Who created al Qaeda?

geggy

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geggy
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Operation Cyclone

Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency program to arm and finance the mujahideen, in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, prior to and during the military intervention by the USSR in support of its client, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. The program leaned heavily towards supporting militant Islamic groups that were favored by the regime of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in neighboring Pakistan, rather than other, less ideological Afghan resistance groups that had also been fighting the Marxist-oriented Democratic Republic of Afghanistan regime since before the Soviet intervention. Operation Cyclone was one of the longest and most expensive covert CIA operations ever undertaken; funding began with just over $500,000 in 1979, was increased dramatically to $20–$30 million per year in 1980 and rose to $630 million per year in 1987.

Hillary Clinton: We created al Qaeda

And there's this guy
 
OK, which one of you created al Qaeda?...

I've got all day, you know. Nobody leaves this room until the culprit owns up.

It was actually a group of Muslims obsessed with the writings of a bloke whose name I forget but comprises too many consonants. He came up with the idea that most Muslims weren't True Muslims (TM)TM and there needed to be a concerted effort to sort the wheat from the chaff. AQ's initial objectives were similar to ISIS in that they wanted to established the caliphate.
 
I've got $2 on Hillary and $2 on Obama.

Come on baby, daddy needs a new pair of shoes!
 
Actually the USA definitely did aid groups such as al Qaeda to help encourage opposition to the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Including providing arms. This is well documented and is not seriously in dispute. But this strategy is used by virtually all countries seeking to play on the world stage: provide support, usually quietly, to the enemies of your enemies. I would not call it "created" but rather just the usual attempt to exploit pre-existing religious and political organizations and prejudices to supplement overall American foreign policy goals.

I do think it can be argued that in this case the USA made a mistake in doing so.
 
Giordano said:
Actually the USA definitely did aid groups such as al Qaeda to help encourage opposition to the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Including providing arms. This is well documented and is not seriously in dispute. But this strategy is used by virtually all countries seeking to play on the world stage: provide support, usually quietly, to the enemies of your enemies. I would not call it "created" but rather just the usual attempt to exploit pre-existing religious and political organizations and prejudices to supplement overall American foreign policy goals.

I do think it can be argued that in this case the USA made a mistake in doing so.
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Yep, find wannabe terrorists, kill wannabee terrorists.
 
And the US and the UK supported some fairly unsavory people who were fighting Hitler in World War 2....

The Afghan Rebels were a mixed bunch. The Northen Alliance who were to become bitter enemies of the Taliaban/AL Qaida in Afghantistan also fought the Russians.
 
Giordano said:
Actually the USA definitely did aid groups such as al Qaeda to help encourage opposition to the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.
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No.

The CIA did reach out to Al Qaeda and bin Laden during the Soviet occupation, but they were clear in their not wanting anything to do with the United States, and what they feel is a Zionist-controlled CIA.

This was covered in Steve Coll's book, "Ghost Wars". And after 9-11 the CIA did an internal audit just to make sure someone hadn't made a back door deal at some point (they found nothing).

We gave aid the the Mujaheddin, who represented a cross section of Afghan tribals. Some of those tribes would become the Taliban. The Taliban does not get along with Al Qaeda once the protection money stops.

The US is quietly negotiating with the Taliban to extricate ourselves from their wonderful country.

https://in.reuters.com/article/afgh...deal-with-taliban-in-2019-media-idINKCN1NN0BZ
 
Axxman300 said:
No.

The CIA did reach out to Al Qaeda and bin Laden during the Soviet occupation, but they were clear in their not wanting anything to do with the United States, and what they feel is a Zionist-controlled CIA.

This was covered in Steve Coll's book, "Ghost Wars". And after 9-11 the CIA did an internal audit just to make sure someone hadn't made a back door deal at some point (they found nothing).

We gave aid the the Mujaheddin, who represented a cross section of Afghan tribals. Some of those tribes would become the Taliban. The Taliban does not get along with Al Qaeda once the protection money stops.

The US is quietly negotiating with the Taliban to extricate ourselves from their wonderful country.

https://in.reuters.com/article/afgh...deal-with-taliban-in-2019-media-idINKCN1NN0BZ
Click to expand...

Morevoer, in order to maintain some kind of plausible deniability, the US did not funnel this money directly. They gave it to Pakistan to distribute. The ISS financed all the most Islamist groups they could find, because they thought that these groups would be more inclined to favour Pakistan and extend their influence over Afghanistan.
Al Qaeda never took this money, both because of their already-existing hatred of America, but also because they didn't need to. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were pouring money into Peshawar to finance their own favourite fighters.
Geggy: perhaps if you had looked beyond the CT websites and read some actual history, you would have known this. Quote-mined speeches on YouTube do not make up for an ignorance of the facts. These sites are presenting a false and - on occasion- dishonest version of events. Don't trust them.
 
My hunch is that Intel does you "third parties" to achieve policy goals. US considered USSR and then Russia enemies and were in a global struggle to secure "client states" for economic and "strategic" reasons. This allowed both states to avoid direct military conflict which could easily escalate. So both would funnel weapons and "support" to the groups which opposed their "enemy".

It can't be ignored that the local residents in the ME had suffered from years of mostly western intervention in their region. Brits imposed monarchies when they created SA and Jordan. Islam had no model for monarchies. Long and short is that the West exploited the region and the imposed governments were very oppressive to the people who understood where the muscle was coming from... the West. Russia supported the left wing government in Afghanistan. In 1987 - leftist President Mohammad Najibullah was installed as leader. USSR at the time supported him. Bingo... USA believed they had to displace him. Proxy war began and USA supported the northern alliance of "insurgents" who sought the overthrow of Najibullah. And many "Arabs" from across the region apparently went to Afghanistan to fight the infidels... first the USSR backed Najibullah (then USA backed) gov that overthrow him. Enemy of my enemy got support and this was likely the beginning of AQ. I suspect the Arabist fighters were not thrilled with the USA meddling either. They were probably OK taking military support but wanted nothing more. USA wanted an Afghan client state.. Karzai became that leader after 2001 when the Taliban was run out.

It seems plausible that the USA got some blow back on 9/11 from AQ who wanted the West out of the region and to stop the USA from supporting Israel's "oppression" of Palestinians. It's also likely that the USA knew of the animus AQ had to the USA but the USA had no strategy to destroy AQ.... who was mounting attacks such as the two embassy bombings in norther Africa... and the Khobar towers bombing in 1996. Terrorism was becoming a real problem for the USA... and 9/11 was the straw that broke the camel's back and got them to take military action. Military action against terrorists and terrorism made no sense. Our military was not designed to fight terrorism... So we falsely claimed Sadam was behind 911 and he had WMDs... excuse to attack him. He was anti US. anti Israel and supported by the Russians. And then we decided to attack Afghanistan who had not attacked the USA.

Big mess... all spin off from East West meddling in the Mid East. Russia has also experienced terrorism in 1999 Chechnya bombings.
 
Accepting that Al Quaeda's early financing was primarily from Arab countries / individuals; how much was this encouraged / promoted by the US? We know that the US is prepared to use occult funding mechanisms (see Oliver North).
 
Dave Rogers said:
Did you mean "covert," or is this some conspiracy theory that Charlie Stross's Laundry novels are actually non-fiction?

Dave
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Occult in sensu stricto (I had to do Latin in school), means hidden so yes in this situation synonymous with covert or clandestine. When astronomers talk about occulting of stars they do not believe one of the ancient ones has swallowed the star, when doctors talk about an occult cancer they do not mean it is a result of a curse. Witches had to be occult as the alternative was burning. That magic was occult does not mean all occult things are magic.

Still we do know that a certain redhead with a bone white violin really dealt with Al Qaeda.
ETA
Why do you think the US was so desperate to seal the cave complex on the Afghan / Pakistan border?
 
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Planigale said:
Accepting that Al Quaeda's early financing was primarily from Arab countries / individuals; how much was this encouraged / promoted by the US? ...
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I don't know.
I just want to interject that early 1980s Al Qaeda was pretty tiny and insignificant in the larger picture of the Afghan wars. They were considered by the local factions as foreigners and not much loved by anyone. I don't for minute believe that the US services would have failed to notice this insignificance, and they would have acted / not acted accordingly - i.e. not to prop up AQ much, lest any allied Afghans turn sour.

AQ gained significant attention only when they started bombing western targets outside of Afghanistan.
And attention is what people seek more than most things.
 
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