Originally Posted by
tkthafm
Originally Posted by wawaweewa
Saudis supplied the manpower and money. US supplied money,military intelligence, and arms. Pakista, via it's ISI, provided the training/ organization as well as weapons purchases with Saudi money.
To the Afghan mujahideen.
Let's not get confused here.
This is far different from claiming they founded "al-Qaeda". This is completely wrong. Little to no evidence exists that the US ever armed foreign fighterss or worked with Bin Laden. The mujahideen in Afghanistan are not and were not the same thing as Al-Qaeda. The CIA certainly did arm the
Afghan Mujahideen and some of these elements became the
Taliban. Al-Qaeda has been mostly funded by rich donors, including bin Laden himself. There is no credible evidence that the CIA trained or gave money to foreign mujahideen (i.e. non-Afghans). Ayman al-Zawahiri confirmed this in a book, and bin Laden claimed a similar story. There's been speculation to the contrary, but no credible evidence has surfaced and people in the know have said it didn't happen. Bin Laden had no need for Western money and certainly, even at that time, wouldn't have agreed to partner with the US. There are few things al-Qaeda & US agree on, and this is one of them. The ISI/al-Qaeda connection/sympathy is true, but they did not "create" al-Qaeda; and neither did the Saudi's (really, the SAUDI'S ? lol). Remember that al-Qaeda ideology and the mentality of its foreign fighters split off from many of the Afghans/ or less "radical" elements (Abdullah Yusuf Azzam most notably)
and it was only at this time did al-Qaeda even begin to truly take shape.Why any of these nations would supposedly arm/train/found a group hell bent on their destruction I can't imagine. I'd love to see credible evidence showing otherwise, be it material aid or implanting the ideology (which one can argue IS what 'al-Qaeda' actually is) that any of these nations "founded" al-Qaeda.