Shaking hands with Bin Laden

Oh, this is comforting:

The CIA, ever mindful of the need to justify its “mission,” had conclusive evidence by the mid-1980s of the deepening crisis of infrastructure within the Soviet Union. The CIA, as its deputy director Robert Gates acknowledged under congressional questioning in 1992, had decided to keep that evidence from President Reagan and his top advisors and instead continued to grossly exaggerate Soviet military and technological capabilities in its annual “Soviet Military Power” report right up to 1990.

Given that context, a decision was made to provide America’s potential enemies with the arms, money - and most importantly - the knowledge of how to run a war of attrition violent and well-organized enough to humble a superpower.

Now, I'm guessing that Ronny was MORE than happy to be lied to. And even if he had been told the unvarnished truth, he'd have kept on keepin' on.

But there's little doubt that Gates had his fingers way into the business of funding and supplying money and weapons to what became Al Qaeda.

And this is no new information, notice that the cited article dates from 1998!

Thanks to Daily Kos diarist London Yank.