mehreenkasana:

I’ve been seeing this photo circulated on Tumblr from an issue written by Robert Fisk in 1993 in the British publication The Independent. And I’m glad people saw this since it readjusts political perspective on one of the most violent and destructive men to have existed: Osama bin Laden. But at the same time, it points directly – if not intentionally – at Reagan and the West’s bizarre, inevitably horrendous fascination and support for this man a decade or so ago. Reagan and Co. had a strange friendship with Bin Laden and it’s very funny how a few American politicians and historians like to point it out and say, “This is where the real hypocrisy begins.”

I once shared a document on how the CIA funded the Jihad wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, later on shamelessly denying any kind of responsibility for the horrific consequences of such complicity and encouragement. From the PDF:

In fiscal year 1987 alone, according to one estimate, clandestine U.S. military aid to the mujahideen amounted to 660 million dollars—”more than the total of American aid to the contras in Nicaragua” (Ahmad and Barnet 1988,44). Apart from direct U.S. funding, the CIA financed the war through the drug trade, just as in Nicaragua. The impact on Afghanistan and Pakistan was devastating. Prior to the Afghan jihad, there was no local production of heroin in Pakistan and Afghanistan; the production of opium (a very different drug than heroin) was directed to small regional markets.

Here’s another excellent analysis of how the then-US President Reagan maintained an alliance with Osama bin Laden and turned the jihadist into a terrorist kingpin.

As they say: Yesterday’s friend, today’s enemy.