At what point in history did U.S. action empower what we know now as al-Qa'ida?

Answer 1

All the answers above are correct and just to add to your knowledge, this is the same exact way they empowered Iraq. USA created a war between Iran and Iraq in the 80's and supplied all the weapons and chemical bombs for Iraq to use on Iranians for 8 years. Why? to Keep the two oil tycoons weak and powerless so the west can go and get their hands on their oil!!! What US for got that they left all these destructive weapons in the hands of a monster like Saddam Hussein, who ruthlessly killed millions of innocent people in his own and neighbor countries.

Oh yea, the president at the time was George Bush as well!

Very interesting, right?

A good movie to watch is Fahrenheit 911, very eye opening.

Answer 2

In 1981 a clandestine Egyptian para-military group killed President Saddat. They vowed to end President Saddat’s rule because he signed a peace treaty with the United States and Israel. Thereafter,300 men were arrested and jailed; half of them were from the Moslem Brotherhood. That same summer an unholy alliance emerged when the United States and the Afghanistan Mojahaden fought against the Soviet Army in the hills of Kabul; that was the birth of a militant group of what we now call al-Quada.

Between 1978 and 1992, the US government poured at least US$6 billion (some estimates range as high as $20 billion) worth of arms, training and funds to prop up the mujaheddin factions. Other Western governments, as well as oil-rich Saudi Arabia, kicked in as much again. Wealthy Arab fanatics, like Osama bin Laden, provided millions more.

Washington's policy in Afghanistan was shaped by US President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and was continued by his successors. His plan went far beyond simply forcing Soviet troops to withdraw; rather it aimed to foster an international movement to spread Islamic fanaticism into the Muslim Central Asian Soviet republics to destabilize the Soviet Union.

Answer 3

They became empowered all during the 1980s as the Soviet Union was collapsing. They got as far as they did because no one including the US ever stepped in and stopped them.

Answer 4

When the CIA started messing around in Afghanistan trying to topple the Soviet-backed government in the 1980s.

Answer 5

Why do you assume that US action empowered Al-Queda? I strongly believe that such a group would have developed with or without any US intervention in the area. In fact, I'm pretty certain that terrorist groups (anti-Western, Jewish, and Christian) existed long before the US took on the current "global-super-power-and-police-force" method to foreign relations.

Answer 6

When Osama was fighting the Russians in Chechnya he was our ALLY.

Answer 7

when we armed them to fight the russians