[Fruit Pie Jones]

The US did not "hire" Osama bin Laden; the US supported the mujahideen in Afghanistan because the Soviet Union was the bigger threat at the time, and the mujahideen were seen as the best means of controlling them without provoking an all-out US/USSR war. The Soviets eventually pulled out of Afghanistan, and the Taliban gradually rose to power during a protracted civil war. You know the rest. So basically, alliances changed. It happens.