http://slate.msn.com/?id=2064385

There remains VCR footage available of Azzam speaking to groups of American policy makers in NY if one continues to doubt this.

It was Azzam that also recruited Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zahawiri, they proceeded to work under his tutelage.

http://www.ict.org.il/articles/articledet.cfm?articleid=388

Al-Zahawiri’s recruitment in Afghanistan followed his surprise release from an Egyptian jail. (He was incarcerated for his role in the assassination of US stooge Anwar Sadat).

Al-Zahawiri’s release came after US assertive influence in the region. As stated by Milton Beardon CIA Field Officer, Afghanistan, 1985-89, “Very quietly, most of the governments in the Middle East, the Arab governments, began to empty their prisons of their bad guys and send them off to the jihad”.

Even if you find Galloway’s statement a little simplistic, that “The Arab Afghans who were sent by the American administration to Afghanistan in the 1980s became al-Qaeda in the 1990s” It is certainly not a spurious accusation. Jihadists were released, supported and encouraged to fight in Afghanistan by the US.

Steve Cooley’s book on Afghanistan and the operation to send fundementalists there (which involved not just the US and assorted Arab regimes working in tandem but also, surprise, France) seems to me to fully support what Galloway says here.

These notes to a lecture given by Charles Tripp a few years ago seem almost extraordinarily prescient when it comes to whats happening today:

http://www.casi.org.uk/analysis/2004/msg00096.html

Galloway: Now there are al-Qaeda elements in Iraq, who’s fault is that? Who brought them there? Who brought them there? How did they end up in Iraq? There were no al-Qaeda in Iraq before Bush and Blair attacked it, and now every Islamist in the world…

[Applause]

Is either on his way, or dreaming of being on his way, descending like spores of anthrax on the gaping wounds in Iraq created by your war. And I’ll tell you what, they’ll then spill around the world, spreading their jihad, exactly as his new, or rather old friends, in Afghanistan, did. The Arab Afghans who were sent by the American administration to Afghanistan in the 1980s became al-Qaeda in the 1990s and into the 21st century.

Now, I’m no expert on the Afghan War, but from my limited reading on the subject, the US did not send Arab Afghans to Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Arab fighters sent themselves, and were supported by countries like Saudi Arabia and millionaires like Osama Bin Laden. Yes, the Americans cynically funneled aid to the Afghan Mujahideen via Pakistan to embroil the USSR in their own Vietnam. And yes, that money often went to the wrong sections of the Mujahideen, for example funding men like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar instead of Ahmed Shah Massoud. (And let’s not forget that the people the Mujahideen were fighting, the Communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, were themselves guilty of torturing and murdering thousands of Afghans.) But Galloway seems to be tying history in knots in order to arrive at a simplistic conclusion—the crowning turd of which is the link with Osama bin Laden, who as a millionaire Saudi fighter needed and received no money from the Americans. If Peter Bergen’s Holy War Inc is to be believed, Bin Laden was like a mini-state all of his own, bringing in weapons and money and training his own fighters. America has vehemently denied that any of its money went to foreign fighters in Afghanistan, a claim I find hard to believe considering they lost some control over it by channeling it via Pakistan. However, Osama Bin Laden’s rise to prominence had very little, if anything, to do with US funding. Ironically, the only thing the two have in common is that they were fighting on the same side.

“…his accusations that Britain and America sent Islamists to Afghanistan…”

Presumably Galloway is referring to the guidance, finance, arms, and training given by Pentagon / CIA during 1979-1989. These are not accusations, it is well documented, is it not? In fact Galloway is entirely correct, Foreign Islamists were encouraged to enter Afghanistan by the CIA. No more clearly shown by the presence of the muhajadeen recruitment / finance base in New York (Alkifah Refugee Centre).

http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1959662005

According to the smartarses round here it seems he was born in Edinburgh. Anyway people from Edinburgh, whilst strictly speaking Scottish by birth, are English by disposition. I’m sure TB was stolen away by Druids and witches when he was a day old and they turned him into what he is today, in all its ghastliness.

I didn’t mention Democratic Senators at all. But I hope you would admit that they are not exactly deafening the world with their condemnations. Even Hilary Clinton is keeping her powder dry, presumably for a broadside when she considers the time right. The time was right a couple of years ago. The muted response by Democrats to the criminal incompetence of the Katrina relief effort tells a story of its own as well.
As for the Scottish/English debate – Blair went to school in Scotland. He is NOT Scottish I am glad to say. You could count the people in Scotland who support the occupation in Iraq on the fingers of one hand. The UK Government is fighting this war
against the wishes of Scotland, and the UK population as a whole, to judge by all the polls. Come to think of it – isn’t that exactly the position in the U.S.?

Best Regards From Caledonia