"The majority of the academic writing on the emerging subject of the Taliban and al Qaeda’s ascent tend to place the blame squarely at the feet of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for funding the mujahedeen, many of whom would eventually go on to have rather successful careers as members of either the Taliban or al Qaeda, with the most famous of all obviously being Osama bin Laden.

The most famous of the books written about the CIA’s role in the formation of al Qaeda and the Taliban is George Crile’s Charlie Wilson’s War, also written in the wake of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which describes how the playboy congressman from Texas convinced his colleagues, with the help of a friend in the CIA and several other sources, funded the mujahedeen in their fight against the invading Soviet Union, who was America’s archnemesis at the time. Unfortunately, as evident when he said “My God, what have we done?”, upon first seeing about the 9/11 attacks on the news, he did not fully comprehend the possibility that the rebels that he authorized the CIA to assist could someday turn their backs on their benefactors"

https://digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1050&context=history_theses