The "Taliban" were never armed by the US. There were some members who were US allies during the Soviet-Afghan war. Just like they are some members of the Northern Alliance, US ally during the Afghan campaign, that were allies of the Soviet Union.
In the end one war ended and groups broke up. Then the next war came and alliances had changed.
The names may have changed but the people didn't. We funded Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and provided numerous FIM-92 stingers which after the war was over turned into the buyback fiasco, where many of these stingers were never recovered.
Not to mention the third-party plausible denability effect, through which arms may not have passed directly to "Muj" or Taliban, but were supplied by the US.
So to say the "Taliban" were never armed is completely factually incorrect, both in relevance to the Soviet war and the current one.
If you want to learn more about the US involvement as the number one arms dealer in the word, the revised Shadow Factory book is out and worth the long read.
> So to say the "Taliban" were never armed is completely factually incorrect
By this logic the US has armed every one of its enemies. I said the US never armed the Taliban. You are saying that through enough backchannels and shifting alliances the US did arm the Taliban. Now who is being obtuse?
The US funnelled hundreds of millions of $ through Pakistan to help fund the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. The CIA also provided direct support, in training and weapons, etc.
Here's an Afghan with a Stinger missile (and there are lots of similar photos), not sold on the open market then, could realistically only have been acquired in bulk with US government assistance:
In the end one war ended and groups broke up. Then the next war came and alliances had changed.