We didn't help them, not really. We gave them to power to help themselves. Military support was provided in the early 1980s, the CIA (lead by Bush Sr.) and the ISI (Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence Agency) provided arms to Afghans resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the ISI assisted the process of gathering radical Muslims from around the world to fight against the Soviets. Osama Bin Laden was one of the key players in organizing training camps for the foreign Muslim volunteers. The U.S. poured funds and arms into Afghanistan, and "by 1987 (under Regan and Bush Sr.), 65,000 tons of U.S.-made weapons and ammunition a year were entering the war. Not to mention tanks and planes. In 1997, the Taliban and Unocal (Cheny being on the board of directors) had meetings in Texas (go figure) to negotiate arrangements for CentGas to build a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan. Reportedly, a deal was struck but later failed. The cause of the failure was rumored to be competing negotiations with Bridas, an Argentinian company. This is listed in wikipedia, there are a lot more connections between Bush Sr. and the taliban and Bin Laden especially. This kind of thing is why most of the world hate the USA.
Most of the world doesn't hate the USA. Hate is a very strong word and generally speaking most people don't really care about anything not involving them personally. I am sure what the US does is not an every day topic of conversation for 99.9999% of the people in the world. I don't believe the farmers in China, India and Africa could really care less about what we do continents away. Considering the populations represented in those countries/continent represent about 80% of the people in the World its very unlikely that MOST of the World hates the US. Even the portion of the world who disapprove of the US certainly don't seem to mind to take our money or our aid when offered.
You realize that Wikipedia is written by people like you and me and can be edited by anyone right? I take everything written on that site with a grain of salt as it can be opinions as much as fact.
Please close this thread... I tired of reading/seeing these hyper-partisan, idealistic and WRONG facts that some people are posting. I would respond to some of these people and set them straight on their bullshit but I'm sure it would cause a fire storm. So I ask again...plz lock this thread.