Why is the White House stealing $7bn from Afghans?

To take Afghan money to pay grieving Americans in order to punish the Taliban is nothing less than larceny as collective punishment, as I write in The Guardian.

Last week, the White House issued an executive order announcing the theft of some $7bn. Shocking, to be sure. But more shocking still was when that same executive order also identified the thief: the White House.

In a move that can only be described as brazenly immoral and utterly unconscionable, the Biden administration has begun a process to seize the more than $7bn of assets that the Central Bank of Afghanistan has on deposit at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Since the Taliban gained control of the war-ravaged country last year, that money has been frozen in place. Now, the administration has concocted its own mega-grift, planning to spend half of the money – not their money, lest we forget – for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan, while reserving the other half of the funds – not their money – for the relatives of the September 11 victims who have brought claims against the Taliban for the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Did I mention that this is not their money?

These funds belong to the people of Afghanistan and must remain with the people of Afghanistan. The fact that this must even be stated is mind boggling. There are ethical and practical reasons why Biden’s plan must be abandoned.

First, why must ordinary Afghan citizens who had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks have their savings confiscated and their lives immiserated by bureaucrats in Washington? (Reports indicate that the Afghan assets in the Central Bank are composed of foreign exchange funds, the reserves of Afghanistan’s commercial banks, and ordinary people’s savings.) Without rehashing the story of how the Taliban came into existence in the first place, we can all agree that no one voted the Taliban into power in 1996. Why should the people of Afghanistan be held responsible for that group’s actions? Nor did any of the 19 hijackers who carried out the September 11 attacks come from Afghanistan. The truth is that the Afghan people have overwhelmingly been the victims of the Taliban and of al-Qaida, and to take Afghan money to pay grieving Americans in order to punish the Taliban is nothing less than larceny as collective punishment.

And why does this kind of first-world financial hostage taking only move in one direction? After all, don’t the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the UK and many other states also bear significant responsibility for the thousands upon thousands of civilian deaths in Afghanistan? The money allied forces occasionally offer in condolence payments is peanuts relative to the destruction they have caused. Once we conclude that the September 11 families deserve justice for their losses, which they do, then shouldn’t we also look for redress for the Afghan victims of allied violence?

And yet, the idea that Afghans could seek legal means to abscond with the US Treasury due to the death of their people and the US role in the destruction of their country is laughable. This painful asymmetry illustrates the enduring colonial nature of international politics. Whatever legal wrangling about lawsuits and default judgments that this executive order is ostensibly meant to address, the message it sends is clear: American lives matter more than Afghan lives, and American tragedy looms larger than Afghan pain.

Read the rest here.