Actually, I think they were supporting an anti-Communist, anti-Soviet, guerilla war within Afgahnistan to oppose the Soviet occupation. I don't think anyone in the State Department or elsewhere talked of "radical jihad" during the 1980s.
The US allied with and/or supported a number of less than pristine groups during the Cold War simply to aid any resistance to the USSR and international communism.
Rand Paul has a lot of appeal in many ways, but I'm afraid he'll have more than enough questionable statements in his backgroud to practically eliminate him from any presidential possibilities.
The CIA were supporting the jihadists until 1991 ish (After Soviet union), they even gave them textbooks!
“Look how that turned out” is a reference to the fact that after the soviets left the jihadists in power then targeted Americans, specifically on 9/11
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In the twilight of the Cold War, the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.
The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, though the radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict fundamentalist code.
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