Ultimately, the swamp of hatred, obscurantism and religious fanaticism out of which Osama Bin laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban emerged in Afghanistan was a US creation.
John Wright

The tragedy which is the history of Afghanistan was lost in the wake of 9/11. From that moment, in the eyes of a West now baying for revenge, it was a country reduced to nothing more than a terrorist base and training camp run with the blessing of a regime that gave new meaning to the word evil.

Yet before 9/11 those same terrorists had won the paternal affection of government apparatchiks in Washington as a band of courageous liberation fighters who, with 'our' help, had successfully forced the Soviet Union to abandon a country it had invaded in order to add to is evil empire  ¨? at least according to Reagan and the coterie of right wing zealots who formed his administration back then.

But to understand why Afghanistan was and remains so important to US strategic interests is to understand the role it has played throughout its history in the global struggle for empire and hegemony waged by the great powers.

This mystical land, occupying a strategic location along the ancient Silk Route between the Middle East, Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, has been the subject of fierce rivalry between global empires since the 19th century, when the then British and Russian Empires vied for control of the lucrative spoils to be found in the subcontinent of India and in Central Asia in what came to be known as the 'Great Game.'

The British desired to control Afghanistan as a buffer against Russian influence in Persia (Iran) in order protect its own interests in India, which at that time was the jewel in the crown of an empire that covered a full third of the globe. Two Anglo-Afghan wars were fought during this period. The first saw the complete annihilation of a 16,000-strong British army in 1842, the second resulted in the withdrawal of British forces in 1880, though the British retained nominal control over Afghanistan's foreign affairs. This control lasted through to 1919, when after a third Anglo-Afghan war the British signed the Treaty of Rawalpindi, heralding the beginning of complete Afghan independence from Britain.

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