Backstage at the theater of 'terror'

By Pepe Escobar

Afghanistan is not only the graveyard of empires; it's a graveyard of misconceptions.

Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden believed that the mujahideen single-handedly defeated the Soviet empire; so a more compact mujahid band, al-Qaeda, would be the vanguard in defeating the American empire. It was never that simple.