[KevinTheOmnivore]

Who would even dream of questioning the authenticity of "theinsider.org"???

I can't say looking at what appears to be a glorified blog really tells me anything. For example, the argument that we trained jihadists in Afghanistan is pretty well known, but it also tends to get misrepresented. We did invest a lot of money in Afghanistan, and yes, it was pretty stupid, and yes, we did cut and run. But the reason folks like Bin Laden actually got to create lists and coordinate the creation of early Al Qaeda that way was actually due to the hands-off nature we took in the training. We wanted "their" people to train "their" soldiers, so we sort of turned a blind eye while guys like Bin Laden recruited and trained religious zealots.

one of many good books on the subject was written by Yossef Bodansky, "Bin Laden: the man who declared war on America." it may have been written prior to 9/11 actually. Bodansky was one of the few weirdos you could call an expert on Bin Laden and terrorism before 9/11.

And my response to this argument would be so what? Do we stick our collective heads in the ground and accept the fact that this organization that we sort of kind of had a role in organizing is killing innocent people and wants to destroy the West? Does that sound rational?