In the beginning...

Going along with what Robert was saying about Osama in Sudan...
One of my professors was telling us about the events leading up to the Taliban in Afghanistan and the increased power of Osama. I had never heard of these events before this class so please correct me or add on information that I missed. This is what I heard:
Before the Taliban was instated, Afghanistan was involved in a war with Russian. The Russians were trying to bring Afghanistan into their communist society and needless to say, the United States was not in favor of this. They wanted Afghanistan to be a democracy but realized that severe cultural differences would not allow them to efficiently bring this change (ahem ahem). So instead, they thought they would try to instill the morals of democracy into the culture instead of mess around with the government. The United States built and funded religious schools that taught the Afghanies (sp?) to not only learn about their own culture and belief system but also to defend and fight everyone who tried to go against them. Well this brilliant plan worked very well. These schools took off and Afghanistan defended the country and fought against the communists while educating the youth that would become the religious extremist group, the Taliban.