The CIA- Bin Ladin Myth

The recent cleansing of the earth of Osama Bin Ladin has re-ignited old discussions about Al Qaeda and its origins. Pundits have been fond of reciting the "fact" that Osama Bin Ladin was a creation of the CIA during its proxy war against the soviets in Afghanistan. The US was alleged to have "trained" and funded the so called Mujahadeen (Holy warriors) rebels led by Osama. It sounds quite intriguing-a quintessential Frankenstein story of the creation turning against its creator-if only it were true. It has been one of the most longstanding oft repeated myths regarding Bin Ladin. This urban tale is used by the left to illustrate faulty US foreign policy in supporting resistance forces in the middle east which in turn creates what is known as "blowback' when those same forces turn against us.

It is no revelation that the United States was an open supporter of the Afghan resistance with money and weapons. Osama Bin Ladin went to Afghanistan in the 1980's-family wealth in hand- to support the Afghan resistance. There were two fronts in the resistance, along with the afghan fighters, there was a Saudi Arabia sponsored rag tag group of fighters who filtered into the country to help drive out the Soviets. The "Arab volunteers" as they became known, were not well regarded by the Afghans or their CIA backers. They believed they were inferior fighters that did not take direction well. Many of them were hardly volunteers. Some were taken out of prisons in Egypt and Saudi Arabia and sent to fight. Osama was a financier and commander of this group and desired to create an all Arab resistance force. After the US began supplying the Afghan resistance with surface to air missiles the war turned in favor of the rebels. After the soviets were driven out and Osama's stature began to grow larger, he falsely became associated with the CIA sponsored Afghans- and so the myth was born. The CIA association was hotly disputed by Osama himself in an interview with Arab news outlet Al Jazeera:

"As for their claim that they supported the Jihad and the struggle against the soviets, well this support came from Arab countries, especially from the Gulf....The Americans are lying when they claim they helped us at any point, and we challenge them to present a single shred of evidence to prove it. In fact they were a burden to us...Unintended confluence of interest does not mean there is any kind of link or tacit agreement".

For the record, the agency has never claimed an asociation with Osama. Al Qaeda #2 Aymin Al Zawahiri in his autobiographical "Knights Under The Banner Of the Prophet", wrote: "The truth that everyone should learn is that the United States did not give one penny in aid to the [Arab] Mujaheddin". A Former Bin Ladin associate Abu Musab al-Suri i wrote in his Jihadist history manifesto "The Call to Global Islamic Resistance":"It is a lie that the Afghan Arabs were formed with the backing of the CIA". Journalist Peter Bergan who interviewed Bin Ladin in 1997 has also disputed this CIA-Bin Ladin alliance as did Michael Scheuer who headed the CIA's Bin Ladin desk. This assertion has been repeated dozens of times over the past week by mainstream media pundits with a goal to paint US foreign policy in the middle east as 'Chickens coming home to roost'. The problem is this chicken isn't ours-he belongs to the Saudis who have not surprisingly denied any close association with him. Although claims of a Bin Ladin-CIA history have been made for almost two decades, proof of such a relationship has yet surface.

The Americans had no dealings with the Arab Afghan's and almost none with the Afghan Mujahadeen. The US agent which ran the war was the Pakistani intelligence service ISI. Brigidier Mohammad Yousaf, who coordinated the war on the Pakistani side wrote in his 1992 book "The Bear Trap": "No Americans ever trained or had direct contact with the Mujaheddin. Good people on both sides can disagree US policy in Afghanistan or any other country in the world. However one should not let myths overshadow the truth. The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan summed it up best: You're entitled to you're own opinion but not your own facts.

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