the Mujahadeen. The stingers might have been a bit more unique but I haven't heard of terrorist actions using them. The money for Al-Qaida mostly came from Saudi Arabian citizens, including bin Laden's personal fortune. Tim