Just 15 days before the final American troops evacuated from Afghanistan, the Biden Administration froze all Afghan assets held in U.S. banks. The intention was quite clear: freezing these reserves would prevent the new Taliban regime from accessing such capital.
Out of fear of supporting the brutal Taliban government, the West has since hesitated to provide much needed aid to Afghanistan. Before the Taliban takeover, the World Bank reported that foreign aid provided the country with 75 percent of its public expenditures.
Now, without critical financial support, Afghanistan is on the brink of famine. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. stated in November that at least 18.8 million Afghans were facing “acute food insecurity” and that this number would grow. Afghan hospitals are short of supplies and medical equipment, and unpaid hospital staff will likely quit. Many primary-care facilities have closed. Additionally, the central bank in Afghanistan now lacks liquid funds to meet withdrawal demands as its assets are locked in America.
Much of this suffering is preventable.
Thankfully, on Feb.11, 2022, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to use $3.5 billion in frozen Afghan assets to provide critical aid to the starving country. Yet Biden plans to use an additional $3.5 billion of Afghan assets to create a trust fund for 9/11 victims’ families.This executive order suggests a direct connection between the Afghan people and the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001. This connection does not exist. President Biden’s decision is insulting to Afghans (many of whom supported the U.S.) and perpetuates a dangerous and ahistorical argument that 9/11 was a valid justification for the 20 year Afghanistan War.
Afghan demonstrators protested Biden’s decision in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital city, throughout the following week.
None of the hijackers on September 11th were Afghan nationals. Of the 19 men who hijacked the four airliners, 15 were Saudi Arabian, two were Emaratis, one was Lebanese, and the last was Egyptian. Osama bin Laden himself was Saudi. “Al-Qaeda was primarily a network of Arabs, not Afghans,” says Washington Post reporter Craig Whitlock in his newly published book “The Afghanistan Papers.” Bin Laden was only in Afghanistan because he had been banished from Sudan, his prior refuge.
While the Taliban wrongly allowed bin Laden and Al-Qaeda to reside in Afghanistan, there is no credible evidence of their involvement in, or prior knowledge of, 9/11. The Taliban reportedly insisted that bin Laden ceased terrorist activity while in Afghanistan. Bin Laden repeatedly accepted these terms, but had been placed under house arrest by the Taliban for breaking such agreements on numerous occasions. The veteran correspondent Arnaud de Borchgrave was “stunned by the hostility” between Taliban leader Mullah Omar and bin Laden prior to the attacks. By 2002, almost all of Al-Qaeda had fled to Pakistan, Iran, and other countries. Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011 by Navy Seals in Pakistan, not Afghanistan.
Nonetheless, the Taliban wrongly protected bin Laden by not handing him over immediately after the 9/11 attacks. The discussion should not center around whether the Taliban is a brutal regime, as that question is quickly answered by their poor treatment of women, regional minorities, and religious dissenters. The fundementalist Taliban organization is not to be trusted by the United States, and President Biden is completely justified in keeping the $7 billion in Afghan capital out of the Taliban’s reach.
Instead, the discussion should center around whether the Taliban, and by extension Afghanistan, are responsible for 9/11. By diverting $3.5 billion in Afghan capital towards 9/11 victims’ families, President Biden has tacitly accused Afghanistan of playing a role in the attacks. The Biden Administration should have proposed a separate bill if 9/11 families are truly in need of these funds. Instead, they decided to steal the money from the Afghan people.
By agreeing to convert the first $3.5 billion in Afghan assets for aid to the country, the administration has admitted to finding avenues to provide support to Afghanistan without Taliban interference. Possible avenues are the World Bank and U.N. agencies. Therefore, the second $3.5 billion could have followed just as easily.
If Biden wanted to apply the $3.5 billion domestically, since the Afghan assets were most likely foreign contributions to begin with, he could divert the second $3.5 billion towards an unrelated issue such as homelessness in American cities. He could have used some of this money to help process and support new Afghan refugees in the United States. While these options could still be criticized as stealing, this action, at the very least, would not be accusing an entire country for a terrorist attack it played no real part in.
Rather than helping the starving Afghans or applying the money domestically in an unrelated way, Biden has decided to take $3.5 billion of Afghanistan’s assets and use it as reparations for Al-Qaeda’s 2001 attack. This not only insults Afghans, but it categorizes the idiotic 20 year war as a war of revenge for September 11. For the U.S. to not repeat such mistakes, Americans must be properly taught history. Even by 2002, the war could not be justified by 9/11. Thousands of Americans and NATO allies were killed, hundreds of thousands of Afghans were killed and $6.5 trillion of American taxpayer money was wasted for nothing tangible.
Biden was correct and frankly bold to rip the band-aid off by leaving this war. Now, he should immediately apologize for this financial stunt by proposing a bill to direct another $3.5 Billion towards Afghanistan through the World Bank, United Nations or other aid program outside of the Taliban’s control.
