a word on afghanistan

From my dad (he lives in Kabul now by the way):
I am learning a lot--I feel like I am in college taking several world history and social science courses simultaneously. This evening I spent a couple of hours with a consultant from Pakistan who gave me a broad history lesson (as he answered many questions) on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Chechnya, India, Saudi Arabia, Kresmir, the first Gulf War and its relationship to the beginnings of Al Quaida (it was the ultimate insult to Muslims that the west (the US) would build a base in their most holy place, the home of Mecca) and the Taliban's origins and growth in Afghanistan. Also, I learned more about Kabul City--how it was once the Paris of the middle east--a place where tourists would come to enjoy a beautiful, modern, progressive and serene vacation. Then, after two very bad kings who oppressed their people much like the bad kings of the Bible and the Book of Mormon, communism was able to get a foothold--and under the guise of saving the people of Afghanistan from an oppressive ruler, the Soviets came to Afghanistan to throw out the oppressive and corrupt regime of the king. The war, which lasted 10 years, was ultimate won by the Mujahadin as the fighters, the Americans as the weapons suppliers, and the Pakistanis as the colonels and generals. I learned that the very first suicide bomber was a Muslim woman in Chechnya who had been raped by Soviet soldiers and forced to watch as her husband and son were tortured and murdered. She strapped dynamite to her body and made it into the tent headquarters of the Soviet general and blew herself up. This was in about 1977. There was then a great controversy throughout the Muslim world--was suicide, considered an unpardonable sin in Islam, acceptable when Jhiad has been warranted. Ultimately, though most Muslim clerics declared that it was never justified, a small faction within the Sunni sect declared that it was justified, and of course we know what has followed. 9/11 was brought on by a combination of what happened in Chechnya (the introduction of acceptable suicide retaliation) and Gulf War 1--the insult to Islam by the west's occupying even a small portion of Saudi Arabia