This week, 22 Senate Republicans introduced a bill that would put sanctions on the Taliban and any other government that is assessed to have supported them. The Taliban-led government in Afghanistan reacted to the legislation on Thursday.
According to TOLO News, the Taliban’s Interior Ministry said sanctions from the US would be a repeat of their failures in Afghanistan and called on Washington to engage them with negotiations instead of force.
“[The US] must have taken a good lesson about the use of force in the past 20 years, during which they haven’t gained anything by force. The Afghans want good relations,” an Interior Ministry official said.
The legislation, known as the Afghanistan Counterterrorism, Oversight, and Accountability Act, named Pakistan as a supporter of the Taliban and would require the State Department to evaluate the relationship. Pakistan also responded to the bill and said it never provided military support to the Taliban.
“The US is accusing us that we facilitated the Taliban, but we only facilitated them to bring them to the table at the request of the US,” said Sheikh Rasheed, Pakistan’s interior minister.
The bill was led by Senator Jim Risch (R-ID) and would establish a State Department task force to focus on the evacuation of US citizens and permanent residents who are still in Afghanistan. The legislation would also require that the US would not recognize any member of the Taliban as an ambassador to the US or the UN.
The US has not recognized the new Taliban government and has frozen billions in Afghan government reserves. Like sanctions, withholding money from the war-torn country will do little to change the Taliban but will have a negative impact on the civilian population that is facing food and cash shortages.
#1 military in the world de4signed to be unbeatable
Looted the American treasury for 20 years.
The legislation, known as the Afghanistan Counterterrorism, Oversight, and Accountability Act, named Pakistan as a supporter of the Taliban and would require the State Department to evaluate the relationship. Pakistan also responded to the bill and said it never provided military support to the Taliban.”
Pakistan should get rid of the bribed corrupt holdovers from previous regimes and should say :” Screw you US” and move on .
Tough to say no to U.S. dollars and the U.S market.
Taliban ,Syrian and Iran and NK are. It is the corrupt elite of Pakistan who steal those dollars and come here and then make the inroads for USA more likely ,corruption more palatable and wars against poor middle class Pakistanis inevitable . There is that guy Mr Hudson of conservative Think Tank from Haqqani Institute ( or other way around ) .Other day talking to BBC on PM Imran’s failures on terrorism and hobnobbing with Taliban . That man should be put in Pakistani jail for preparing the ground for sanction against Pakistan ,accusing selectively Pakistan of terrorism ,and blithely ignoring the quiet in current Kabul compared to the daily drone and military assaults on common Afghan for last 20 years while sitting in a country whose hand is dyed in red and dribbling wet from the blood of the victims of the terrorism .
So the Senate wants to drive the Taliban further into the arms of China? Because that is how you accomplish that.
Of course, the Senate is throwing a spiteful little temper tantrum, but that’s still the result that they are going to get.
The plan may be to somehow give China a taste of Afghan quagmire.
China won’t send in troops, but could get economically quagmired trying to help Afghans develop the place.
Russia is already quagmred in Syria; the U.S. won’t leave and prevents reconstruction.
Rebuilding Afghanistan with U.S. drones overhead ready to blast anything and anyone they don’t like is no cakewalk to prosperity.
“U.S. drones overhead ready to blast”.. sounds like looks like the Muslims in Spain in 1300 AD marching into France for a little fun now and then or Czar of Russia sending Cossacks to ride into the Caucasus to loot whatever is visible from outskirts .
If you fail, continue the same tactics. Brilliant, USA.
The UK, France, and Germany were far more bitter about the U.S. leaving than the American people.
These folks are casting defiance to fairness, decency, honesty …, to world opinion, all the high charters and conventions it has ever signed, civilized national behaviour, an act of open diabolic hubris. How can they think to get away with it?
Because they do every election…
But even if all US accepts it, that’s only 3% of the pop. They are outraging the moral sense of 97% of the globe.
97% which can do what about that?
Its up to tht 3% to make the change.
Pouting
Waiting for Europe to ‘defiantly’ sweep in with an aid and dependency contract.
America’s financial sanctions are one of the most self defeating acts it could ever do. To use the dollar as a weapon in trade is the very antithesis of trade. Financial sanctions prevent a nation or its companies or individuals from using the dollar in international trade.
Bush used it against Iraq but also placed a total embargo leading to the death of a million men women and children. That was our Holodomor on Iraq. Madelyn Albright stated the following:
That was probably the worst use of these sanctions for other nations. But under Obama and then Trump their use backfired and groups of nations circumvented the sanctions
China created the CIPS or Cross Border Interim Bank Payments System where trade is done using the Yuan, Gold or other currencies.
Russia created the SPFS or System for Transfer of Financial Messages.
In addition Russia and China have agreed to engage in bilateral trade where the dollar is not used. France, UK, Germany created INSTEX also known as the E3 stands for Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges and whose purpose was to trade with Iran bypassing the dollar and US financial sanctions. It open to other nations and empowers the EU against the US
As for the US Financial Sanctions each act of trade that uses the dollar is cleared by SWIFT – Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications. US tells SWIFT to step in.
Now other nations have options. Once the Dollars role in world trade drops to a certain level our debt becomes our burden. As long as the majority of the world keeps our currency in their banks and uses it for commerce we can sustain that debt.
True, but, that also leaves room for the Euro to operate.
Globalists in the American system, ultimately serve the EU.
True. The Euro is next to the dollar as a currency used by the world. Unlike America the EU does not engage in Financial Sanctions
Not when Euros can compel America to ‘lead’ them in directions they want the U.S. to lead them, no. The EU has applied limited sanctions to Iran and China.
The more sophisticated geopolitical players like Russia are not fooled. Fewer and fewer in the U.S. believe either.
China, has relearned the hard way not to trust either of the U.S. or the EU.
Its like a bad magic show where every trick shows but the magician is clueless the gig is up and the audience, more under polite compulsion to show up and clap than willing ticket-buyers.
Then you have the nationalists. Brexit frees England from Brussels. London is one of the largest financial centers, England is the head of the Common Wealth. Has a Special Relation with DC. SC member and Nuclear power. For Brussels to lose England is big and opens it up for others to leave. The biggest reason is Brussels power over refugees and immigrants. Its laws supersede those of its member states. That hits hard against Nationalists