All this was naturally carried out at the expense of national development. The Afghan war played a major role in the collapse of the Soviet Union. The US emerged as the sole super power. It had downed its rival. Pakistan, on the other hand, emerged from it as an economically emaciated and socially retarded country inflicted with a Klashnikov culture, addicted to easy money from heroin and smuggling, and an erosion of the respect for law.
Many young men bid farewell to books and picked up arms to fight the infidels.
These freedom fighters were pampered by the US and other Western intelligence agencies and trained in guerrilla warfare. The most prominent terrorists of today were the most prominent freedom fighters of that period. They are decidedly the products of the Afghan war. So are the Taliban. The one time favorite Afghanistan is now termed fundamentalist and terrorist and Pakistan is equated with it because both are friendly Muslim countries.