More than 20 years ago, a middle-class, university-educated leadership took power and ousted the feudal leadership that had governed Afghanistan. The Soviet Union, worried about destabilisation on its borders, responded to a request for help.

The US, as part of the cold war, responded with a boycott of the Moscow Olympics and, via the Pakistani secret service (ISI), funded all manner of reactionary Islamic forces.

Even when the Soviet forces left and a relatively progressive regime in Kabul had demonstrated for three years its ability to resist the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's guerrillas, the US, alongside Saudi Arabia, continued to arm, fund and train those who were seen as good anti-Communists. It is ironic they have turned upon the US with such savage barbarity.

Those who are calling for the CIA to carry out assassinations and coups abroad should bear in mind if the US had not seen fit to meddle in a civil war in Afghanistan, there would have been no plane hijacks and deaths in New York and Washington. Yet, as I write, the US is supporting right-wing death squads and militias in Colombia in the name of the "war on drugs".

There is a simple answer - stop interfering in other countries in pursuit of geopolitical fantasies that invariably crumble to dust.

-Tony Greenstein, The Crestway, Brighton