As the first American Journalists to enter Kabul in 1981 behind Soviet lines, Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould have spent 20 years inside the Afghan issue and now can provide insight on the roots of America's Holy War against the Soviet Union and how that lead to the creation of the Taliban, and ultimately the death of that tiny nation.From the beginning, the smell of conspiracy hung over the Afghan crisis. With the death of the US Ambassador in February of 1979, the fate of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union was sealed. But as they pursued the causes they were drawn into the deeper motivations of the men behind the conflict: the Crusading zeal of America's Cold Warriors, the fatalism of the Soviet bureaucrat and finally the struggle of the Afghans to establish a national identity. Over time they came to know Afghanistan as the key to understanding the long term goals of Western Civilization itself. As today's Afghans struggle out from under the oppression left over from that war they become the measure of the West's belief in its own ideals.Much had happened long before Afghanistan became ground zero in the American psyche that is vital to everyone's understanding. This is where the End of Illusion begins.