[ansel12]

Oh, nonsense, we didn’t create Bin Laden, and if you would prefer to have the Soviet Union back, and whatever they would have done or wiped out during the last 30 years after winning in Afghanistan, then you are just insane.

Doesn’t anyone remember what the free world faced in 1983. at least what was left of it?

[Pelham]

Bin Laden was an extremely marginal player in the Afghan war against the USSR. He basically provided a very small bit of financing at the very end. His role has been greatly exaggerated by those who want to believe that we created him. It’s manure.

[BBell]

OK. We did not create Bin-Laden directly but we created a vacuum of which he filled. He was not a big player and he did come late in the game. But what he did was keep a book of like minded individuals and groups that he later used to create Al-Qaeda, or loosely translalated as "the base", along with Ayman al-Zawahiri and others.

I believe, but we will never know, that had we not armed the Mujaheddin we would not be having the problems we are having now. Once the Soviets were defeated there were a lot of restless Islamist and Al-Qaeda took advantage of this to move on to bigger and better things. As I wrote before, I believe the collapse of the Soviet Union was inevitable as long as we had a strong leadership in this Country.

It's hard to argue when you are dealing with "what ifs."