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UN Chief Says Civilians 'Must Be Protected' as Pakistani Strikes Kill Dozens of Afghans
Women and children were reportedly among the at least 28 civilians killed and 49 others wounded on Sunday by airstrikes targeting Pakistani Taliban fighters in Afghanistan's Paktia, Paktika, and Kunar provinces.
Jun 29, 2026
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday called for “an immediate cessation of hostilities and the protection of civilians” after Pakistani airstrikes killed and wounded scores of Afghans, including women and children.
Pakistani forces bombed targets in Afghanistan's Paktia, Paktika, and Kunar provinces and launched a ground invasion of the neighboring nation.
The attacks—which Afghanistan's Taliban government called "cowardly" and an "atrocity"—reportedly killed at least 28 civilians and wounded 49 others.
"We call on all parties to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law and continue to stress that civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times," Guterres said in a statement read in New York by his spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric.
Dujarric also said that the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) “just confirmed that many civilians were killed and injured in these airstrikes carried out by Pakistan," and that “humanitarian colleagues tell us that the latest attacks have also reportedly triggered displacement, and humanitarian partners on the ground are assessing needs and preparing to provide emergency assistance.”
Paktia elder Adam Khan told Agence France-Presse that those killed in one of the strikes "were innocent civilians, including children, elderly people, and women" sleeping in a house.
Pakistani officials say the military operations are aimed at militant groups that it says operate from Afghan territory and launch attacks into Pakistan, not at Afghanistan's government. Islamabad accuses Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan—also known as the Pakistani Taliban—and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar of having recently attacked Pakistani security forces and civilians.
Last October, Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to a now-imploded ceasefire after weeks of border clashes that killed dozens of civilians and wounded hundreds more.
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200+ US Veterans Volunteer to Attend Asylum Court With Afghans Targeted by Trump
"This isn't political. This is personal," said one veteran. "For many of us, these are people that we served with."
Jul 01, 2025
Hundreds of U.S. military veterans have signed up to accompany Afghans who took part in the American-led invasion and occupation of their homeland to their asylum court hearings, where they face possible arrest and deportation by the Trump administration, despite having entered the United States legally and the risk of deadly Taliban retribution against them and their families should they be forced back to Afghanistan.
#AfghanEvac and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) said Tuesday that over 220 veterans have volunteered for Battle Buddies, "an initiative to support our wartime allies as they go through their immigration processes—because no one who stood with us in war should have to stand alone in court."
"Afghan wartime allies were promised a pathway to immigration to the United States based on their service to our mission over the course of our longest war," Battle Buddies said on their website. "They came through legal channels. They showed up to court as required. And now they are being targeted, arrested, and detained by ICE—with no warning, no due process, and no justification."
"That's not just wrong—it's un-American," the groups argued. "Battle Buddies brings veterans, advocates, and everyday Americans to courtroom doors—standing quietly, legally, and deliberately to witness and affirm that our promises still stand."
Speaking at a Monday press conference, IAVA CEO Kyleanne Hunter said: "This isn't political. This is personal. For many of us, these are people that we served with."
Battle Buddies was launched after the June 12 arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents of former Afghan interpreter and logistics contractor Sayed Naser Noori at a San Diego courthouse following a routine asylum hearing. When U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, Naser went into hiding in his home country while awaiting the issuance of a special U.S. visa for Afghans who helped the American military.
After the Taliban murdered one of his brothers in 2023 for collaborating with the occupation, Naser applied for U.S. asylum and was granted humanitarian parole to enter the United States while his asylum case was processed. But he was arrested anyway under the Trump administration's mass deportation effort after a judge dismissed his asylum case. The administration then fast-tracked his deportation.
An Afghan ally who served alongside U.S. forces was legally paroled into the U.S. and showed up for his first hearing.DHS detained him anyway—using a vague “improvidently issued” excuse.He followed the rules.We have the video.This must stop.#AfghanEvac #DueProcess
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— afghanevac.bsky.social (@afghanevac.bsky.social) June 13, 2025 at 3:06 PM
As Military.com reported Monday, Naser's last hope is a so-called "credible fear" interview, which he has requested. Although immigration officials have acknowledged his right to such a hearing—without which he cannot be legally deported—one has noto yet been scheduled.
"To the American government: I believed in you. I worked with you. I helped you for years, side by side. I trusted your words and followed your rules," Naser said in a statement read at Monday's news conference. "You say that people like me should come legally. I did. And now I am locked away."
"To President Trump, I love America, and I was building a life here," Naser's statement continued. "I had a car. I had a bank account. I had a job. Who will take care of all that now that I'm in detention? Instead of locking us away with no warning, why not offer us a shelter or some support?"
"There are better ways than treating people like criminals," he added, "especially those who stood with you during war."
"You say that people like me should come legally. I did. And now I am locked away."
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) falsely claimed last month that "there is *no* record to show that [Naser] assisted the U.S. government in any capacity."
Speaking at Monday's news conference, #AfghanEvac founder Shawn VanDiver said that DHS is "full of shit."
VanDiver noted that DHS "has said Sayed was not vetted, DHS has said that there's no evidence that Sayed served alongside our country."
"Both of those things are lies—knowable lies," he added. "They know that they're not telling the truth."
Indeed, media outlets including Military.com and San Diego's KPBS reported that they have verified that Naser and his brothers worked with the U.S. military during the occupation.
While Naser is the first publicly known Afghan collaborator to be arrested while following procedure at a courthouse, he is far from the only one facing removal from the U.S. under the Trump administration's draconian deportation drive. Thousands of Afghans who fled the Taliban reconquest of their homeland now fear they will be forcibly returned to Afghanistan, where at least hundreds of people who served as soldiers, government officials, police, contractors, or other collaborators have been killed by the Taliban, according to United Nations officials and human rights groups.
The situation worsened after the Trump administration in May revoked temporary protected status (TPS) for more than 8,000 Afghans and then designated Afghanistan as one of the countries subject to a new travel ban.
Shir Agha Safi, executive director of Afghan Partners in Iowa, a Des Moines-based nonprofit, recently told The Guardian that some Afghans facing deportation "would choose suicide over being tortured and killed by the Taliban."
"They have said this because the Taliban is still there and if you send an Afghan back to Afghanistan that would mean a death penalty," Safi added.
"This decision endangers thousands of lives, including Afghans who stood by the United States."
However, ignoring the many Afghan collaborators killed by the Taliban, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed in a recent statement that "Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent[s] them from returning to their home country."
The termination of TPS for Afghans prompted bipartisan rebuke, with U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) appealing last month to Noem and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
"This decision endangers thousands of lives, including Afghans who stood by the United States," the senators wrote. "This decision represents a historic betrayal of promises made and undermines the values we fought for far more than 20 years in Afghanistan."
Murkowski and Shaheen warned that cutting off TPS status for Afghans "exposes these individuals to the very real threat of persecution, violence, and even death under Taliban rule."
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We Must Remember the 9/11 War Lies
We can’t afford to let these lies go down the memory hole, like we have the other wars we were lied into.
Sep 11, 2023
Today is 9/11, the event that first brought America together and then was cynically exploited by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to have a war against Iraq, followed by their illegal invasion of Afghanistan just a bit more than a year earlier.
Yet the media today (so far, anyway) is curiously silent about Bush and Cheney’s lies.
Given the costs of both these wars—and the current possibility of our being drawn deeper into conflict in both Ukraine and Taiwan—it’s an important moment to discuss our history of wars, both illegal and unnecessary, and those that are arguably essential to the survival of democracy in the world.
To be clear, I support U.S. involvement—and even an expanded U.S. involvement—in the defense of the Ukrainian democracy against Vladimir Putin’s Adolf-Hitler-grabs-Poland-like attack and mass slaughter of Ukrainian civilians. Had the world mobilized to stop Hitler when he invaded the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in 1938 there almost certainly wouldn’t have been either the Holocaust or World War II, which is why Europe is so united in this effort.
Today’s reporting on the chaos in Afghanistan and the war to seize the Iraqi oil fields almost never mentions Bush’s and Cheney’s lies and ulterior motives in getting us into those wars in the first place.
If Putin succeeds in taking Ukraine, his administration has already suggested that both Poland and Moldova are next, with the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) also on the menu. That would almost certainly lead to war in Europe.
And China is watching: a Putin victory in Ukraine will encourage Xi Jinping to try to take Taiwan. Between the two—war in both Europe and the Pacific—we could find ourselves in the middle of World War III if Putin isn’t stopped now.
That said, essentially defensive military involvement like with Ukraine or in World War II has been the exception rather than the rule in American history. We’ve been far more likely to have presidents lie us into wars for their own personal and political gain than to defend ourselves or other democracies.
For example, after 9/11 in 2001 the Taliban that then ran Afghanistan offered to arrest Osama bin Laden, but Bush turned them down because he wanted to be a “wartime president” to have a “successful presidency.”
The Washington Post headline weeks after 9/11 put it succinctly: “Bush Rejects Taliban Offer On Bin Laden.” With that decision not to arrest and try bin Laden for his crime but instead to go to war, George W. Bush set the U.S. and Afghanistan on a direct path to disaster (but simultaneously set himself up for reelection in 2004 as a “wartime president”).
To further complicate things for Bush and Cheney, the 9/11 attacks were not planned, hatched, developed, practiced, expanded, worked out, or otherwise devised in Afghanistan or by even one single citizen of Afghanistan.
That country and its leadership in 2001, in fact, had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, as I detailed in depth here on August 15 of last year. The actual planning and management of the operation was done out of Pakistan and Germany, mostly by Khalid Sheik Mohammed.
The Taliban were bad guys, trashing the rights of women and running a tinpot dictatorship, but they represented no threat whatsoever to America or our allies.
Almost two decades later, though, then-President Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo gave the Taliban everything they wanted—power, legitimacy, shutting down 9 of the 10 U.S. air bases in that country to screw incoming President Joe Biden, and the release of 5,000 of Afghanistan’s worst Taliban war criminals—all over the strong objections of the democratically elected Afghan government in 2019.
Trump did this so he could falsely claim, heading into the 2020 election, that he’d “negotiated peace” in Afghanistan, when in fact he’d set up the debacle that happened around President Biden’s withdrawal from that country.
”The relationship I have with the Mullah is very good,” Trump proclaimed—after ordering the mullah, who then named himself president of Afghanistan, freed from prison over the furious objection of Afghan’s government, which Trump had cut out of the negotiations.
Following that betrayal of both Afghanistan and America, Trump and the GOP scrubbed the record of their embrace of the Taliban from their websites, as noted here and here.
And the conservative Boris Johnson administration in the U.K. came right out and said that Trump’s “rushed” deal with the Taliban—without involvement of the Afghan government or the international community—set up the difficulties Biden faced.
“The die was cast,” Defense Minister Ben Wallace told the BBC, “when the deal was done by Donald Trump, if you want my observation.”
So, Republican George W. Bush lied us into both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and then Donald Trump tried to lie us out of at least one of them.
But this was far from the first time a president has lied us into a war.
— Vietnam wasn’t the first time an American president and his buddies in the media lied us into a war when Defense Secretary Robert McNamara falsely claimed that an American warship had come under attack in the Gulf of Tonkin and Lyndon B. Johnson went along with the lie.
— Neither was President William McKinley lying us into the Spanish-American war in 1898 by falsely claiming that the USS Maine had been blown up in Havana harbor (it caught fire all by itself).
— The first time we were lied into a major war by a president was probably the Mexican-American war of 1846 when President James Polk lied that we’d been invaded by Mexico. Even Abraham Lincoln, then a congressman from Illinois, called him out on that lie.
— You could also argue that when President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830 leading to the Trail of Tears slaughter and forced relocation of the Cherokee under President James Buchanan (among other atrocities) it was all based on a series of lies.
Bush’s lies that took us into Afghanistan and, a bit over a year later into Iraq, are particularly egregious, however, given his and Cheney’s reasons for those lies.
In 1999, when George W. Bush decided he was going to run for president in the 2000 election, his family hired Mickey Herskowitz to write the first draft of Bush’s autobiography, A Charge To Keep.
Although Bush had gone AWOL for about a year during the Vietnam War and was thus apparently no fan of combat, he’d concluded (from watching his father’s “little three-day war” with Iraq) that being a “wartime president” was the most consistently surefire way to get reelected (if you did it right) and have a two-term presidency.
“I’ll tell you, he was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” Herskowitz told reporter Russ Baker in 2004.
“One of the things [Bush] said to me,” Herskowitz said, “is: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief. My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of (Kuwait) and he wasted it.’”
“[Bush] said, ‘If I have a chance to invade Iraq, if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency.’”
The attack on 9/11 gave Bush his first chance to “be seen as a commander-in-chief” when our guy Osama bin Laden, who the Reagan/Bush administration had spent $3 billion building up in Afghanistan, engineered an attack on New York and D.C.
The crime was planned in Germany and Florida and on 9/11 bin Laden was, according to CBS News, not even in Afghanistan:
“CBS Evening News has been told that the night before the September 11 terrorists attack, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. He was getting medical treatment with the support of the very military that days later pledged its backing for the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan.”
When the Obama administration finally caught and killed bin Laden, he was back in Pakistan, the home base for the Taliban.
But attacking our ally Pakistan in 2001 would have been impossible for Bush, and, besides, nearby Afghanistan was an easier target, being at that time the second-poorest country in the world with an average annual per-capita income of $700 a year. Bin Laden had run terrorist training camps there—unrelated to 9/11—but they made a fine excuse for Bush’s first chance to “be seen as a commander-in-chief” and get some leadership cred.
Cheney, meanwhile, was in a world of trouble because of a huge bet he’d made as CEO of Halliburton in 1998. Dresser Industries was big into asbestos and about to fall into bankruptcy because of asbestos lawsuits that the company was fighting through the court system.
Cheney bet Dresser would ultimately win the suits and had Halliburton buy the company on the cheap, but a year later, in 1999, Dresser got turned down by the courts and Haliburton’s stock went into freefall, crashing 68% in a matter of months.
Bush had asked Cheney—who’d worked in his father’s White House as secretary of defense—to help him find a suitable candidate for VP.
Cheney, as his company was collapsing, recommended himself for the job. In July of 2000, Cheney walked away with $30 million from the troubled company, and the year after that, as VP, Halliburton subsidiary KBR received one of the first no-bid no-ceiling (no accountability and no limit on how much they could receive) multibillion-dollar military contracts.
Bush and Cheney both had good reason to want to invade Afghanistan in October 2001. Bush was seen as an illegitimate president at the time because his father’s corrupt appointee on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, had cast the deciding vote in the Bush v. Gore lawsuit that made him president; a war that gave him legitimacy and the aura of leadership.
Cheney’s company was in a crisis, and Afghanistan War no-bid contracts helped turn around Halliburton from the edge of bankruptcy into one of the world’s largest defense contractors today.
Even Trump had to get into the “let’s lie about Afghanistan” game, in his case to have bragging rights that he’d “ended the war in Afghanistan.”
In 2019, Trump went around the Afghan government (to their outrage: he even invited the Taliban to Camp David in a move that disgusted the world) to cut a so-called “peace deal” that sent thousands of newly empowered Taliban fighters back into the field, and then drew down our troops to the point where today’s chaos in that country was absolutely predictable.
Trump’s deal was the signal to the 300,000+ Afghan army recruits we’d put together and paid that America no longer had their back and if the Taliban showed up they should just run away. Which, of course, is what happened on Trump’s watch. As Susannah George of The Washington Post noted:
“The Taliban capitalized on the uncertainty caused by the [Trump] February 2020 agreement reached in Doha, Qatar, between the militant group and the United States calling for a full American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Some Afghan forces realized they would soon no longer be able to count on American air power and other crucial battlefield support and grew receptive to the Taliban’s approaches.”
Jon Perr’s article at Daily Kos did a great summary, with the title: “Trump put 5,000 Taliban fighters back in battle and tied Biden’s hands in Afghanistan.”
Trump schemed and lied to help his own reelection efforts, and the people who worked with our military and the U.S.-backed Afghan government paid a terrible price for it.
As President Biden told America:
“When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor—which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019—that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 deadline on U.S. forces. Shortly before he left office, he also drew U.S. forces down to a bare minimum of 2,500.
“Therefore, when I became president, I faced a choice—follow through on the deal, with a brief extension to get our forces and our allies’ forces out safely, or ramp up our presence and send more American troops to fight once again in another country’s civil conflict. I was the fourth president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan—two Republicans, two Democrats. I would not, and will not, pass this war onto a fifth.”
America has been lied into too many wars. It’s cost us too much in money, credibility, and blood. We must remember the lies, and tell our children about them so that memory isn’t lost.
When President Gerald Ford withdrew U.S. forces from Vietnam (I remember it well), there was barely a mention of McNamara’s and LBJ’s lies that got us into that war.
Similarly, today’s reporting on the chaos in Afghanistan and the war to seize the Iraqi oil fields almost never mentions Bush’s and Cheney’s lies and ulterior motives in getting us into those wars in the first place.
George Santayana famously noted, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
We can’t afford to let these lies go down the memory hole, like we have the other wars we were lied into that I mentioned earlier. Sadly, it’s clear now that neither Bush nor Cheney will be held accountable for their lies or for the American, Afghan, and Iraqi blood and treasure they cost.
But both should be subject to a clear and public airing of the crimes they committed in office and required—at the very least—to apologize to the thousands of American families destroyed by the loss of their soldier children, parents, and spouses, as well as to the people of both Afghanistan and Iraq.
If the media refuses to mention the Bush/Cheney lies on this anniversary of 9/11, it’s all the more important that the rest of us use this opportunity to do so. Pass it on.
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'Victory for the Afghan People' as US Judge Blocks 9/11 Families From Seizing Frozen Assets
"This money belongs to the Afghan people, and no one else," said Afghans for a Better Tomorrow, a coalition of Afghan-American community groups.
Feb 22, 2023
A coalition of Afghan-American community organizations on Wednesday welcomed a U.S. federal judge's ruling rejecting a bid by relatives of 9/11 victims to seize billions of dollars in assets belonging to the people of Afghanistan.
In a 30-page opinion issued Tuesday, Judge George B. Daniels of the Southern District of New York denied an effort by family members of people killed during the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States to gain access to $3.5 billion in frozen funds from Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB), the country's central bank.
"The judgment creditors are entitled to collect on their default judgments and be made whole for the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history, but they cannot do so with the funds of the central bank of Afghanistan," Daniels wrote. "The Taliban—not the former Islamic Republic of Afghanistan or the Afghan people—must pay for the Taliban's liability in the 9/11 attacks."
"We support the 9/11 families' quest for just compensation, but believe justice will not be achieved by 'raiding the coffers'... of a people already suffering."
The frozen assets are currently being held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the wake of the Taliban's reconquest of the nation that, under the militant group's previous rule, hosted al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and other figures involved in planning and executing the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. The 9/11 attacks resulted in a U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan that lasted nearly two decades, the longest war in American history.
"We are pleased to see that Judge Daniels shares the same assessment we laid out in our amicus brief to the court: That this money belongs to the Afghan people, and no one else," the coalition—Afghans for a Better Tomorrow (AFBT)—said in a statement.
In February 2022, the Biden administration said it would split $7 billion in frozen DAB funds between the people of Afghanistan and victims of the 9/11 attacks who sued the Taliban—a move that one critic warned would amount to a "death sentence for untold numbers of civilians" in a war-ravaged country reeling from multiple humanitarian crises including widespread starvation.
Last August, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn said that 9/11 families should not be allowed to use billions of frozen DAB funds to pay off legal judgments against the Taliban.
"Just like the families of the September 11th attack victims, the Afghan people are no stranger to the Taliban's brutality and rule," AFBT co-director Arash Azizzada said. "We support the 9/11 families' quest for just compensation, but believe justice will not be achieved by 'raiding the coffers,' as Judge Daniels put [it], of a people already suffering."
Homaira Hosseini, a board member of coalition member Afghan-American Community Organization (AACO), asserted that "an appeal of this decision, which the 9/11 families have stated they will pursue, will only cause further harm to both Afghans and the families involved."
"We continue to encourage these families to seek legal retribution elsewhere," Hosseini added, "and to not further harm Afghans in the process."
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Millions of Afghans Are Starving as US Stalls on Returning Central Bank Funds
In September, the U.S. created a foundation that was supposed to unfreeze Afghanistan's foreign assets. Yet, interviews with trustees reveal that, in three months, no funds have been disbursed--or concrete plans made--to help the Afghan people.
Dec 20, 2022
The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 and, in response, Europe, the United Arab Emirates and the United States froze the Afghan central bank's roughly $9 billion in foreign assets--$7 billion of which was under control of the United States.
The freezing of the assets plunged Afghanistan into a liquidity crisis, in which people are unable to access their cash and perform essential transactions.
Without access to these funds--alongside a lattice of sanctions, a decline in humanitarian aid and harsh political turmoil under Taliban rule--Afghanistan has been led into an economic collapse with a dramatic uptick in poverty; 6 million Afghans are facing the immediate risk of starvation. According to calculations from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), a left-leaning think tank, U.S. sanctions on Afghanistan (including the freezing of these central bank assets) could kill more people than 20 years of U.S. war and occupation.
In September, the Biden administration placed half of the U.S.-controlled assets into a private foundation, trusteed by just four people, "to be used for the benefit of the people of Afghanistan while keeping them out of the hands of the Taliban and other malign actors," according to a joint statement from the departments of Treasury and State.
But interviews with two of those four trustees reveal that no funds have yet been disbursed to help the Afghan people and there are no policies in place to do so immediately. One trustee underscored that it is unlikely the foundation will be a vehicle to quickly return the assets to Afghanistan's central bank while the Taliban is maintaining oppressive rule.
This lack of progress raises concerns that the Biden administration is on course to worsen the rapidly spiraling humanitarian crisis. "Who pays the price," asks Basir Bita, an Afghan activist who works with the Afghan refugee community in Canada and who has family in Afghanistan, "for the U.S. freezing the funds? The public. The people who live in Afghanistan."
Creation of a foundation
The United States froze the Afghan central bank's assets amid public outcry over the U.S. military's withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Biden administration depicted the move as a refusal to legitimize Taliban rule.
Yet, according to Andres Arauz, a senior research fellow at the CEPR, "The reality is that central banks don't just hold government money--they also and mostly hold commercial banks' money. They are not only banks of governments; they are also banks of banks. It was important for the working of Afghanistan's financial system, and therefore its economy, that their banks have access to money that was seized by the United States."
The freezing of the assets plunged Afghanistan into a liquidity crisis, in which people are unable to access their cash and perform essential transactions. Alongside the liquidity crisis is hyper-inflation, which has worsened the acute and widespread problem of hunger. Between June 2021 and July 2022, the price of wheat flour in Afghanistan skyrocketed 68% and cooking oil jumped 55%, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Seventy percent of homes are "unable to meet basic food and non-food needs," the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies warned in June. Reports have emerged of Afghans selling their daughters, and their kidneys, in an effort to survive hunger and rising debt.
Citing the deepening catastrophe, some activists and lawmakers have been calling for the Biden administration to take a less collectively punitive approach and return the assets to Afghanistan's central bank. In January, the New York Times editorial board published an op-ed warning against a policy of letting the Afghan central bank fall apart, titled, "Let Innocent Afghans Have Their Money."
In the midst of all of this, in February, the Biden administration issued an executive order to set aside $3.5 billion of the U.S.-held central bank assets for victims of the attacks of September 11, 2001 (though lawyers and lobbyists stand to profit handsomely). This move was widely criticized by United Nations experts and some 9/11 families for its disastrous humanitarian consequences for Afghans.
On September 14, the U.S. departments of Treasury and State announced the other half of the U.S.-controlled reserves of the Afghan central bank--another $3.5 billion--would be placed under the control of a Swiss foundation called the Afghan Fund. The Afghan Fund would "maintain its account" with the Bank for International Settlements, which is a global financial institution, based in Switzerland, that provides banking services for central banks.
Afghan men carrying a sack of flour in January as the UN World Food Program distributes monthly food rations in an area south of Kabul. Between June 2021 and July 2022, the price of wheat flour in Afghanistan skyrocketed 68%. (Photo by Scott Peterson/Getty Images)
According to a statement from the Bank for International Settlements, its role "is limited to providing banking services" and it plays no part in the decision-making of the Afghan Fund.
In the short term, the Afghan Fund's board of trustees "will have the ability to authorize targeted disbursements to promote monetary and macroeconomic stability and benefit the Afghan people," according to the joint statement from Treasury and State. The foundation could, for example, use the assets to pay for "critical imports like electricity," or to pay for "Afghanistan's arrears at international financial institutions to preserve their eligibility for financial support." The Afghan Fund's long-term goal is to return the funds to the Afghan central bank, but only if key assessments and "counter-terrorism" controls are implemented, the statement indicates.
Some activists and members of the U.S. Congress cautiously supported the creation of the Afghan Fund, hoping it marked a step toward the United States unfreezing the assets. "The fund has the potential to create a vital pathway to a functioning financial system, returning desperately needed assets to Afghanistan that could alleviate major price spikes of food and other essentials," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, wrote in a September 15 statement.
The press coverage surrounding the Afghan Fund intimated a major unlocking of the assets could be just around the corner. "Setting up the new fund will enable the funds to flow quickly," Kylie Atwood wrote for CNN.
But now, three months later, no money has been distributed and two of the Afghan Fund's trustees say there is no immediate plan to return assets to the Afghan central bank.
Four trustees
The Afghan Fund has four trustees who make its decisions. Of the two born in Afghanistan, the first is Anwar-ul-Haq Ahady, former head of the Afghan central bank and Afghanistan's former minister of finance. The second is Shah Mehrabi, a professor at Montgomery College in Maryland, who also serves on the Afghan central bank's Supreme Council.
Mehrabi and Ahady each confirmed to Workday Magazine and In These Times that, in the three months since it was created, the Afghan Fund has not disbursed any funds--neither directly to the Afghan central bank, nor to meet any immediate needs for economic stabilization--and has no immediate plans to make significant disbursements to the central bank.
At the first meeting of the Afghan Fund trustees in Geneva on November 21, "potential disbursement issues were addressed but no policy and procedures or options were elaborated or finalized," Mehrabi explains. There is another meeting scheduled for January, he says, but "release of these funds to the central bank most likely will not occur in January." Ahady confirmed the Afghan Fund has not yet reached agreement on a policy to disburse funds.
According to Mehrabi and Ahady, among the trustees at the November 21 meeting was Andrew Baukol, the U.S. Treasury's acting undersecretary for international affairs, who replaced Scott Miller, U.S. ambassador to Switzerland, as a trustee. (The U.S. Embassy in Switzerland confirmed that Miller had been replaced, and "the U.S. representative is now based at Treasury.") The swap-in of Baukol, who has also worked in the CIA and the U.S. office of the International Monetary Fund, suggests a larger role for the Treasury Department.
The fourth trustee is Alexandra Baumann, a Swiss foreign ministry official.
For any decision to go through, it must have the unanimous backing of the foundation's four trustees, Ahady explains. Given the Treasury Department's representation, "If the U.S. government disagrees, no decision will be made," he says.
Mehrabi's position on the board was a win for advocates of unfreezing the Afghan central bank funds, as he is an outspoken proponent of unlocking the assets and restoring them to the central bank. Mehrabi explains over WhatsApp that he would like to see a "limited, monitored release" of funds to the Afghan central bank, ranging from $80 million to $100 million per month, "depending on the demand and stabilization of currency and stable prices." (He has previously called for $150 million a month.)
Mehrabi's proposal is relatively moderate compared with others who have issued less qualified calls to fully unfreeze the Afghan central bank assets and revive the institution. But for those who are anxious to welcome any amount of disbursement to Afghanistan's central bank, Mehrabi stands out for supporting the direct flow of funds.
When asked whether other trustees agree the funds should be returned to the Afghan central bank, Mehrabi replies, "The issue of disbursement has not been fully discussed yet and finalized."
A Treasury Department readout from the November 21 meeting says the trustees of the Afghan Fund agreed on operational matters, like "hiring an external auditor" and "developing compliance controls and foundational corporate governance documents." But the readout contains no mention of what will happen with the actual assets.
When asked about the prospect of unlocking the assets for the Afghan central bank, Mehrabi explains: "The U.S. government's position has been not to release funds to the central bank unless capacity building and AML/CFT issues [anti-money laundering and counter-financing control measures] are resolved. How long will this take? There is an immediate need to tackle higher prices that people are suffering from, and lack of funds has prevented businesses from paying for imports. If funds are not released soon, the suffering of Afghans will continue."
Ahady says over the phone that, due to the position of the United States, the Afghan Fund will be unlikely to return any significant portion of the assets to the Afghan central bank while the Taliban "is declining U.S. requests for more inclusive government and women's rights."
Some funds may be disbursed for key items that circumvent the central bank in the public interest, Ahady says, such as printing new bank notes or passports. But the primary purpose of the Afghan Fund "is really to keep this money so that, one day, when the situation becomes normal, this is the capital of the Afghan central bank. So at least the central bank will have capital to work with. So the main idea is not so much disbursement, unless it's strictly needed, but to manage the fund that's under sanction."
Ahady declined to comment on whether he supports this orientation to the frozen assets.
Such an approach would differ from the standards laid out in the joint statement from the departments of Treasury and State, which highlights three conditions for unfreezing the assets: that the central bank "demonstrates its independence from political influence and interference"; "demonstrates it has instituted adequate anti-money laundering and countering-the-financing-of-terrorism (AML/CFT) controls"; and "completes a third-party needs assessment and onboards a reputable third-party monitor."
According to Cavan Kharrazian, a progressive foreign policy advocate for Demand Progress, any delay will most greatly harm those who are already vulnerable and oppressed under Taliban rule. "For the foreseeable future, the Taliban will be in charge of the government of Afghanistan," Kharrazian says. "While they have a deplorable human rights record, especially towards women, there is also a severe economic and humanitarian crisis in the country that needs immediate attention. This crisis affects the most vulnerable segments of society the worst."
Kharrazian adds: "The U.S. just spent 20 years and trillions of dollars attempting to eradicate and replace the Taliban and its oppressive rule. It didn't work. But the U.S. does have the ability to facilitate the unfreezing of funds that can benefit millions of people facing humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan."
Afghan activist Bita implores that "the funds need to be released right now, because people are struggling. So many people lost their lives, so many people sold their kids on the streets, so many forced their daughters to marry a man because of the economic situation. So it has to be right now."
Arauz, from the CEPR, says it would be a profound mistake on the part of the United States to withhold assets from the Afghan central bank in order to punish the Taliban. "The central bank funds are not government funds," he emphasizes. "They are commingled with commercial banks' funds, which ultimately belong to depositors, which are human beings and businesses. It would not be returning the funds to the Taliban--it would be returning funds to the commercial system and depositors of the Afghan economy."
The clock is ticking and activists warn that each day without the unfreezing of the funds brings more hardship for Afghans. "When the fund was created, every major humanitarian institution, the United Nations, etc., were already pretty clear that the whole country faced a giant humanitarian crisis that needed to be addressed as soon as possible," Kharrazian says. "There was already a sense of urgency.
"They've waited three months to deliberate over sending small portions over what should have been fully unfrozen funds. If it was urgent in September, it's especially urgent now, with winter arriving."
Many children in Afghanistan cannot stand on their own feet because of hunger and malnutrition. Here, children are seen with their mothers in Kabul in January. (Photo by Sayed Khodaiberdi Sadat/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Ahady's position is that unlocking the Afghan central bank assets would not be a magic wand. He says that "the objective of sanctions is to make things difficult, and have these sanctions contributed to the slowdown of economic activities in Afghanistan? Yes." But, he contends, a number of factors are to blame, including dependency on foreign assistance, the imposition of sanctions, and poor economic management. "I think that, even if the U.S. government were to release this fund, this is not going to solve Afghanistan's economic problems," he says. "It might help a little bit. Just a little bit."
Afghan Fund trustee Baumann did not respond to a request for an interview, but she has emphasized caution in previous statements to the press. "The [Afghan central bank], in its current form, is not a fit place for this money," she said in an October article from SWI swiss in fo .ch, a media service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation. "We do not have any guarantee that if the money goes back right now that it will be effectively used for the benefit of the Afghan people."
The U.S. Treasury Department also did not return a request for comment.
With no clear timetable for disbursing funds, Erik Sperling, executive director of advocacy organization Just Foreign Policy, expresses frustration. "Given U.S. Treasury's continued veto and dominance over the Swiss Fund," he says, "U.S. officials like Janet Yellen, Adewale O. Adeyemo and, ultimately, President Biden are responsible for destroying [the Afghan] economy and knowingly plunging tens of millions of Afghans into crisis."
According to Bita, "The way the U.S. government has taken hostage of the funds--that is one way of dehumanizing the people of Afghanistan."
"With this money," Bita adds, "you could save the lives of so many people."
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What Happened in Afghanistan Isn't Staying in Afghanistan
To prevent the forever war turning into war forever, instead of an arms race and trillion-dollar defense spending, now more than ever we need to stand for and practice the principles of universal human rights, justice, and pluralism.
Sep 07, 2022
Last August, the U.S. ended its 20-year occupation of Afghanistan with a massive military withdrawal. From the outset, the White House promoted a rosy narrative as President Biden claimed it was the 'greatest airlift in history, an Englishman, with Boris Johnson's approval, evacuated 200 Afghan cats and dogs. Meanwhile countless Afghan men and especially women--who had risked their lives to be police and army officers, judges, translators, reporters, peacebuilders, and human rights advocates, were left behind.
There is no mention of the U.S.'s responsibility in fueling the war, emboldening the Taliban, enriching U.S. government contractors and weapons companies, or wasting tax payers money.
With the withdrawal the administration hoped to end the 'forever war', assuming that putting the episode in America's rear-view mirror, 'what happened in Afghanistan, would stay in Afghanistan.'
But assumptions are not fact. For years prior to the withdrawal, Afghan women and those of us working internationally had warned against the Taliban's intent and its implications. While Washington's think-tanks framed the debate in simplistic binary terms of being for or against continued U.S. military presence, as women peacebuilders and rights advocates, we believed military withdrawal had to be conducted as part of an overarching political vision and a diplomatic strategy. We repeatedly called for negotiations to address women's rights and civilian protection and to include Afghan civil society, especially its women and youth, so they could address the Taliban directly. The U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad repeatedly stonewalled the call.
The Forever War that hasn't Ended
A year on the warnings have been realized. The Taliban has banned women from work, and girls from school, and continues targeting former government personnel and minority groups. To make matters worse, the U.S. decision to freeze $7BN of Afghan national assets and impose sanctions has impoverished the wider population. In January President Biden said, "I make no apologies." In February, he added insult to the injury by allocating half of the frozen national Afghan assets towards the lawsuit settlement of a group of 9/11 families against the Taliban.
Meanwhile the Taliban's hypocrisy is ever more blatant; disparaging western influence, while demanding foreign aid, using western social media, private jets, and the Pentagon's leftover weaponry while pursuing its extremist ideology and falsely claiming that erasing women from public life is Islamic.
Yet neither Washington nor any other NATO country has had the appetite or interest to reflect on how and why this avoidable catastrophe unfolded. Washington still spins the narrative: Trump negotiated the terms with the Taliban and Biden could not renege on them; Afghanistan is a corrupt country at war with itself; the US spent a trillion dollars trying to help and now it is offering humanitarian aid. There is no mention of the U.S.'s responsibility, in fueling the war, emboldening the Taliban, enriching U.S. government contractors and weapons companies, or wasting tax payers money as detailed in the annual U.S. SIGAR reports. There is still no effort to include Afghan women in current humanitarian and security dialogues or to evacuate the most threatened.
What Happens in Afghanistan Doesn't Stay There
Meanwhile, as predicted, what happened in Afghanistan has already impacted the world. The U.S. war against the Taliban was classic asymmetrical warfare. The Taliban--as the ideologically extremist--David's defeat of the hyper-powered but unfocused Goliath of NATO, triggered three, inter-related tectonic geopolitical shifts: the resurgence of transnational violent extremism, the rise of state-based authoritarianism, and the further demise of multilateralism and human rights norms. This is not the end of the forever war, rather the prologue and harbinger of a new and darker era globally.
First, the Taliban's victory gave a new lease on life to transnational violent extremist movements weaponizing faith, race, and ethno-nationalism around the world. So-called Jihadi movements weaponizing Islamist identity are applauding and inspired by the Taliban. They are showing new muscle, clearly evident in the attacks on women and girls elsewhere as in the Philippines where a law passed to prohibit child marriages is being challenged by the extreme Islamic religious leaders, who reference the Taliban's rule. Claiming child marriage adheres with Islamic laws, they are calling for the lifting of the ban. This is not an isolated case, and deeply alarming. The Biden administration triggered a global green light on gender-based violence. While Afghan women and girls are most impacted, women worldwide are paying the price for the resurgent extremism.
The Biden administration triggered a global green light on gender-based violence. While Afghan women and girls are most impacted, women worldwide are paying the price for the resurgent extremism.
The second trigger was a rise of state-based authoritarianism. From Putin's war on Ukraine to Erdogan's demands in NATO, leaders with dictatorial tendencies have been emboldened. The illusion of power and unity once projected by the U.S. and its western allies is shattered. The Ukraine war may have repaired some damage, but the U.S's international credibility is tattered.
The rise of authoritarianism has further undermined democracy and rights globally. Granted, that 9/11 and the subsequent 'War on Terror' era that prompted the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, had already accelerated the decline of human rights. Under the guise of countering terrorism, many states have shut down civil society, human rights, and amped up their security apparatus. But the U.S's decision to circumvent the elected Afghan government to negotiate and comply with the demands of the clearly unelected Taliban, even as they bombed maternity clinics and schools, sent the world a clear signal: The U.S. doesn't stand by its stated principles.
The shredding of what remained of the rule-based order, multilateralism and the already fragile human rights norms and systems, is the third and final blow. This too dates to the 'War on Terror' and the impunity with which the U.S. and NATO forces killed civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and laid siege to international laws and norms. But the handling of Afghanistan-from the unrepresentative nature of the Doha negotiations to the treatment of Afghans--especially Afghan women--during and after the August withdrawal, lowered the bar.
Which world leader can credibly claim to champion women's rights or a feminist foreign policy when so few helped Afghan women police officers, lawyers and rights activists? In effect, by ignoring Afghan women, America not only lost in Afghanistan, but diminished itself globally and accelerated the decline of the already-shaky post-war global order.
So, What Now?
Most urgently, we must do right by the Afghan women and men who are at high risk. Lawmakers must expedite resettlement for Afghans still languishing in transit humanitarian camps. Governments must also unite in pressing the Taliban to restore rights and forbid vengeance attacks. Countries convening dialogues with the Taliban-on humanitarian aid, security, economics, or politics-must include women in their own diplomatic teams and ensure independent Afghan women's delegations participate. The Taliban might erase women from public life, our institutions and governments must not emulate them or sink to their standards. The delivery of humanitarian and development aid must be gender responsiveness and inclusive of Afghan women.
We must also heed the calls of women in other war zones, like Yemen and Libya and avoid the mistakes from Afghanistan. We also need a strategic and geopolitical reboot. In the last Cold War, the U.S. instigated its share of proxy wars and fronted many a dictator, but the hard power came hand in hand with fostering the ideals of democracy, pluralism, and equal rights. These aspirations are alive now. From Sudan, Myanmar and Palestine, to Afghanistan where over 62% of the population is under 25, young people and women risk their lives daily, to bring these values to life. They need solidarity.
Russia, China, rising powers like Turkey, Brazil or Arab Gulf states with their veneer of modernity are antithetical to them. The credibility of the U.S. and other democracies may be severely tarnished but in the face of rising extremism and authoritarianism, we need to remember where our strengths lie.
To prevent the forever war turning into war forever, instead of an arms race and trillion-dollar defense spending, now more than ever we need to stand for and practice the principles of universal human rights, justice, and pluralism. This is not naivete. Nor is helping Afghans an act of benevolence. It is, as one former soldier said to me, an act of integrity to salvage the soul of America and other still-democratic nations.
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6 Million Afghans Facing Famine as US Refuses to Return $7 Billion in Seized Funds
"Biden should immediately reverse his executive order," said one humanitarian. "With millions of Afghans impoverished and starving, the U.S. must return to the Afghan people what is rightfully theirs."
Aug 30, 2022
The United Nations aid chief on Monday led calls for a resumption of the humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan that ended after the Taliban reconquered the war-ravaged nation one year ago--pleas that came as six million Afghans face famine and the Biden administration continues to refuse to return billions of dollars in frozen funds.
"The U.S. is still collectively punishing the people of Afghanistan. For millions of Afghans facing starvation, the war never ended."
"The people in Afghanistan continue to face extreme hardship and uncertainty," U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths told the world body's Security Council.
Noting that the U.N.'s Humanitarian Response Plan for Afghanistan is currently facing a more than $3 billion shortfall, Griffiths called on donors to immediately provide $754 million in aid to help Afghans survive the coming winter.
"Close to 19 million people are facing acute levels of food insecurity, including six million people at risk of famine," he warned. "More than half of the population--some 24 million people--need humanitarian assistance. And an estimated three million children are acutely malnourished. They include over one million children estimated to be suffering from the most severe, life-threatening form of malnutrition. And without specialized treatment, these children could die."
Griffiths continued:
This malnutrition crisis is fueled by recurrent drought, including the worst in three decades in 2021, and whose effects are still lingering. Eight out of 10 Afghans drink contaminated water, making them susceptible to repeated bouts of acute watery diarrhea. Around 25 million people are now living in poverty and three quarters of people's income is spent on food. There's been a 50% decline in households receiving remittances; unemployment could reach 40%; and inflation is rising due to increased global prices, import constraints, and currency depreciation.
"So these relentless layers of crisis persist at a time when communities are already struggling," Griffiths added. "In June, a 5.9-magnitude earthquake affected over 360,000 people living in high-intensity impact areas. And since July, heavy rains have led to massive flash floods across the country, and indeed the region, killing and injuring hundreds of people, and destroying hundreds of homes as well as thousands of acres of crops."
Because the Taliban--which fought for two decades to oust U.S.-led forces and the coalition-backed Afghan government in a war that claimed over 170,000 lives--is not formally recognized by any nation and is under international sanctions, it is difficult to deliver humanitarian assistance to the country.
U.S. policy is exacerbating the crisis. Despite pleas from economists and humanitarians, the Biden administration continues to withhold around $7 billion in Afghan central bank funds stored in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
On Monday, a U.S. federal judge concluded that relatives of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States should not be allowed to claim billions of dollars of the frozen funds to settle legal judgments against the Taliban, who sheltered al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden before unsuccessfully offering to turn him in for trial in a third country as the U.S.-led invasion began. However, another judge can decide whether to accept that conclusion.
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US Judge Says Billions in Seized Central Bank Funds Belong to Afghan People
U.S. President Joe Biden had sought to set aside $3.5 billion of the $7 billion to settle 9/11 claimants' cases, while signing a February executive order allocating the remainder "to be used for the benefit of the Afghan people."
However, six months later, the administration still has not released the funds, citing the Taliban's apparent sheltering of al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri--who was killed by a U.S. drone strike on Kabul on July 31.
Also addressing the U.N. Security Council on Monday, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the world body, contended that "no country that is serious about containing terrorism in Afghanistan would advocate to give the Taliban instantaneous, unconditional access to billions in assets that belong to the Afghan people."
Assal Rad, research director at National Iranian American Council Action, tweeted Monday that "the U.S. is still collectively punishing the people of Afghanistan."
"For millions of Afghans facing starvation," she added, "the war never ended."
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US Judge Says Billions in Seized Central Bank Funds Belong to Afghan People
The judge's report, said a Center for Constitutional Rights attorney, "provides some hope that the people of Afghanistan will have access to the resources they so desperately need."
Aug 29, 2022
A leading U.S.-based rights group on Monday welcomed a federal judge's conclusion that 9/11 families should not be allowed to claim billions of dollars from Afghanistan's central bank to pay off legal judgments against the Taliban.
"As the daughter of a 9/11 victim, it makes me sick to think that Afghan victims of atrocity are being deprived of necessary resources during a time of great need."
U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn's Friday afternoon report "is a victory for Afghan civil society groups," said the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which filed an amicus brief for the organizations arguing that the blocked funds should be used to alleviate Afghanistan's humanitarian crisis.
Netburn's report followed months of mounting criticism of U.S. President Joe Biden's handling of the Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) assets. After the Taliban retook control of the country last year amid the U.S. withdrawal, Biden refused to release about $7 billion in funds at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
In February, Biden took executive action to earmark half the funds for future Afghan aid that would sidestep the Taliban government, but it was never made clear how or when such relief would be given. The other half of the money was to be made available to victims who have won legal judgments against the Taliban related to 9/11 and other terrorist attacks.
Netburn said she recommended against the $3.5 billion being used to pay such claims for three reasons.
"First, DAB is immune to this court's jurisdiction. It is the central bank of a foreign state. This means it is entitled to immunity from jurisdiction and its property is entitled to immunity from execution," she wrote. The Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) "may overcome DAB's execution immunity, but not its jurisdictional immunity."
"Second, even if there was jurisdiction, the court is constitutionally restrained from making the finding that TRIA requires to authorize the turnover," Netburn continued. "Only the president may recognize the government of a foreign sovereign nation. Courts may not do so directly or by implication. Authorizing the parties to satisfy the Taliban's judgments with Afghanistan's central bank funds unavoidably acknowledges the Taliban as the Afghan government."
"Third, even if that were not the case, TRIA SS 201(a) requires an agency relationship in order to execute on an entity's assets," the judge added. "This relationship requires a manifestation of consent that is not present where the Taliban has seized DAB by force."
The New York Times reported Saturday that "a federal district court judge for the Southern District of New York, George B. Daniels, is supervising the litigation and has the authority to issue a ruling that disagrees with Judge Netburn's legal analysis. And if he instead rules in accordance with her recommendation, the victims' families could file an appeal."
While Fiona Havlish, the named plaintiff in a group of 9/11 families trying to seize the funds, said she disagrees with Netburn's perspective, Leila Murphy, a steering committee member for September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, praised the judge's report.
"As the daughter of a 9/11 victim, it makes me sick to think that Afghan victims of atrocity are being deprived of necessary resources during a time of great need," Murphy said in a statement. "I am relieved that the judge has taken a step toward the only legally and morally correct approach--making the entire $7 billion available to Afghans to deal with the economic crisis we helped to cause."
CRR senior staff attorney Katherine Gallagher on Monday similarly praised Netburn's report.
"One year after the Taliban takeover, the people of Afghanistan continue to endure a profound humanitarian and human rights crisis," she said. "Judge Netburn's thorough report forestalls the further injustice of allowing the Taliban to evade liability by raiding the peoples' coffer, and provides some hope that the people of Afghanistan will have access to the resources they so desperately need."
Gallagher added that "the 9/11 families should be able to enforce their judgments and secure some justice--against the Taliban, with the Taliban's funds."
Sadaf Doost, co-founder of Global Advocates for Afghanistan--one of the groups represented by CCR--highlighted that the Afghan people "have endured decades of catastrophic suffering at the hands of foreign actors and occupiers," and echoed one of the judge's primary conclusions.
"Allowing the $3.5 billion held in the central bank of Afghanistan to satisfy judgments against the Taliban," Doost warned, "would reward the Taliban for their illegitimate ruling of Afghanistan by implicitly recognizing the central bank as an official Taliban agency or instrumentality--such a decision would not only drive the Afghan people into further suffering, but result in a grave, unconstitutional error."
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Richest Country on Earth to One of Its Poorest: We're Keeping the Money We Stole From You
A foreign affairs columnist called the move by the Biden administration a "shortsighted, morally unconscionable, and potentially calamitous decision for a country on the cusp of universal poverty."
Aug 15, 2022
Exactly a year after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan's government, the Biden administration said it would not return any of the $7 billion in Afghan central bank assets that it commandeered earlier this year, despite pleas from both human rights groups and economists to help pull the impoverished country out of its economic crisis.
As The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, U.S. envoy Tom Wolf told the newspaper that talks between the White House and the Taliban regarding the release of at least half the funds have ended, following the U.S. drone strike which killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
"The key question here isn't just what happens if we send Afghanistan money and aid. It's what happens if we don't."
U.S. officials say al-Zawahiri's location near a Taliban official's home shows that officials will not "manage assets responsibly" and will therefore withhold all of the funds as inflation and other factors push the prices of Afghan goods up by nearly 100% in some cases.
The U.S. had been considering placing $3.5 billion in a trust fund for Afghanistan to spend addressing its humanitarian crisis--with the other half of the money being set aside for the families of 9/11 victims, over the objections of some of those family members who believe all the money should be used to benefit Afghan civilians.
The U.S. has pledged more than $774 million in aid to Afghanistan over the past year, but economists including Shah Mehrabi, an economics professor at Montgomery College in Maryland and a board member of Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB), have warned that foreign humanitarian assistance "is not a solution" to the widespread suffering that has taken hold across the country.
"Many poor women and children will not be able to buy bread and other necessities of life," Mehrabi told the Journal. "Those reserves belong to the central bank, and have to be used for monetary policy."
Anti-war group CodePink added that while the U.S. has criticized the Taliban for keeping women out of government positions over the past year and shutting down schools for girls, withholding funds from the country only gives women "a harder time fighting for their rights."
As the U.S. announced it had scrapped plans to return any of the seized funds, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said 97% of the Afghan population is expected to live below the poverty line by the end of 2022 and more than 24 million people--nearly two-thirds of the population--are without enough food to eat each day.
The United Nations has estimated that more than 90% of people in Afghanistan lack sufficient food.
"With each week that goes by, more Afghans are forced to resort to the unimaginable to survive: that means skipping meals, taking on debt, pulling children out of school to save money-and even more extreme measures such as selling young daughters into marriage or selling organs," said the IRC. "One woman recently told IRC staff that she is forced to pick food from the garbage and if she can get enough of the hair and dirt off, she brings it home for her six children. Otherwise they go days without eating."
Considering the dire circumstances facing millions of Afghan people, Daniel DePetris of the foreign policy think tank Defense Priorities called the Biden administration's decision "shortsighted, morally unconscionable, and potentially calamitous."
The Biden administration has been rebuked by economists and human rights advocates for refusing to release the funds out of the stated fear that the money will go to supporting the Taliban instead of ordinary Afghans.
Michael Galant, secretariat of Progressive International, accused the White House of "starving the Afghan people to avoid a bad PR day" for President Joe Biden.
On "Last Week Tonight" Sunday, host John Oliver acknowledged that releasing the funds carries the risk of inadvertently funding the Taliban.
"The key question here isn't just what happens if we send Afghanistan money and aid," said Oliver. "It's what happens if we don't. And we know the answer to that: Millions of innocent Afghans will suffer and die under a government they did not choose."
"The reality is, there is no one simple solution here that is without risk," he added. "But 38 million people's lives are at stake."
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Afghanistan on the Brink of Catastrophic Disaster
A million children could die of starvation.
Feb 17, 2022
Gay rights, women's rights--in reality, these are a nuisance to many U.S. conservatives, but purporting to protect these rights on the other side of the world is a great excuse to play war.
"Punitive economic policies will not weaken Taliban leaders, who will be shielded from the direst consequences, while the overwhelming impact of these measures will fall on innocent Afghans who have already suffered decades of war and poverty."
And you don't need bombs to play. All you need is the will to dominate and the ability to dehumanize "the enemy," so that their lives can be trashed if (and when) necessary.
I have to confess a stunned speechlessness as I learn about the looming fate of Afghanistan, if President Biden refuses to release $9.4 billion of its assets to the country's central bank, which it had deposited abroad, primarily at the U.S. Federal Reserve, during the 20-year war. With the Taliban reclaiming power after the U.S. withdrawal last August, the president seized control of these assets, potentially plunging Afghanistan into economic freefall, and . . . oh God . . .
" United Nations officials are warning that millions of Afghans could run out of food before winter, with 1 million children at risk of starvation. . . .
"No increase in food and medical aid can compensate for the macroeconomic harm of soaring prices of basic commodities, a banking collapse, a balance-of-payments crisis, a freeze on civil servants' salaries, and other severe consequences that are rippling throughout Afghan society, harming the most vulnerable."
These words are from a letter to Biden last December, signed by 48 members of Congress, urging him not to play economic war with the people of Afghanistan, even though the Taliban is in power. Enduring 20 years of war is one thing, but it doesn't compare with living in the midst of total economic collapse.
A million children could die of starvation.
This is almost beyond comprehension. Indeed, families are being forced to take unthinkable actions to survive.
"Many of Afghanistan's growing number of destitute people are making desperate decisions . . . as their nation spirals into a vortex of poverty," according to the Associated Press. For instance: "Arranging marriages for very young girls is a frequent practice throughout the region. The groom's family--often distant relatives--pays money to seal the deal, and the child usually stays with her own parents until she is at least around 15 or 16. Yet with many unable to afford even basic food, some say they'd allow prospective grooms to take very young girls or are even trying to sell their sons."
Jean Athey of Peace Action, noting that the U.S. spent some $2.3 trillion dollars on the Afghanistan war, points out that "for the people of Afghanistan, the war has not ended, nor has the killing. The new economic war is expected to kill more Afghans in four months this winter than did the 'kinetic' war in twenty years. No one expects the leaders of the Taliban to suffer. But everyone agrees that hundreds of thousands of babies will die. In fact, Afghanistan in 2022 is shaping up to be one of the worst, possibly the worst, humanitarian catastrophe on record, for any country."
Such data raises endless questions, all of which can be reduced to a single word: Why? Why? Why?
The consciousness of war still rules. The basic, abstract answer is simply: the Taliban. They are cruel and brutal and deny many people their basic rights as human beings. True as that may be, how can the U.S. government and its unquestioning supporters fail to see the irony of our faux-outrage over this, when we have been killing civilians there with impunity for decades and are now prepared to preside over a starvation holocaust? Furthermore, we gladly support and ally ourselves with brutally oppressive governments all over the world, as long as they bend to our wishes and align themselves with our "interests."
The time is now to ally ourselves with a million children on the brink of starvation and directly acknowledge the endless failure of war, including economic war. The primary victims are always the innocent.
The letter to Biden from 48 members of Congress--barely 10 percent of the House--addressed the issue thus:
"We deplore the new Taliban government's grave human rights abuses, crackdowns on civil society and repression of women and LGBTQ people. However, pragmatic U.S. engagement with the de facto authorities is nevertheless key to averting unprecedented harm to tens of millions of women, children and innocent civilians. Punitive economic policies will not weaken Taliban leaders, who will be shielded from the direst consequences, while the overwhelming impact of these measures will fall on innocent Afghans who have already suffered decades of war and poverty."
The letter ends with a quote from Mary-Ellen McGroarty of World Food Program: "We need to separate the politics from the humanitarian imperative."
If instead we continue to wage the "war on evil" that George W. Bush began, we will continue to be part of that evil. Think about the millions of Afghans facing starvation in their shattered country, then imagine the consequences coming home.
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