This is an excerpt from a paper I wrote earlier in the year.


The U.S. needs to stay out of foreign affairs that have no immediate national security threat to us which would cause us to take military action for many reason. One of which being that we have a tendency to make enemies as we “fight for the greater good”. Case in point, Osama Bin Laden and the Attacks on 9/11. Osama Bin Laden’s hatred for the U.S. did not come overnight however; it did begin over 20 years ago during the Invasion of Afghanistan by Russia during the Cold War. On July 3rd, 1979 President Carter signed an order to secretly aid the Afghanistan Rebel’s to push out the Russian’s(Intervention). In an interview ten years ago the then head of the CIA was asked if he regretted supporting Islamic Radicalists to which he responded “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?” (Intervention). It is during this time that he founded Al Qaeda and began setting up training camps in Afghanistan which resulted in the recruitment and training of 5,000 members creating cells in 50 countries across the globe(Who Is). At the end of the Soviet invasion he moved back to Saudi Arabia to join his family and their construction company. His stay there however did not last long due largely in part of the fact that the 1993 bombings of the World Trade Center buildings were linked to Al Qaeda. The link resulted in the loss of his citizenship in that country and being disowned by his own family. Al Qaeda over this time grew in numbers and strength and the attacks became worse. His new strength came from new relationships with a Lebanese terrorist who was wanted for kidnappings named Imad Mugniyah, and an Egyptian named Ayman Zawahiri(Who Is). By 1998 he had been linked to several embassy bombings in Africa and finally the precursor to 9/11 the attacks on the U.S.S. Cole(Who Is).