I know and that was all before 9-11. you're talking the 1980's, the USSR had invaded Afghanistan, we were the enemy of the USSR and we were giving weapons to any and all the tribes of Afghanistan to counter that. Giving them to all 18 tribes which the taliban was but one. The largest for sure, but just one. The enemy of Afghanistan enemy was not Afghanistan's friend. But the Taliban's attitude changed later on when they allied with 3 other tribes trying to bring all of Afghanistan and its other 14 tribes which became the Northern Alliance under the rule on one tribe. For a thousand years if not more the tribes in Afghanistan ruled their own little area of that country, not wanting any other tribal leader to rule over but one of their own. Each tribe maintained their independence by a series of shifting alliances with other tribes to combat any tribe who tried to rule over them. Also the Taliban gave UBL and AQ a safe heaven, sanctuary, and a place to train his group to wage their jihad against the west. By 2000 Afghanistan and her people, the tribal leaders attitude toward us had changed drastically.
After 9-11 when the Taliban refused to hand over UBL or cease in letting him and AQ use Afghanistan as a sanctuary and training facility, we sent feelers to the tribal leaders which made up the Northern Alliance offering our help. Naturally all 14 leaders accepted. For the Northern alliance, once again the enemy of their enemy was their friend. But today we have turn around half of the 14 tribal leaders and their people against us, but that is another subject for another day on another thread as to why.
Sure we were back Saddam, another case where the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Iran, the U.S. hadn't forgot the hostage situation and anyone who opposed Iran automatically became our friend. It was like we trusted Saddam or even like him, but he was in a war with Iran and we helped him. He was by no means our fair haired boy. He was more of a convenience, a way to strike back at Iran and we really did little to support him outside of some intel and perhaps some minor weapons, no CBR or NBC type weapons. The USSR did most of the weapons supplying. The really sad thing is a misunderstanding between Gillipse if I spell her name right, our Ambassador to Iraq and Saddam is what lead to his invading Kuwait. Saddam had thought Gillipse had said basically that the differences Iraq and Kuwait was having was their problem, not the U.S.'s. Hence Saddam thought he had the green light from the U.S. to do what ever he wanted to do with Kuwait.
This is about the same as Truman when identifying our sphere of influence in Asia while visiting Japan left the country of Korea off his list. The North Korean's then thought the U.S. wouldn't care if they invaded South Korea, after all Truman just said that Korea wasn't in our sphere of influence or in this case, defense.
