The filling of a power vacuum

[Segilla]

Is there any kind of justification for seeing a link between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of Al Qaeda?

[ojread2]

there was me thinking you were talking housework ..

[Mosaic]

Lol OJ - I was going to suggest bagless is better.....
Seriously though.
I think lots of people forget the extremists in Afghanistan had long since seen off the USSR's attempts to subjugate the area. So the tradition of guerilla warfare, extreme interpretation of Islam and thuggery well pre-dates the fall of the USSR.
Al qaeda as a movement had lots of teachers in the late 20th century - PLO, IRA - and the rich but disaffected playboy who led it seems to have been setting up shop before the USSR collapsed.
IMO it's easier to link American global manipulation specifically to the rise of Al qaeda that the soviet collapse.

[jno]

sort of... I think Al Qaeda grew up in response to the Soviet Union war in Afghanistan (with some help from the USA), so the Soviet failure there was in part an Al Qaeda success, as well as being a factor in the USSR's own decline.

[Segilla]

Thanks. I hope this wiil be the very last time anyone will try to tame Afghanistan. The gambler NATO's last throw, to try to negotiate with the enemy is ludicrous and seems to me to be a sure sign of the loser. The sooner we stop wasting money and lives trying to change these ghastly people's way of thinking the better.
Maybe Sgt Bales actions will be found to have hastened withdrawal ... .

[jno]

I think the west came quite close to winning the war in Afghanistan this time; but they took their eye off the ball and decided they could fight a war in Iraq at the same time. Turns out they couldn't.