[QUOTE]Originally posted by popcornbird
[B]Well said Ann. I totally agree on what you said about the CIA training the Taliban. That has been proved long time ago. Does anyone know exactly WHY they trained them???

Why didn't anyone answer my question? I believe its because no one has an answer.

dear ann, i wasn't on list last night, pardon my delay in responding to your question. this is a very short reply. the answer lies in cold war politics and proxy fights. in many regions of the world, the USSR and US (and to a small extent China and Cuba) were supporting opposing groups in an effort to gain friendly nations and tie up troops,so that there were fewer troops able to be stationed on the european mainland. if troops could be tied up in long, financially and materially draining wars outside of europe, there were less available be stationed on the european mainland directly threating europe &NATO . the soviet union had invaded afghanistan in the very late 1970s.(remember carter declining the invitation for american athletes to go to moscow for their olympics as a measure of public censure for the afghan invasion?)in a much greater level, the reagan administration supplied the afghan freedom fighters, mujahadeen(maybe misspelled) to keep the soviet troops tied up in a long bloody draining war. it worked quite well as a proxy fight; the afghan soldier is a fierce, hard dangerous fighter, and the soviets weren't able to subdue that country sufficiently to impose control. when the soviets finally left, after heavily land mining the country, the power vacuum allowed the deeply traditional conservative islamic taliban to gain control in the early 1990s, and establish their domain. ben lauden provided a great deal of currency to the taliban and was able to 'rent' (my word) that country for training camps for his plans.
i hope this helps, joyce