Underway by what standard? 6 retards walked in to the place and shook their guns around before being perforated.

The attack was just described as the sound of gunfire. If I was in Afghanistan and I DIDN'T hear gunfire ... well, then I'd be shocked.

This green reeks of clickmongering.

One F Jef: Underway by what standard? 6 retards walked in to the place and shook their guns around before being perforated.

The attack was just described as the sound of gunfire. If I was in Afghanistan and I DIDN'T hear gunfire ... well, then I'd be shocked.

This green reeks of clickmongering.

Almost Hillary-esque.

"Six of our Fedayeen martyrs entered to the stadium for the ceremony. Three were killed and three have survived."

Then three of them are not martyrs, chucklehead.

He's almost as big an exaggerator as Submitter.

Three were captured alive.

They shall be treated with all the dignity of the Geneva convention, I'm sure.

Move along, no torture here.

Obama will talk them out of it!

Benazir Bhutto-style assassination underway in Afghanistan

Is it over yet? This posted almost 2 hours ago.

Migaloo: They shall be treated with all the dignity of the Geneva convention, I'm sure.

Well, they wouldn't be subject to the terms of the Geneva convention because they are in civilian garb, which makes them simple criminals subject to local laws.

Go read up (p) on the Geneva convention and if it applies.

This more resembled a weak copy of the Sadat hit.

Benazir Bhutto-style assassination underway in Afghanistan

Can anything done to stop it before they finish?

One F Jef
...
This green reeks of clickmongering.

lulz

I'm not comparing Karzai to Hitler in any way but first thing I thought of after RFTA was LSD in the Producers:



They try! Man how they try.

Afgani-what? Smoke them out of their holes anyone?

/farking hypocrites

wildcardjack:
This more resembled a weak copy of the Sadat hit.

This.

I love how they are essentially celebrating Osama Bin Laden's US-backed military victories. Just a little side-note about Mujahedeen Victory Day that CNN didn't seem to want to report.

Afghanis on Osama - "I mean, yeah, we're celebrating you NOW, but really... What have you done for us LATELY!?"

I think Benazir Bhutto is pretty cool guy. eh fights for freedom and doesn't afraid of anything

Hey, before you finish that Bhutto-style assassination, here's a helpful article on how Assassinations rarely turn out the way they were intended...
Blasphemes (pops a new window)

If it's still underway,, is one long ass-thingy for sure.

go bhuttto go!

"A lawmaker, tribal leader and 10-year-old child were killed"
Is that all describing one person?

ace0spades: I love how they are essentially celebrating Osama Bin Laden's US-backed military victories. Just a little side-note about Mujahedeen Victory Day that CNN didn't seem to want to report.

Afghanis on Osama - "I mean, yeah, we're celebrating you NOW, but really... What have you done for us LATELY!?"

Hey, I found an IDIOT!

What, are there like dozens of sunroofs closing in on Karzai, each hoping to make the hit?

chu2dogg: Hey, I found an IDIOT!

Pardon?

I'm having a hard time seeing what you don't understand about the relationship that saw the USA give arms to the Mujahideen (sorry, I spelled it wrong in my op) directly and by proxy through Pakistan... And then saw troops under the direction of said Mujahideen, including Osama, who was just a charismatic and fanatical general at the time, use said weapons to fight the Soviets.

Perhaps you're also the kind of person that doesn't see 9/11 as retribution for decades of American foreign policy, and instead prefer to live in the fantasy world where it was an unprovoked act. But then again, you seem fine throwing ad hominems instead of actually addressing what I said.

ace0spades: I'm having a hard time seeing what you don't understand about the relationship that saw the USA give arms to the Mujahideen (sorry, I spelled it wrong in my op) directly and by proxy through Pakistan... And then saw troops under the direction of said Mujahideen, including Osama, who was just a charismatic and fanatical general at the time, use said weapons to fight the Soviets.

You do know Bin laden wasn't part of the Afghan Mujahideen backed by the U.S., came in from outside with his own funding, and was considered a fanatic outside interloper, religious zealot, and general dick right? In fact there were days were the Afghan Mujahideen just wanted to shoot the dickhead along with his entire band.

/I'm guessing you didn't know that and you went with the urban legend folk-myth about Osama being trained and funded by the CIA.

One F Jef: This green reeks of clickmongering.

ya think? mongering on Fark? Did someone hit you on the head?

kerpal32: You do know Bin laden wasn't part of the Afghan Mujahideen backed by the U.S., came in from outside with his own funding, and was considered a fanatic outside interloper, religious zealot, and general dick right? In fact there were days were the Afghan Mujahideen just wanted to shoot the dickhead along with his entire band. CITATION NEEDED

/I'm guessing you didn't know that and you went with the urban legend folk-myth about Osama being trained and funded by the CIA.

As to your last point, no, I don't think he was trained or funded directly by the CIA. However, he certainly received US funds and US arms by proxy through organizations in Pakistan. The USA knew where the guns and money were going.

As to your first point, how can you possibly prove this? Do you have some buddies who fought for the Mujahideen in the 80s? I'm operating from the same stance, I didn't take the time to properly cite my argument either. We're both currently spouting hearsay. However, I prefer to spout "hearsay" that is backed by peer-reviewed research.

/goes to dig up his old readings

ace0spades: As to your last point, no, I don't think he was trained or funded directly by the CIA. However, he certainly received US funds and US arms by proxy through organizations in Pakistan. The USA knew where the guns and money were going.

translation: I knew a guy who worked with a guy that was down the street from the other guy.

i.e. Osama inserted himself and his group into the middle of an armed conflict with his own funding for his own ideological motives, and the people whose asses really were being affected by the Soviets in Afghanistan (i.e. the people we were training and supporitng) thought he was a complete douche and actually considered shooting him themselves on multiple occasions.

Citations are available by the actual Afghan Mujahideen. Go find them yourself. Stop promoting urban legends. Obviously you didn't feel the need for citations when promoting that folk-myth.

ace0spades:

Here's your citations

According to CNN journalist Peter Bergen, known for conducting the first television interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997,

The story about bin Laden and the CIA -- that the CIA funded bin Laden or trained bin Laden -- is simply a folk myth. There's no evidence of this. In fact, there are very few things that bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the U.S. government agree on. They all agree that they didn't have a relationship in the 1980s. And they wouldn't have needed to. Bin Laden had his own money, he was anti-American and he was operating secretly and independently. The real story here is the CIA did not understand who Osama was until 1996, when they set up a unit to really start tracking him.[15]

Bergen quotes Pakistani Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, who ran ISI's (Inter-Services Intelligence) Afghan operation between 1983 and 1987:

It was always galling to the Americans, and I can understand their point of view, that although they paid the piper they could not call the tune. The CIA supported the mujahideen by spending the taxpayers' money, billions of dollars of it over the years, on buying arms, ammunition, and equipment. It was their secret arms procurement branch that was kept busy. It was, however, a cardinal rule of Pakistan's policy that no Americans ever become involved with the distribution of funds or arms once they arrived in the country. No Americans ever trained or had direct contact with the mujahideen, and no American official ever went inside Afghanistan.[16]

Other sources also dispute the notion that the CIA had any contact with non-Afghan mujahideen[17]

Vincent Cannistraro, who led the Reagan administration's Afghan Working Group from 1985 to 1987, puts it, "The CIA was very reluctant to be involved at all. They thought it would end up with them being blamed, like in Guatemala." So the Agency tried to avoid direct involvement in the war, ... the skittish CIA, Cannistraro estimates, had less than ten operatives acting as America's eyes and ears in the region. Milton Bearden, the Agency's chief field operative in the war effort, has insisted that "[T]he CIA had nothing to do with" bin Laden. Cannistraro says that when he coordinated Afghan policy from Washington, he never once heard bin Laden's name. [18]

Other reasons for the lack of any CIA-Afghan Arab connection, let alone one regarded as of "pivotal importance," was that the Afghan Arabs themselves lacked importance, being a "curious sideshow to the real fighting."[19] Estimates are that there were about a 250,000 Afghans fighting 125,000 Soviet troops, while only 2000 Arab Afghans fought "at any one time", [20]

Marc Sageman, a Foreign Service Officer who was based in Islamabad from 1987-1989, and worked closely with Afghanistan's Mujahideen, says

Contemporaneous accounts of the war do not even mention [the Afghan Arabs]. Many were not serious about the war. ... Very few were involved in actual fighting. For most of the war, they were scattered among the Afghan groups associated with the four Afghan fundamentalist parties.[21]

According to Milton Bearden the CIA did not recruit Arabs because there were hundreds of thousands of Afghans all too willing to fight. The Arab Afghan were not only superfluous but "disruptive," angering local Afghan with their more-Muslim-than-thou attitude.(Peter Jouvenal).[22] Veteran Afghan cameraman Peter Jouvenal quotes an Afghan mujahideen as saying "whenever we had a problem with one of them [foreign mujahideen], we just shot them. They thought they were kings."

Many who traveled in Afghanistan - Olivier Roy,[23] Peter Jouvenal.[24] - reported of the Arab Afghans' visceral hostility to Westerners in Afghanistan to aid Afghans or report on their plight. BBC reporter John Simpson tells the story of running into Osama bin Laden in 1989, and with neither knowing who the other was, bin Laden attempting to bribe Simpson's Afghan driver $500 - a large sum in a poor country - to kill the infidel Simpson. When the driver declined, Bin Laden retired to his "camp bed" and wept "in frustration." [25]

# ^ Did the U.S. "Create" Osama bin Laden?. US Department of State (2005-01-14). Retrieved on 2007-01-09.
# ^ Messages to the World, 2006, p.50. (March 1997 interview with Peter Arnett
# ^ August 15, 2006. "Bergen: Bin Laden, CIA links hogwash", 2006-09-06. Retrieved on 2007-01-09.
# ^ Holy War Inc. by Peter Bergen, New York: Free Press, c2001., p.66
# ^ Sageman, Marc, Understanding Terror Networks, University of Pennsylvania Press (2004), p.57-58
# ^ New Republic, "TRB FROM WASHINGTON, Back to Front" by Peter Beinart, Post date 09.26.01 | Issue date 10.08.01
# ^ Wright, Lawrence, Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, by Lawrence Wright, NY, Knopf, 2006, p.107
# ^ interview with Arab Afghan fighter Abdullah Anas and Afghan CIA station chief Milt Berden. Wright, Lawrence, Looming Tower, Knopf, 2006, p.105
# ^ Sageman, Marc, Understanding Terror Networks, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004, p.57-58
# ^ Bergen, Peter, Holy War Inc. New York: Free Press, c2001., p.66
# ^ Roy, Olivier Globalized Islam : the Search for a New Ummah, Columbia University Press, 2004, p.293
# ^ Bergen, Peter, Holy War Inc. New York: Free Press, c2001., p.65
# ^ Simpson, John, A Mad World, My Masters: Tales from a Traveller's Life, London, Macmillan, 2000, p.83

additionally,
Freelance cameraman Peter Jouvenal recalls: "There was no love lost between the Afghans and the Arabs. One Afghan told me, 'Whenever we had a problem with one of them we just shot them. They thought they were kings.'"

... There was simply no point in the CIA and the Afghan Arabs being in contact with each other. ... the Afghan Arabs functioned independently and had their own sources of funding. The CIA did not need the Afghan Arabs, and the Afghan Arabs did not need the CIA. So the notion that the Agency funded and trained the Afghan Arabs is, at best, misleading. The 'let's blame everything bad that happens on the CIA' school of thought vastly overestimates the Agency's powers, both for good and ill." [Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden (New York: The Free Press, 2001), pp. 64-66.]

Al Qaeda's number two leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, confirmed that the "Afghan Arabs" did not receive any U.S. funding during the war in Afghanistan. In the book that was described as his last will, Knights Under the Prophet's Banner, which was serialized in December 2001 in Al-Sharq al-Awsat, al-Zawahiri says the Afghan Arabs were funded with money from Arab sources, which amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars:

"While the United States backed Pakistan and the mujahidin factions with money and equipment, the young Arab mujahidin's relationship with the United States was totally different."

"... The financing of the activities of the Arab mujahidin in Afghanistan came from aid sent to Afghanistan by popular organizations. It was substantial aid."

"The Arab mujahidin did not confine themselves to financing their own jihad but also carried Muslim donations to the Afghan mujahidin themselves. Usama Bin Ladin has apprised me of the size of the popular Arab support for the Afghan mujahidin that amounted, according to his sources, to $200 million in the form of military aid alone in 10 years.


As I said, citations from the people actually on the ground at the time are available. Other reports are "folk-myth".

Hey ace0spades, any time you're ready to acknowledge the citations you requested, please let me know.

/meh. not surprising you've gone silent.

Actually I've been at work. I'm on my lunch break currently. I don't live on Fark.

Basically, as I am away from my sources (they are at home right now) what I had read had insinuated that it was essentially a War by Proxy that came back to bite the USA in the ass. Funneling arms and money into Pakistan that flowed then to Afghanistan. I really never believed there was a DIRECT connection between the USA and the Mujahideen (see my above post), just a *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge* war by proxy that they were blissfully oblivious about.

And I get home from work at around 8:00 PST if you can keep your hard-on in your pants until then regarding me giving you the sources I was working off.

Also, I'm big enough to state that you have schooled me more on the topic. Thank you.

Ok, my lunch-hour is long over, however I spent it doing some research, and I was able to locate where you got the majority of your citations from. I'm going to take the liberty of wasting some of my afternoon in discussing some of the debates I had with my Terrorism Studies professor. I will use material directly from the source document you used in an attempt to show why it is no slam-dunk proof.

Link (pops)

Essentially, the argument centers around the USA/Saudi connection. From the same document you pulled the majority of your citations from (also a US Government source, just saying...) it is revealed that there were matching funds for every dollar spent between the CIA and Saudi government:


Milt Bearden served as the CIA station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989, where he was in charge of running the covert action program for Afghanistan. In his memoirs titled "The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB," Bearden says the United States, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China, Egypt, and the UK were "major players" in the effort to aid the Afghans. Bearden writes:

"[President Jimmy] Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, had in 1980 secured an agreement from the Saudi king to match American contributions to the Afghan effort dollar for dollar, and [Reagan administration CIA director] Bill Casey kept that agreement going over the years." (The Main Enemy, p. 219)

From 1983 to 1987, Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf was in charge of the Afghan Bureau of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which ran Pakistan's covert program to aid the Afghan mujahidin. In his book The Bear Trap: Afghanistan's Untold Story, Brigadier Yousaf confirms the matching U.S.-Saudi arrangement, stating:

"For every dollar supplied by the US, another was added by the Saudi Arabian government. The combined funds, running into several hundred million dollars a year, were transferred by the CIA to special accounts in Pakistan under the control of the ISI." (The Bear Trap, p. 81)

This begs the question, who did the ISI give the funds to?

The United States wanted to be able to deny that the CIA was funding the Afghan war, so its support was funnelled through Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI). ISI in turn made the decisions about which Afghan factions to arm and train, tending to favor the most Islamist and pro-Pakistan. The Afghan Arabs generally fought alongside those factions

Without an audit of the ISI (unlikely.. haha) for those years, it is impossible to assess which groups received these matched funds. The Arab Mujahideen fit the bill perfectly with respect to the profile of group which would qualify under the ISI's pro-Islam policy.

If the Arabs fought along side factions funded by the CIA through the ISI, it is clearly probable they benefitted both directly and indirectly from the arms and supplies provided by the ISI.

In regards to the relationship between Osama's fighters and the fighters at large, all I really have to go on is the quotes showing how in general the Afghani Mujahideen didn't like the Arab Mujahideen. Now, if they were fighting alongside armies that held far closer ideological ties (ie: forces favoured by the ISI) I wonder how the rapport was? More hearsay and conjecture unfortunately. Nevertheless, in a warzone who the fark knows... The USA can't even keep track of what money is going where in Iraq.

Basically, what I've tried to do here is show how so little is known about what REALLY happened there... With vast sums of money (running into the hundreds of millions of dollars) being funnelled through the ISI by the "matching funds" initiative, do you really think that none of that matched Saudi money found its way to Osama Bin Laden through the ISI? Particularly considering that the vast majority of their backing came from Saudi fortunes (not exclusively the Bin Laden fortune). Once again, I'll admit, this is conjecture. It holds intuitive weight though, don't you think?

At most I'd say the USA is at moral fault for throwing millions at the ISI without knowing where that money is going. That they didn't know the money would eventually go towards supporting people who would then become enemies of the USA shows why this isn't the only instance of this happening (*cough* Saddam *cough*).

Also, what do you think happened to the arms and supplies once the Soviets were out? You can't arm a population to the teeth and then disavow responsibility when said arms fall into the hands of your enemies after the war ends.

Basically, what I believe, and what I believe evidence and pragmatic reality suggests, is that Bin Laden and subsequently al-Qa'ida directly and indirectly benefited from the CIA's matching funds by increasing the flow of arms and supplies into their base countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan (hundreds of millions of dollars a year); this not only increased the volatility in the region, but increased the perception by al-Qa'ida that the USA's meddling in the affairs of the Middle-East needed to be curbed... violently. This was of course exacerbated by Saudi Arabia's rebuff of Bin Laden in favour of US assistance in Iraq a few years later.

Anyway, I'm officially in trouble for not working and replying to you, so I must now go back to work.

ace0spades You state your opinions, beg questions, present hypothetical possibilities, but provide no evidence proving your claims.

You ignore direct statements by Al Qaeda's #2 at the time, comments by journalists and other sources and claim the U.S. is at fault by association.

IGNORING EVERYTHING PRESENTED THROUGH MULTIPLE THIRD PARTIES pointing out that Osama (and the Arab mujahideen) inserted himself and his group into the middle of an armed conflict with his own funding for his own ideological motives.

And cling to your fantasies. Talk about self-deluding. You prove my point.


answer: c) Fark

Sorry kid, I can't help you. Later.

Meh, I reject your third-party evidence based reality and substitute one based on realistic probability. On the contrary, you're deluding yourself by ignoring if a -> b, b -> c, a -> c. You are giving unconditional affirmation of "evidence" without questioning its validity.

The third party evidence is deeply flawed and biased. Every third party has an interest in not stating the CIA funded or backed their operation. The USA for obvious reasons, and particularly Al Qaeda because they don't want to alienate themselves from their followers by showing themselves to be a shill of the USA, given their anti-USA stance.

Sorry kid, I can't help you either. Later.

ace0spades: Meh, I reject your third-party evidence based reality and substitute one based on realistic probability.

lmao. I have a BS in pure mathematics and a MS in econometrics (you may need to look that one up).

You want to discuss the Bayesian probabilities on this one kid based on multiple sources present and involved?

You really are self deluding. I reject you, and your bullshiat urban legend rhetoric based on actual evidence (something you haven't been able to provide).

later kid. grow up.

NO YOU! Haha.

At this point I'm sure we're just spinning our wheels regarding the US involvement in Afghanistan in the 80s. All I ever essentially said was that the USA was negligent in providing arms to a volatile region, and that they bear some responsibility for the fallout of their actions.

You need not pull the classic, yet ultimately douche-tastic "I have a degree" card, because quite frankly you don't need a degree to see that the situation was ripe for the picking for any fighter in Afghanistan to benefit from the hundreds of millions of dollars funneled to the ISI. Where there is smoke.

You really are self deluding. I reject you, and your bullshiat "common knowledge" rhetoric based on biased and suspect evidence (something I used your "evidence" to point out).

Later kid. Maybe you should go get another degree in not being an elitist?

ace0spades: At this point I'm sure we're just spinning our wheels regarding the US involvement in Afghanistan in the 80s.

No, your citing urban legend, nothing more. you have no evidence, you're self deluding.

You're the one who discounted collaborating testimony and documented statements from people who present and involved and instead cited subjective probability. You need to look up Bayesian probability and inference you farking idiot.

/farker chu2dogg was right when they said they found an idiot.

//what a farking tool you are.

You're the one who is discounting that said testimony is made from a stance that is from the get-go manufactured to wash the hands of the parties involved. US and Saudi Arabia give money to Pakistan, Pakistan funnels money to pro-Islamic freedom fighters. This is fact.

All I have ever said is that it is highly possible some of this money made its way to sources that would later come to attack the USA domestically and abroad. And that the parties involved in this transaction have highly vested interests in downplaying, denying, and ignoring the connection. Why would the USA then come out and say, "Oh yeah, we totally farked that one up didn't we... May be we shouldn't play war-by-proxy?"

You are deluding yourself by continuing your blind acceptance of an "official" account without even a passing fancy at whether it has merit.

//Farker chu2dogg WAS right, I was being an idiot by making an inflammatory statement like that off the bat
//What a farking tool you are for not being able to accept the possibility that you may be wrong.

ace0spades: You're the one who is discounting that said testimony is made from a stance that is from the get-go manufactured to wash the hands of the parties involved. US and Saudi Arabia give money to Pakistan, Pakistan funnels money to pro-Islamic freedom fighters. This is fact.

All I have ever said is that it is highly possible some of this money made its way to sources that would later come to attack the USA domestically and abroad. And that the parties involved in this transaction have highly vested interests in downplaying, denying, and ignoring the connection. Why would the USA then come out and say, "Oh yeah, we totally farked that one up didn't we... May be we shouldn't play war-by-proxy?"

Replace the word "testimony" with multiple collaborating independent accounts and verifications by witnesses and involved parties to multiple independent groups and you get REALITY vs. your obvious blind bias with zero supporting evidence.

Also, it's obvious you weren't an adult at the time because you have no clue why we had and have war by proxy.

And you don't realize that citing your "opinion and beliefs" as "probability" to insinuate them as factual events with obvious bias when shown independent collaborating witness verifications of history WHILE YOU HAVE NOT ONE SHRED OF farkING EVIDENCE, is unethical horseshiat.

So now "probability" shows you have no problems propagating lies for your personal motives (be it political or self delusion) and it is "highly possibly" that even if these people told you what they've stated in writing in multiple collaborating text to several different groups and authors over a course of multiple years, that your delusions would prevent you from believing them.

/you'd make awesome holocaust denier too. maybe you should try that as a sideline.

You see, I choose to operate from the standpoint that I may be wrong, but that I would like to entertain the possibility that the official account is false given that your "multiple collaborating independent accounts and verifications by witnesses and involved parties to multiple independent groups" are really just US Government officers inside Afghanistan, and the other "sources" merely state that there was no direct training and funding by the CIA. That's all your "evidence" states. Go back up and check what you posted. There are massive massive holes in your argument.

-Vincent Cannistraro, who led the Reagan administration's Afghan Working Group
-Milton Bearden, the Agency's chief field operative in the war
-Marc Sageman, a Foreign Service Officer

You on the other hand, are accepting this questionable "evidence" at face value without even considering the possibility that what you have been spoon fed is stated in a way that answers the broad easy problems without addressing the tough ancillary problems created by injecting hundreds of millions of dollars into a warzone without a care for the fallout. Your "independent" accounts all fail to answer the question as to whether the arms provided through the ISI to the Afghani resistance ended up in the hands of other terror groups post-war.

Nice Godwin about the holocaust denier thing though, that was a nice touch I was honestly expecting, and shows that you are in a rush to go back to your ivory tower where you don't need to ask hard questions that make you uncomfortable... Run along little sheep, your grass needs grazing.

lol. you don't care because you have no ethics.

you also ignore other collaborating independent accounts and verifications by witnesses and involved parties to multiple independent groups

Peter Jouvenal (journalist)

Al Qaeda's number two leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, confirmed that the "Afghan Arabs" did not receive any U.S. funding during the war in Afghanistan. In the book that was described as his last will, Knights Under the Prophet's Banner, which was serialized in December 2001 in Al-Sharq al-Awsat, al-Zawahiri says the Afghan Arabs were funded with money from Arab sources, which amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars.

And if you actually put forth the effort, you would find other collaborating statements from people who were present and involved.

Bottom-line, you have no problems propagating lies, myths and distortions with absolutely no evidence whatsoever supporting your claims and ignoring all evidence to the contrary.

Ethics elude you. Observations about you being self-deluding are an understatement.

I don't even know how to reply to you, because you've missed my point so completely that we're not even arguing about the same thing anymore.

"Afghan Arabs" did not receive any U.S. funding during the war in Afghanistan.

The funding came from Pakistan. From the ISI. As I stated before, your "evidence" does not refute anything I've said.

Afghan Arabs were funded with money from Arab sources, which amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Arabs donated hundreds millions of dollars through the matching funds initiative. They also donated hundreds of millions to private funds such as the Bin Ladens and other fighters. Their fingers were in every pot. There is no way to know for sure which money from the Arabs went where, whether they were from the same sources, or anything. Your argument here is moot and pointless.

You have no grounds for comment on my ethics. Where did this statement come from? Talk about coming out of left field with baseless insults.

I am not ignoring all evidence to the contrary, merely pointing out how the "evidence" really doesn't prove your point. Furthermore, you fail to acknowledge or comment on the giant gap of opportunity which was, and still is present, allowing my argument to take place. If you re-read my previous posts you will see this.

You have no problem categorically denouncing my argument wholesale without even stopping to self-analyze your own. You present "evidence" that does not provide unequivocal proof. No evidence exists, nor will it ever, because the ISI won't tell you, me, or anyone who they gave their money to. The only evidence we have is that they gave it to pro-Islam, pro-Pakistan groups. Do you deny that the Arab fighters fit the bill? It is easy to deny that you received funds from the USA when it came from the ISI in Pakistan.

Also, you've completely ignored the central thrust of my argument.
I don't think the CIA cut a cheque for Osama, nor do I think they trained him or anyone he fought with. What I claim is that the actions of the USA in Afghanistan during the 80s, while helping oust the Soviets, created a heavily armed, volatile situation that followed their withdrawal.

The environment created through the matching-funds initiative pushed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of arms and supplies into Afghanistan. Those arms don't disappear. They propagate down the chain into the armouries of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. If you fail to see this, it is you sir who are beyond deluded.

You can keep repeating that I'm "propagating lies, myths and distortions with absolutely no evidence whatsoever supporting [my] claims and ignoring all evidence to the contrary." But I keep clarifying my stance for you while you seem content to attack me ad hominem regarding my inquisitions.

You have continued to ignore my assertion that the USA's actions lead to an increase in volatility in the region, including an increase in armament to groups that would later come to harbour or perpetrate terrorism and terrorist groups. Instead, you seem to think that I continue to believe a direct funding/training relationship existed.

Bottom-line, I am asking questions of the official account which has more gaping holes than Courtney Love. You are denouncing my questioning as deluded while calling me unethical for doing it. Why?

"to understand complex issues (or even simple ones), we must try to free our minds of dogma and to guarantee the freedom to publish, to contradict, and to experiment. Arguments from authority are unacceptable ... Humans may crave absolute certainty; they may aspire to it; they may pretend, as partisans of certain religions do, to have attained it ... the most we can hope for is successive improvement in our understanding, learning from our mistakes, an asymptotic approach to the Universe, but with the proviso that absolute certainty will always elude us." - Carl Sagan

You sir, are on your high horse, and I don't expect you will come down to address anything I've said. To the contrary, since you provided your evidence you have done nothing but attack me. I'm disappointed with you, because you are nothing more than someone who is willing to look at a few disjointed quotes and hail them as unequivocal proof without taking a step back and looking at the big picture.

How is the air up there on your high horse anyway? I hear altitude sickness gives you brain damage.