One major 9/11 misconception is that United States funded and trained al-Qaeda.
America detractors argue that we trained them to fight against the Soviet Union; now we're paying the price for meddling overseas--al-Qaeda and the Taliban using "our own" training to fight us.
Not true.
The United States supported the Afghan rebels via Operation Cyclone.
Since the rebels were fighting the Soviet Union, it wasn't practical for a western outfit to go into Afghanistan to provide funding and training.
Instead of direct involvement, the United States, Great Britain, and other countries funneled money to Pakistan's intelligence agency.
It was up to Pakistan to decide which Afghanistan fighter groups received training, support, and funding.
There were two forms of funding, one for the native Afghanis and the other was for Arabs entering Afghanistan from the Muslim World.
The United States insisted on supporting only the native Afghanis.
Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries funded and supported the non Afghan Arabs flowing in to fight the Soviets.
Osama Bin Laden was a non Afghani.
According to Peter L.
Bergen's Book, "Holy War, Inc.
: Inside the Secret World of Osama Bin laden," Osama Bin Laden held a logistics position in Pakistan.
His role was to make sure that resistance fighters flowing into Afghanistan through Pakistan were housed, fed, and supplied before entering Afghanistan.
Bin Laden's work with the non Afghani Arabs, and those financing them, formed the basis of his ultimate objectives.
While the Soviet-Afghan War raged, Bin Laden continued working on the Arab side of the house.
After the Soviet Union pulled out, Osama Bin Laden rolled out a new concept.
With one superpower down, there was one more to topple.
Bin Laden's partner wanted to continue the fight in Afghanistan, but Bin Laden had bigger plans.
Osama Bin Laden wanted to take his fight to the entire West, starting with the United States.
His idea was to unite already existing terrorist groups; using al Qaeda as their anchor.
He moved his organization to Sudan, where he began contacts with terrorists from around the Middle East.
Meanwhile, back in Afghanistan, the fighters that the United States indirectly supported managed to get involved with a power sharing agreement.
They were one of the groups that "governed" in Kabul.
After getting rid of the Soviet backed government, they held weak control over the country.
The rest of the country remained unstable; which caused the Pakistanis to fund a group of people to protect their interests in Afghanistan.
By 1996, they managed to overthrow the government; and dispose the Afghani groups the U.
S.
indirectly supported.
This group was the Taliban, who turned around and allowed Bin laden to set shop up in Afghanistan.
Al-Qaeda was the product of the Arab venture in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and the Taliban rose courtesy of the Pakistanis.