Decades of misinformed military and political fetishizing of Afghanistan and terrorism have created their own enduring mythology in the US. Al Qaeda and the Taliban were never bedfellows, nor were they even close. 9/11 was conceived and planned in Germany, not Afghanistan. It was the US that harbored and taught the 9/11 terrorists how to fly. It was US airport security that was lax and US airlines that pushed back on security recommendations to have $20 door locks installed in cockpits on the grounds of cost. It was the Bush-Cheney junta that ignored intelligence reports of an imminent al Qaeda attack. If any one of these factors had been properly addressed 9/11 would not have happened and the trillions spent and thousands of deaths caused by the invasion of Afghanistan would not have happened. Today the concept behind al Qaeda’s raisin d’être – the far jihad – has no real support anywhere. Jihadism has become tribal identity warfare or about local political power plays. Moreover, today al Qaeda would have a choice between a number of the Middle East and African failed states, rather than hiding in Afghanistan where the Islamic State would also be out to destroy them (the … Continue reading Taliban’s Al Qaeda Nexus