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al-qaeda means "the base." So there is a basic organizational structure, with roots in fundamentalism (madrassas) and ties to different intelligence agencies such as the ISID in Pakistan. There is no real evidence that bin Laden directly received American aid while he was in Afghanistan. He definitely indirectly was helped by the CIA, for sure, but they probably did not deal with him personally. They dealt with people like Gulbeddin Hekmatyar and Ahmed Shah Massoud. Who eventually became involved with the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. Bin Laden is independentally wealthy and had his own resources, so he didn't necessarily receive help from the U.S. personally, nor was he the major leader of the Freedom Fighter effort. He did, however, make his name as a Jihadist in Afghanistan and that as well as the first Gulf War and his opposition to that, gave him his career as a Jihadist.
The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan has to be taken in context to the Cold War of course, unfortunately our actions there, while they didn't create the bin ladens of the world, they did give them a Jihad to cut their teeth on and develop tremendous skills that would benefit them as they continued their careers. It is inaccurate to call al-qaeda a concept, they do have organizational roots. However, what we see now, largely in part to 9-11 and the Iraq War, is a decentralization of this organization. It has now become an inspiration to more independent cells. However, a lot of the basic funding sources are still there. The bombings in London last summer were definitely amateur hour, no doubt, but they were likely done by amateurs who had tapped into the basic al-qaeda financial network. The probably recieved money from al-qaeda affiliates. But they aren't specifically al-qaeda themselves. It's complex. You can't really say one thing definitively either way. For example, it isn't accurate to just dismiss al-qaeda as a concept, because it is very much real. Yet it isn't accurate to see them as a giant monolith the way the Bushies tend to do. I don't doubt that their connections are far-reaching. Al-qaeda has essentially spread to 70 different countries. What is most likely not true is that they are all one group working in coordination with each other and under the direction of one man. They don't exist that way. Lost in this is that Jihadist or terror groups have different goals. For example, some people might consider Jaish e-Mohammed or Lashkar e-toiba as al-qaeda affiliates. Well, yes and no. They may have connections, but they also compete with each other or work towards different causes. Lashkar e-toiba, for example, is a fundamentalist Kashmir insurgency group. They aren't trying to attack the U.S. or anything, they just are fighting Hindus in Kashmir. Now some of them may cross over and work in other groups hostile to the U.S. too, it just depends. Also, Lashkar e-toiba's most famous member is the Father of the Islam Bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who sold nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran etc.
But yes, it's too complex to just reduce them to one thing or another. As for American involvement with 9-11, I would think that the worst thing is that it was ignored. It wasn't complicit, I just think this administration in particular knew something was up and didn't take it seriously. I do doubt they let it happen or made it happen on purpose. They just didn't really care about terrorism, they were more focused on going into Iraq at some point and were figuring that out. Now, I am interested to see if Americans -as in regular white Americans etc - are fundamentalist sympathizers. I would like to see that. See if any give up many to the cause and so forth. Not sure what the evidence or outlook on that is though.
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