Quote:
Originally Posted by Stumptown
Maybe, but Bin Laden would be nobody if the CIA hadn't trained and funded him and like groups. It was the US's intervention that strengthened the fundamentalists to the point where they could exert a lot of influence no matter who "won" the war. Proxy wars have a tendency to bite you in the ass down the line.
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Except that the CIA didn't train or fund Bin Laden, the CIA trained and funded the Afghan Mujaheddin but had nothing to do with the foreign fighters as they didn't want or need American funding or weapons because it would depurify their cause.
so your argument is flawed at that point. Read Peter Bergen's interviews with Bin Laden he was very emphatic that he didn't want, need or accept CIA or American help, plus he had enough money coming in from Middle Eastern Countries to support his movement. Bin Laden hated the American's and saw them as primary enemies of Islam long before the Soviet Invasion.
Further to that the Afghan fighters didn't work with or collaborate with the foreign fighters because they felt that the task of liberation from the Soviets was their own business.
CIA funding went directly to Afghan groups, as did the weapons and training, not to the foreign groups based out of Pakistan which was what Bin Laden was part of.
Also read the unabridged History of the CIA, and the looming tower by Lawrence Wright, the CIA didn't even start a file on Bin Laden until just before he moved to the Sudan.