Monday marked one year since the Taliban entered Kabul and the now defunct US-backed Afghan government officially collapsed. There has been drastically less violence in the country since the US troops left, but Afghans are now facing a dire humanitarian crisis that is being exacerbated by US sanctions and Washington’s seizure of Afghan central bank funds.
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the Biden administration has decided not to release any of the $7 billion in Afghan central bank reserves that are held in the US as millions of Afghans are facing starvation. The administration also suspended talks with the Taliban on the funds.
US officials said the administration made the decisions over the recent operation against al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul. President Biden recently announced that a CIA drone strike killed Zawahiri in the Afghan capital, although the US has no DNA evidence that it was Zawahiri who was killed. The Taliban said a drone strike took place, but haven’t confirmed that it was Zawahiri who was targeted.
The US views Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul as the Taliban violating the Doha agreement and suspended talks on the central bank reserves in response. “We do not see recapitalization of the Afghan central bank as a near-term option,” said Tom West, the US special envoy for Afghanistan.
Earlier this year, President Biden said he would make half of the $7 billion in central bank reserves available for families of 9/11 victims even though the people of Afghanistan had nothing to do with the attacks. He said the other half would be made set up in a trust fund to be used for humanitarian aid for Afghanistan, but now that option is off the table, and none of the funds will be used to help Afghans.
The UN has warned that a staggering 95% of Afghans are not getting enough to eat and that nearly one-half of the population is facing acute hunger. A UN official said in March that the situation threatens an “entire generation of Afghans.”
On top of the frozen central bank reserves, the US still maintains sanctions on the Taliban, who now lead the Afghan government. The sanctions discourage international banks and businesses from making transactions with Afghanistan, making the situation even worse.
In June, after an earthquake killed over 1,000 people in Afghanistan, the UN said US sanctions were hampering the relief effort. Martin Griffiths, the UN’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said the Taliban’s control of Afghanistan is complicating humanitarian aid deliveries because of “excessive” diligence from international financial systems that want to make sure they don’t violate sanctions.
The Taliban has always been abhorrent to me since 30 years ago I saw photos of windows painted white so girls couldn’t look out (or be seen) and weren’t allowed to go to school. But withholding the promised $3.5 billion ranks up there with Madeline Albright’s statement that the deaths of half a million Iraqi children was worth it for democracy and human rights.
“Democracy and human rights” What kind of people with billions steal money from the starving….??? Are we supposed to believe that stealing their money promotes democracy or human rights in Afghanistan or any place else where we take their money…??? As in Syria where we are stealing their oil…???? Is that the excuse. More like Jack the Ripper than Robin Hood or Santa Clause. Its insane greed and capilist corrupt thieves. Not good people… Much more like the worst of the worst…!
The Afghan mujahideen were various armed Islamist rebel groups that fought against the government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War and the subsequent First Afghan Civil War.
It was the CIA, starting with Carter
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/09/01/how-jimmy-carter-started-americas-afghanistan-folly/
The torture Russian soldiers suffered before they were killed was well known by the Americans. As POWs they were unfortunate if they survived 2 days. In Ukraine too, there is plenty of evidence that Russian soldiers are being tortured and killed. When our side does it it is ok.
There is plenty of evidence Ukraine soldiers are being tortured and killed too.
I don’t know, time will tell, too many lies to fight your way to the truth.
US roadmap in Afghanistan
1. Lie
2. Invade
3. Occupy
4. Leave in disgrace
5. Steal
Mohammed Najibullah, Afghanistan’s last communist president, brutally murdered when the Taliban took over Kabul in 1996. He was killed in a most brutal way, just like Gadhafi.
The Russians supported his government. Under the left government women made immense progress, they could study and even wear mini skirts. The CIA picked the most extreme warlords to remove him from office, yes, it all started under President Carter it was the beginning of AQ.
Those who do not learn from History, are destined to repeat it…
Exactly, the war lords and Mujahadin (aka OBM and AlQuaida) armed with Stingers. And now they use women’s and girls’ rights to continue the theft of Afghan reserves and sanctions. The while embracing the barbaric patriarchate, Saudi Arabia. Their endless monstrous lies would be insupportable without platforms like this where the truth can live.
The best bank robbers in the business. In the end, they are robbing the American people of tax funds, future benefits, or robbing the resources of others. In the end, it is robbery. Always has, always will be. Its that simple.
The Bush family being one of the best.
The entire international banking and monetary system is designed to enrich the powerful at the expense of others. Outright theft is just the tip of the iceberg.
Defined: assholes,utter childish, mean, insensitive ASSHOLES
It takes the USA a long time to forgive nations for thwarting its oppressive, neo colonialist aggression. The USA did not normalize relations, nor end the trade embargo, with Vietnam until 30 years had passed after its ignominiou defeat. And reneged on its promise of AID. Even now, the USA is still making noises about phony “MIA” issues….
Right, while the US military piled their soldiers’ bodies on huge slings under Hueys(sp) and dumped them at sea.
Let me see, this reminds me of someone else… US Sanctions are Talibanesque…
The USA is A MOST EVIL HEGEMON, Biden and his people are war criminals and they are supported by both parties. It has become a collective guilt, we the people know they are criminal, and we don’t even know all of the crimes they commit in the name of Democracy.
The trouble is: the pols are at best tertiary agents taking orders handed down from on high (the elite) through the Deep State. That’s classicly the way with bourgeois gangsters, always buffered by enough layers to afford them deniability.
Stop hating yourself so much, just move to Russia and enjoy true freedom. No one is holding you back.
Sorry the true history can be ugly.
You need to get a thicker skin.
United States’ foreign policy has basically been reduced to piracy. Confiscation, sanctions, and military interventions. This type of steroidal approach reflects a political vacuum within the US where policy has been turned over to the bankers and billionaires. Civilizations collapse first from just this type of historical circumstance.
The American governing elite has not a minimum of honor, they even destroy their allies, Germany is being deindustrialized and the EU with will be destroyed by their ally, the USA. The USA cut the energy supply to Germany not Russia, the Germans are getting their throat cut by their ally, the USA. The idiocy is just incomprehensible.
Unless the planned outcome of the Ukraine War is to dismember each country within the EU and strip the economies—-I just don’t see any logic. I would call the western leadership stupid, but stupidity is generally right a third to half the time. These guys are a complete mental shutout.
It is European history, reason for the first WW was the the competition of the three developing industrial nations, UK, Germany and USA. The British Colonial Empire was dying and Bismarck’s Germany was the rising continental power and the USA was a rising industrial power. In the second WW Japan was a new competitor. The European market is a big economic competitor, to collapse the German economy will break the EU, China replaces Germany in the political game. Wars are about control of resources, and markets. Germany is being deindustrialized, Russia has lots of natural resources, including oil, like Iran, Libya, and Iraq, and Venezuela, Ukraine is just a little pawn to be used. This is about the hegemony of the USA.
I agree—-Control the resources and control the growth of China’s economy, but Russia will not fall into line so easily. And neither will China nor its Asian partners. Let the hegemony of western billionaires fall apart.
A New World Order is Putin’s goal, he is not alone, he is leading. They want an end of the unipolar hegemony of the USA.
Divide and conquer it is called. The US operates using coercion to hold NATO together as long as it is needed. We do know Biden and his neocon crew want a regime change in Russia, Putin must go, he does not take orders from the WH. Actually, the Biden people never said what will come after Putin is gone or what if there is nothing but rubble left in Europe, no NATO, no EU, which is a big possibility. Recall Iraq, and Libya, and Afghanistan, what comes after the deluge?
I hope you live in Russia cause you truly hate USA and EU.
Don’t forget Wagner is recruiting and they love getting Western haters. No combat experience needed. Just put Neo Nazi many times in the application, they don’t even know what it means either.
seems mean spirited, we lost, they won we should do the best we can for the sake of the Afghan people we profess to care about to make the Taliban government a relative success.
Biden and the neocons, really neo-Nazis, had no intention to settle for an honorable end of combat. They always knew they would continue the war with sanctions and drones. We knew it was not the end.
Even mafia types have some rules the American government has none.
Burning villages to save villages. Starving people to save people.
Murderers and thieves – we’re supposed to vote for these people?
Perhaps dementia discounts starvation as a petty concern
This sends a clear message to every country that does business with the Biden administration. He cannot be trusted. This will be his legacy.
It also invites any adjustments the Afghans wish to make.