The C.I.A. and later, the Reagan administration used the war in Afghanistan as a tool for the eventual collapse of the Soviet Empire. The effects of the Western powers meddling (primarily the U.S. and Britain) have continued to send aftershocks throughout the modern world. The network that the Reagan administration would ensure the creation of, remains largely intact to this day. Al-Qaeda, and its leader Osama Bin Laden are among a million individuals and organizations that owe much of their success to the love and support of the U.S. Government, especially the Reagan administration and the C.I.A during the entire decade of the 1980s on into the 1990s, and still to this very day. The following in an excerpt from a timeline constructed to track the majors points of "Charlie Wilsons War".


courtesy of historycommons.org
1985-1986: CIA Becomes Unhappy with Afghan Fighters, Begins Supporting Islamist Volunteers from Other Countries

The Central Intelligence Agency, which has been supporting indigenous Afghan groups fighting occupying Soviet forces, becomes unhappy with them due to infighting, and searches for alternative anti-Soviet allies. MSNBC will later comment: “[T]he CIA, concerned about the factionalism of Afghanistan made famous by Rudyard Kipling, found that Arab zealots who flocked to aid the Afghans were easier to ‘read’ than the rivalry-ridden natives. While the Arab volunteers might well prove troublesome later, the agency reasoned, they at least were one-dimensionally anti-Soviet for now. So [Osama] bin Laden, along with a small group of Islamic militants from Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestinian refugee camps all over the Middle East, became the ‘reliable’ partners of the CIA in its war against Moscow.” The CIA does not usually deal with the Afghan Arabs directly, but through an intermediary, Pakistan’s ISI, which helps the Arabs through the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) run by Abdullah Azzam. [MSNBC, 8/24/1998] The agreement is sealed during a secret visit to Pakistan, where CIA Director William Casey commits the agency to support the ISI program of recruiting radical Muslims for the Afghan war from other Muslim countries around the world. In addition to the Gulf States, these include Turkey, the Philippines, and China. The ISI started their recruitment of radicals from other countries in 1982 (see 1982). This CIA cooperation is part of a joint CIA-ISI plan begun the year before to expand the “Jihad” beyond Afghanistan (see 1984-March 1985). [RASHID, 2001, PP. 128-129] Thousands of militant Arabs are trained under this program (see 1986-1992).