Was 9/11 avoidable, was Al Qaeda necessary, and why is the U.S. ready to confront Russia indirectly through middlemen?

I agree; we knew 9/11 was planned; we knew Muslim students in the heartland were learning to fly and land cropdusters, but not to takeoff these planes, which was odd; strange. However, even the FBI didn't act or react. These were al-Qaida operatives, in-training, for the execution of 9/11.

But John, why was al-Qaida so bent on attacking the U.S.; what had antagonized al-Qaida to retaliate against the U.S. on American soil and; what was the motive of training in the U.S. heartland to attack the U.S. in its heart?

Well not that I can answer but we know those people hate us over there. And we do stand in the way of Islam taking over the world. But as divided as we are now I think we are easy picking. If we fall it will be from the inside and we probably allow it. The creditability of the elite FBI has been tested and the Democrats on the hard left crazy. We can't destroy history fast enough to suit people. also the Democrats wants open borders. They fight the President even if it is something good for us. I don't know who has a good answer. The left isn't looking at this as I do. I want less government and they want more. If you figure it out please advise. Have a great day Sir.

Mujahiddin were not trained by the ISI in Torah Borah to fight against the Soviets; the CIA trained them. This is fundamental knowledge Wayne of the Afghan Encounter. Perhaps the ISI assisted the CIA, but this is not documented. Mujhaddin fighters were equipped by American Forces in Quetta and Jallalabad.

Mullah Omar was just a Regional Commander of the Taliban before Osama and al-Qaida were introduced. Prior to the Afghan Encounter, Osama was actively terrorizing foreign interests in and about Africa. Some say he owned a facade pharma company in Africa that camouflaged his terror activities. The U.S. had full knowledge of Osama and had crossed paths with him earlier, but political strategy left him free.

How Osama gave birth to al-Qaida in Afghanistan is still a puzzle; did the CIA introduced this fanatic or did was the ISI responsible?

CPT Gurinder (Gene) Rana - "The U.S. didn't need to confront the Soviet Union in a regional conflict that had every indicator pointing towards a fanatic religious uprising after the conflict." This is where you mentioned Soviet Union so that's why you were responded to about it.

Why has anyone fought wars? Because humans are imperfect and we want things we can't have. Humans love power. There are always people who want to have power over everything. That's why any war is fought.

So; SFC, can we say that the cause for 9/11 was ego and power-hunger?

CPT Gurinder (Gene) Rana - The answer stands--short though it may be--but to further flesh it out specific to 9/11, was 9/11 avoidable? Sure it was, knowing what we know now or what we knew then and didn't or couldn't link the data points, but such retrospect is always 20/20. At any number of points in history any number of people (leaders), institutions (religious orthodoxy), countries (ours, others) zigged instead of zagged, and if they had, a different course of history would have unfolded, good, bad or otherwise. Many a work of fiction has been written that envisions alternate histories. Still, its worth the effort to learn from the past in order to avoid repeating old mistakes (thereby freeing us to make brand-new mistakes!).

Because history has a weight all its own, our historical adversarial relationship with Russia is material today. To illustrate the concept of historical weight further, consider the millennial-long adversarial relationship between England and France who, when not spending hundreds of years in outright war, they certainly had their own version of a cold war. Much of the overt conflicts between the two ended after the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, but competition for economic dominance, colonization, and so forth continued. Some would even contend that today, a singular friendly rivalry exists between the French and English. Maybe I suppose. Certainly on the soccer field I bet its true!

To bring it back around to us today, the Russians have been America's main geopolitical adversary for most of the last 70 years. I don't know how much weight history has imparted on our countries, but it's there. Let us not forget, most of us on each side have living memory of the Cold War and its proxy conflicts. Certainly military and political leaders on each side remember.

The mindset, then as now, comes down to us vs. them in terms of geopolitical ideological dominance, and that drives the strategic view. It can certainly be said that while Soviet communism isn't the ideological drive for modern Russia, the desire to recapture the dominance and respect of the old USSR and be on par once again with the other "big kid on the block", the US, and our desire to slow or halt that progress, brings us back to old ways of direct and indirect competition on the world stage.

This is obvious a macro and historically contemporary view, but to add another layer onto all this, as others have noted, mankind as a species is prone to a willingness for violence. Politics, belief systems, race or other physical differentiators, competition for resources are all avenues that drive or otherwise make use of, human propensity to use violence. To what degree our "base nature" plays in the mindset behind our conflicts, I don't know. I'm no anthropologist, but I'd guess a fair amount.

So; to condense the complicated essay into a short strategic answer, can we say 9/11 was the cause of egotistical mindsets?

We must be one better than our rivals regardless of consequences is ego; strategical ego. Going to war, just to prevent an archrival from sharing an advantage is ego. Promoting a war against terror that was invented to defeat an enemy in an unprovoked war is ego; strategic ego.