I was refered to the article by Ahmed Rashid, "Osama Bin Laden: How the U.S. Helped Midwife a Terrorist," which is an extract of Rashid's book on the Taliban by a friend, In can be found in  http://www.public-i.org/excerpts_01_091301.htm.
I found most of what Rashid says to closely parallel Yossef Bodansky's "Bin Laden" .

Nonetheless, there are some important differences in fact or interpretation. These lead me to the conclusion that the article is mis-titled; I don't think it supports the notion that the US was midwife to bin Laden. In fact, based on Rashid and Bodansky, it is clear that bin Laden was a rich man who supported himself and was a giver rather than taken in Afghanistan.

It seems likely to me that even if there had never been an Afghanistan war and there had never been Arab muhahideen in Afghanistan that bin Laden would have had the same anger at the Saudi and American governments after the Gulf War. As Bodansky, Rashid, and others have said, the reason that bin Laden hates the USA goes back to the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and related threat to Saudi Arabia by Iraq. Bin Laden is mad because the Saudi government refused his offer to organize defenses and instead turned to the US for protection. After the war ended American forces remained in Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden, according to Bodansky and Rashid wants to overturn the Saudi government and, because the US supports and protects it, bin Laden wants to strike at the US.

Rashid writes "None of the players reckoned on these volunteers having their own agendas, which would eventually turn their hatred against the Soviets on their own regimes and the Americans." I can't tell if Rashid (or you, Mike) believe that bin Laden or others should never have gotten training because some ten years later additional events made him plan terrorism against the USA. This is as silly as to say that Harvard should not have enrolled or hired Ted Kocyznski because he eventually became the Unabomber. Or that the US government is partially guilty of the bombing because it partially funded Harvard.

The extract that I sent to you from Yossef Bodansky's "Bin Laden" happened to be what I found on line (I think at the Amazon.com review site.) It didn't cover the central point about how and when bin Laden became involved with the mujahideen in Afghanistan. I was too lazy to type the more relevant parts. Here is what Bodansky says on page 10:

"Within a few days after the Soviet [late 1979] invasion bin Laden, who was genuinely and selflessly committed to the cause of all-Islamic solidarity, went to Pakistan to assist the Afghan mujahideen. On arrival bin Laden was appalled by the chaos in Pakistan and the lack of Arab unity and devoted himself to political and organization work, establishing a recruitment drive that over the next few years would funnel thousands of Arab fighters from the Gulf States to the Afghan resistance. At first he personally covered the travel costs of these volunteers to Pakistan and Afghanistan, but more important, he set up the main camps to train them. In early 1980 bin Laden established Ma'sadat Al-Ansar, then the main base for Arab mujahideen in Afghanistan."

I don't know if this account is correct. It might not be. But Bodansky is, as the book jacket says, "an internationally renowned military and threat analysis [and] the director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare." Assuming for the moment that it is a correct account, I draw the conclusion that bin Laden invited himself to Afghanistan without an invitation from the CIA and that he was not initially funded by the CIA. (I say "initially" because that is clear. It is unlikely that he was later funded by the CIA because he had his own funds and Saudi royal funds.)

Bodansky also writes, page 16, "It became imperative for Islamabad to establish tight control over the various subversive and terrorist entities the ISI was going to run throughout South Asia, from Afghanistan to India." And on page 17, "All this time [1980-1987] the Afghan jihad was gaining support in Washington, and more money was being appropriated for covert and not-so-covert support for the Afghan mujahideen. The United States was convinced that it was supporting a genuine national liberation struggle, albeit with a strong Islamic foundation, and Islamabad went to great lengths to ensure that the United States did not discover firsthand the kind of mujahideen the American taxpayers were sponsoring. To this end the CIA was isolated by the ISI from the training infrastructure it financed."

This seems partially at variance with Ahmed Rashid, who writes "Thirdly, Casey committed CIA support to a long-standing ISI initiative to recruit radical Muslims from around the world to come to Pakistan and fight with the Afghan Mujahideen. The ISI had encouraged this since 1982, and by now all the other players had their reasons for supporting the idea." Bodansky says the ISI tried to keep secret what they were doing. Maybe in 1987 the secret was out, but probably not in 1982.

Who is to be believed? Hard to say. But given that bin Laden was a rich man and one of the many funders of the mujahideen and was also supported by the Saudi royal family my conclusion is that the USA did not directly and willingly support bin Laden, or at least did not know it was supporting him.

Gerry Chandler
Jerusalem

March, 2002