I’m not disagreeing with you, Immortal Technique is just wrong, but it’s just that the Americans aren’t really in the clear. They boosted some groups that probably gained the means to be very useful in harboring al Qaeda in Afghanistan later.

Again what Coll is saying in the linked interview, and what he writes more extensively on in his book, is that the CIA funded the Afghan Mujahideen during the 1980s. Bin Laden (Al Qaeda wasn’t even an organization at this time) was not a part of the Afghan Mujahideen. He and his compatriots mostly stayed in Pakistan during the war where they also funded and aided the Afghan Mujahideen. In a few instances, Bin Laden and some of the other so-called Afghan Arabs went across the border and engaged in brief skirmishes with the Soviet army (where they almost always lost in quick fashion). These battles were not funded by the CIA; Bin Laden raised all this money from rich Saudis (he was at this time in the good graces of the Saudi royal family). So, saying that the CIA funded Al-Qaeda is incorrect although they certain worked towards a common cause (kicking the Soviets out of Afghanistan).

The CIA as well as the Saudis were funneling money through Pakistani intelligence (ISI) to various fighters. The CIA did offer some resistance to the money going to the more fundamentalist groups (though there was disagreement within the CIA), but it was pretty well understood there would be plenty going to the fundamentalists, and the Soviets were the top priority for the CIA.

Bin Laden wasn’t a nobody during this time, he was himself funding the fundamentalists with his family money, so it’s not a situation of the US really funding him, but they were funding a fundamentalist warlord Hekmatyar who was associated with Bin Laden at the time.

Al-Qaeda was really only founded near the end of the Soviet-Afghan conflict.

Source: Ghost Wars, Stephen Coll

This is a huge stretch. The CIA funded the Afghan mujahideen, which was almost entirely made up of Afghans. On the other al-Qaeda,— despite its pre-9/11 location– was comprised primarily of Saudis, Yemenis, and others from the Persian Gulf states. Many of the leaders of what later became al-Qaeda were located in Pakistan/Afghanistan during the 1980s when the CIA was funding the Afghan mujahideen. However, these people were called at the time the “Afghan Arabs” and did little actual fighting. Instead, their main task was getting money from their home country to provide to the Afghan mujahideen. It would be more accurate to say that both the CIA and al-Qaeda funded the Afghan mujahideen.

Bush was caught lying about his experience on 9/11 and pushed for war against Osama Bin Laden and WMDs with no known evidence or proof until, after denying any and all involvement in 9/11 saying he did not and could not have accomplished such an attack, admitted to planning and perpetrating 9/11. There is limited evidence to suggest bush was behind it but the evidence suggesting controlled demolition or “inside job” can be found in abundance. Bush called for the continuing “war on terror” and stated “Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th” due to the prevalence of 9/11 conspiracy videos on Youtube gaining billions of total views until the videos and the channels hosting them were terminated for violating Youtube’s terms of service.