Convenient for them. Look, I am under no such delusions that America is just the innocent police man trying to keep order, no one is wearing the white cowboy hat, here. But I'm not about to justify or excuse the other players, either. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan via the ISI conspired to create "the Taliban". PM Bhutto and her Interior Minister were personally involved, the later explicit in his support of Islamic Fundamentalists at a time when, due to Soviet collapse, the US was ignoring Afghanistan. I'm going to repeat what I said in my first comment: Pakistan is as culpable or more so than either Russia or the US.