Why is the US being blamed for the Taliban taking over?

They took a ton of money from the US so NATO can have supply lines and bases nearby, and then just double dealed us and hid bin laden, fed us bad Intel.

If you put the money the US gave Pakistan in perspective it really wasn't that much. The US authorized less money for Pakistan to fight its war over a decade than it spent in a single year in Iraq and Afghanistan just on air conditioning the tents for its troops. And then actually gave Pakistan less than half of that. The amount of military aid given to Pakistan was far, far less than the economic damage Pakistan took fighting on behalf of the US and certainly incomparable to the tens of thousands of lives Pakistan lost in the process. In the worst decade of the war, Pakistan averaged over 4,000 civilian deaths i.e. more than one 9/11 every year for ten years straight.

The difference between the US and Pakistan is that the US always had the option of packing up its bags and leaving once it had lost. The consequence of failure for the US was always just embarrassment. Pakistan has never had the option of just nopeing it out of the region. Given the American track record of abandoning and turning against its allies, it would have been quite dumb of Pakistan to put all its eggs in the basket of American victory. The last time Pakistan did that, the US not only abandoned Pakistan after Pakistan accomplished victory but also imposed sanctions on it, leaving it struggling to deal with the mess left behind. After that track record, it was really quite cute of the US to expect unwavering loyalty and alliance.

Also, looking at leaked internal Pakistani investigations, it does seems like Pakistan had no idea Bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad. The Abbottabad Commission report reads true if only by the embarrassment criterion.

/r/NoStupidQuestions Thread Parent