Okay, when did Al-Qauda start franchising....

[WCGreen]

I mean we have AQ of IRaq, the Original AQ, AQ of Pakistan, AQ of Europe and coming soon, or so the marketing department would have us believe, AQ of New York City...

[Kagemusha]

1. Uhh... you're seriously asking?

This started a long time ago. It was intended to become that way, if militants themselves are to be believed.

[PhilipShore]

2. The CIA created Al-Qaeda...

9/11 was the result of an intelligence operation failure (blowback).

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http://www.answers.com/topic/blowback-intelligence

Blowback (intelligence)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Blowback is a term now broadly used in espionage to describe the unintended consequences of covert operations. Blowback typically appears as a surprise, apparently random and without cause, because the public generally is unaware of secret operations that caused it.

In its strictest terms, blowback was originally informational only and referred to consequences that resulted when an intelligence agency participated in foreign media manipulation, which was then reported by domestic news sources in other countries as accepted facts. In looser terms, it can encompass all operational aspects. In this context, it can thus mean retaliation as the result of actions undertaken by nations. The phrase is believed to have been coined by the CIA, in reference to the shrapnel that often flies back when shooting an automatic firearm.

In the 1980s, blowback became a central focus of the debate over the Reagan Doctrine, which advocated militarily supporting resistance movements opposing Soviet-supported, communist governments. In one case, covert funding of the Contras in Nicaragua would lead to the Iran-Contra Affair, while overt support led to a World Court ruling against the United States in Nicaragua v. United States.

Critics of the Reagan Doctrine argued that blowback was unavoidable, and that, through the doctrine, the United States was inflaming wars in the Third World. Doctrine advocates, principally at the conservative Heritage Foundation, responded that support for anti-communist resistance movements would lead to a "correlation of forces," which would topple communist regimes without significant retaliatory consequence to the United States, while simultaneously altering the global balance of power in the Cold War.

[GreenZoneLT]

3. That's bullcrap

It's Western-supremacist BS to think that Arabs can't create their own societal dysfunction. The CIA funded the Afghan mujahedeen against the Soviets, not the Arab foreign fighters, who mutually disliked and distrusted many of the Afghans we were backing (and definitely weren't playing ball with the CIA). That continued in the split between the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance and the Taliban, who were funded by Wahabbist fanatics like Bin Laden, not us.

Al Qaeda is often inadvertently aided by stupid U.S. policies like invading Iraq, but there are no direct ties now nor were there in the past.

[PhilipShore]

4. Cook: Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies

http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1523838,00.html

The struggle against terrorism cannot be won by military means

Osama bin Laden is no more a true representative of Islam than General Mladic, who commanded the Serbian forces, could be held up as an example of Christianity. After all, it is written in the Qur'an that we were made into different peoples not that we might despise each other, but that we might understand each other.

Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden's organisation would turn its attention to the west.

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Robin Cook
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert Finlayson Cook, known as Robin Cook, (February 28, 1946 – August 6, 2005), was a politician in the British Labour Party. He was Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2001. He resigned from his post as Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council on March 17, 2003 in protest against the 2003 invasion of Iraq. At the time of his death he was president of the Foreign Policy Centre and a vice-president of the America All Party Parliamentary Group and the Global Security and Non-Proliferation All Party Parliamentary Group.

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Reagan set roots for al-Qaeda
07/06/2004 12:46 - (SA)

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1538863,00.html

[Porcupine]

5. 9-11 was purely home grown.

Or do we just continue to insist it was a coincidince that the airline hijackings had their paths greased by DC interference with the FBI. Or how about those anthrax attacks timed to shut down congress just when questions should have been asked?