Chapter Six - The Enemy of My Enemy Becomes My War on Terror

CHAPTER SIX

The Enemy of My Enemy Becomes My War on Terror

YOU KNOW HOW America ended up in a 20-year war in Afghanistan?
It started with a simple idea:

“Let’s give guns to religious extremists. What could possibly go wrong?”

Welcome to the Mujahideen years—when the CIA funneled billions of dollars to future terrorists, trained them, armed them, and then spent the next four decades pretending it was a mystery how it all blew up.

In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to support a failing communist government.

The U.S. saw an opportunity.

Afghanistan didn’t matter to Washington in itself—it wasn’t about freedom or sovereignty.

It was about bleeding the Soviets dry.
Just like Vietnam had done to America.

And so, under the Carter and later Reagan administrations, the CIA launched Operation Cyclone—one of the longest and most expensive covert operations in U.S. history.

To fight the Soviets, the CIA funded and armed a loose alliance of Islamic guerrilla fighters, known as the Mujahideen.

• They trained in Pakistan.
• They received weapons—Stinger missiles, AKs, explosives.
• They got CIA money, maps, and advisors.

The idea was simple:
Create a proxy army of devout, ruthless fighters to drag the Soviet Union into a forever war.

And it worked.

But with one hell of a price tag.

Among the Mujahideen was a wealthy, young Saudi zealot named
Osama bin Laden.

He wasn’t CIA-trained—let’s be clear.
But he fought in the same war, used the same infrastructure, and built his own power base alongside the chaos the U.S. helped fund.

When the Soviets finally pulled out in 1989, the U.S. dropped Afghanistan like a bad habit.

The country was left in ruins.

No schools. No hospitals. No state.
Just warlords and abandoned weapons.

Bin Laden didn’t go home.
He went global.

By the late ‘90s, bin Laden and his group—Al-Qaeda—were orchestrating attacks around the world.
And in 2001, he delivered his masterpiece.

9/11.

Almost 3,000 dead.
A new war launched.
And the very same country where the U.S. had once funneled billions of dollars to religious militants…
was now enemy territory.

The CIA didn’t create Al-Qaeda.
But they built the playground.

Afghanistan was never about democracy or peace.
It was a chess move in the Cold War.
And when the pieces were scattered, the American people were handed the bill.

The mission was clear:
Fund chaos to destroy the enemy.
Then feign shock when that chaos comes home.

Afghanistan became the forever war that we started twice—
once in silence, once in flames.

And still, no one said,
“Maybe don’t arm religious fanatics for short-term geopolitical wins.”