Four Afghanis trying to cook at night outside of a small tent. (Photo: Petros Giannakouris/AP])
The U.S. continues its theft of Afghanistan's assets, and the people there continue to suffer.
This article was originally published in Black Alliance for Peace.
It remains evident that the United States, along with its European Union lackeys, continue to wage a destructive and cruel hybrid war in Afghanistan through sanctions and an asset freeze that are starving millions of people. The situation is so dire, Afghans have been selling their children.
The Biden administration, in collaboration with Swiss bank authorities via the so-called “Afghan Fund,” is withholding $7 billion of Afghan money. Both the sanctions and the asset freeze constitute—in our view—collective punishment under the Geneva Convention’s Article 33 as well as a crime against humanity under the United Nations’ Article 7. With winter right around the corner, many Afghans fear the impact this year will be even worse than the last.
Regardless of these facts, the U.S. government and its corporate media apparatus continue to create a false narrative that they care about the lives and human rights of Afghans, blaming other countries—and even Afghans themselves—for the current state of affairs. U.S. State Department officials continue to insist their hands are clean, wrongly claiming the Taliban is not Afghanistan’s legitimate government, while pushing for regime change, which would inevitably cause more instability, violence, and death.
The United States claims to be the largest international “aid” donor to Afghanistan. Yet, a recent report from the independent watchdog group, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), revealed that—for the first time in history—SIGAR is unable to provide a full accounting of $1.1 billion in U.S. “aid” to Afghanistan. In an apparent attempt to keep the U.S. public ignorant, the Biden administration continues to block SIGAR’s right to access accurate accounting records, while the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has “ceased all cooperation” with the investigation.
The Black Alliance for Peace is clear that the United States, leader of the “collective West”—those Western-oriented and Western colonial-capitalist nations that hold hegemonic global power—continues to declare war on the world. This could not be more obvious than with the U.S.-led starvation and destruction of Afghanistan.
ADDITIONAL READING
Sanctions Watch, Afghanistan (Center for Economic and Policy Research, November 8, 2022)
Since the Taliban takeover in 2021, the Biden administration blocked Afghanistan’s central bank from accessing roughly $7 billion in foreign reserves held in the United States. Around $2 billion in additional reserves have been withheld by European authorities. Along with a cutoff of aid and sanctions on Taliban officials, this has contributed to a collapse of Afghanistan’s economy.
A Town Hall with Tom West (Afghans for a Better Tomorrow, October 21, 2022)
U.S. State Department Special Representative and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Afghanistan Tom West incorrectly claims the U.S. government cannot do anything more to alleviate suffering and starvation in Afghanistan, while repeating racist tropes of the Afghan diaspora and praising the U.S. “relocation effort” of Afghan refugees that left tens of thousands stranded on U.S. military bases.
Scott Ritter Extra, Episode 20: Ask the Inspector (U.S. Tour of Duty, November 11, 2022)
At the 2:09:40 mark, Scott Ritter, former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector, explains why, in his opinion, Western reports that Russia’s Wagner Group are recruiting CIA- and MI6-trained Afghan commandos to fight in Ukraine are likely false. Reports like these intentionally conceal the root causes of wars in both countries, further masking the primary role the United States is playing in their destruction.
Quarterly Report to the United States Congress (Special Instructor General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, October 30, 2022)
A report from SIGAR, an independent watchdog group the White House and USAID refuse to cooperate with, reveals that—for the first time in the group's history—it cannot provide a full account of the $1.1 billion in U.S. “aid” sent to Afghanistan.
The Next Afghan-Refugee Crisis Is Right Here in the U.S. (The Atlantic, November 28, 2022)
Without congressional action, tens of thousands of Afghans, who the U.S. military evacuated to the United States, may be deported back to Afghanistan in the coming year if their immigration status is not adjusted.
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This week’s featured author is Biko Mandela Gray. Gray is Assistant Professor of Religion at Syracuse University. His book is Black Life Matter: Blackness, Religion, and the Subject.
