Re: historical questions

Afghanistan 

A bitter harvest
Sep 13th 2001 | LAHORE 
From The Economist print edition 

The sufferings of Afghanistan come to New York

IN ITS understandable rage for justice, America may be tempted to overlook 
one uncomfortable fact. Its own policies in Afghanistan a decade and more ago 
helped to create both Osama bin Laden and the fundamentalist Taliban regime 
that shelters him.

The notion of jihad, or holy war, had almost ceased to exist in the Muslim 
world after the tenth century until it was revived, with American 
encouragement, to fire an international pan-Islamic movement after the Soviet 
invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. For the next ten years, the CIA and Saudi 
intelligence together pumped in billions of dollars’ worth of arms and 
ammunition through Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) to the 
many mujahideen groups fighting in Afghanistan. 

The policy worked: the Soviet Union suffered such terrible loses in 
Afghanistan that it withdrew its forces in 1989, and the humiliation of that 
defeat, following on from the crippling cost of the campaign, helped to 
undermine the Soviet system itself. But there was a terrible legacy: 
Afghanistan was left awash with weapons, warlords and extreme religious 
zealotry.

For the past ten years that deadly brew has spread its ill-effects widely. 
Pakistan has suffered terrible destabilisation. But the afghanis, the name 
given to the young Muslim men who fought the infidel in Afghanistan, have 
carried their jihad far beyond: to the corrupt kingdoms of the Gulf, to the 
repressive states of the southern Mediterranean, and now, perhaps, to New 
York and Washington, DC.

Chief among the afghanis was Mr bin Laden, a scion of one of Saudi Arabia’s 
richest business families. Recruited by the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince 
Turki al Faisal, to help raise funds for the jihad, he became central to the 
recruitment and training of mujahideen from across the Muslim world. Mr bin 
Laden fought against the Russians on the side of the ISI’s favourite Afghan, 
Gulbuddin Hikmatyar, whose Hezb-e-Islami party became the largest recipient 
of CIA money. 

After the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the Americans quickly 
lost interest in the country and a struggle for power erupted among the 
mujahideen. But since no group was strong enough to capture and hold Kabul, 
the capital, Afghanistan slumped into anarchy. In 1995-96, a movement of 
Pathan students—Taliban—from religious schools in the border regions of 
Afghanistan and Pakistan swept the country, promising a restoration of order. 
They enjoyed Pakistani backing, and almost certainly the approval of the 
Americans.

Meanwhile, Mr bin Laden had become a self-avowed enemy of America, appalled 
at the presence of American troops on holy Saudi soil during the Gulf war. 
Exiled to Sudan, he was soon forced to leave. He secretly returned to 
Afghanistan, becoming a guest of the Taliban, whose interpretation of Islam 
and hostility to the West he shares. After attacks on two American embassies 
in 1998, America tried to persuade the Taliban to surrender him. When the 
regime refused, the Americans retaliated by raining cruise missiles on 
guerrilla camps in Afghanistan. The Taliban have steadfastly refused to hand 
Mr bin Laden over. As their guest he remains.