When the United States withdrew its troops from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, one of its parting acts was to obliterate a family of ten, including seven children, with a drone strike. No one was held accountable.

Now, Western sanctions push Afghanistan to the brink of total collapse:

Yalda Hakim @BBCYaldaHakim

Devastating piece by @christinalamb "In my 35 years as a reporter, I have never seen anything of Afghanistan’s magnitude - 23 million people, more than half the population, face starvation and a million children may die"

thetimes.co.ukIn my 35 years as a reporter, I have never seen anything of Afghanistan’s magnitudeAt the age of eight, Fatima’s future is decided. Her eyes limpid and far away, her clothes tattered emerald green, she would, she says, “like to go to school an

While U.S. policy ostensibly targets the Taliban, the effect is to devastate the Afghan economy:

As the Taliban took over the country, the Biden administration froze Afghanistan’s $9.5 billion in foreign reserves and stopped sending the shipments of U.S. dollars upon which Afghanistan’s central bank relied.
With billions of dollars in state assets frozen abroad, Afghan banks have been paralyzed and the country faces a dire cash shortage that has crippled business, impeded humanitarian services, sent food and fuel prices soaring and triggered a widespread hunger crisis.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that “virtually every man, woman and child in Afghanistan could face acute poverty.” He continued, “Babies being sold to feed their siblings. Freezing health facilities overflowing with malnourished children. People burning their possessions to keep warm. Livelihoods across the country have been lost.”

National security and foreign policy reporter Murtaza Hussain writes:

Sanctions are one of the bluntest coercive tools in the U.S. foreign policy toolkit — and happen be a favorite of policymakers, even as they rarely produce political results. Afghanistan is just one example of a mindlessly cruel sanctions regime that wreaks havoc on entire civilian populations without accountability.

America’s Afghanistan policy effectively constitutes mass torture:

Gritty is the Way @Gritty20202

If Joe Biden ended the war in Afghanistan, why won't he release the billions in frozen Afghan government funds they need to help avert the starvation and deaths of millions of Afghan people? Instead of bombing them, he's torturing them.

Yellow Vests Form Like Voltron @TweetyMctwat

Reminder that as Biden enjoys his nightly ice cream, he is complicit in the genocide and starvation of Yemen and Afghanistan. Whole countries are literally starving to death. Millions of innocent men, women and children are being tortured in the worst way possible.

UPDATE (2/11/22)

Biden has decided to continue starving Afghan children:

President Biden will start to clear a legal path for certain relatives of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to pursue $3.5 billion from assets that Afghanistan’s central bank had deposited in New York before the Taliban takeover, according to officials familiar with internal deliberations.

Wisconsin Green Party @WIGreens

Translation: After 20 years of the US killing innocent civilians in Afghanistan, Biden is stealing billions of dollars from starving Afghans as punishment for a crime they had nothing to do with. https://t.co/jK3OTxkdl8

The Associated Press @AP

BREAKING: President Biden is expected to issue an executive order to move some $7 billion of the Afghan central bank’s assets frozen in the U.S. banking system to fund humanitarian relief in Afghanistan and compensate Sept. 11 victims, source tells @AP https://t.co/pSimEOz9vR

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

Let's not sugarcoat this: The Biden administration is stealing $3.5 billion from starving Afghans to purchase political cover. It's disgusting and immoral.

The New York Times @nytimes

Breaking News: President Biden is moving to split $7 billion in frozen Afghan central bank assets between 9/11 victims’ families and humanitarian aid in Afghanistan. The highly unusual set of moves is expected to be announced on Friday. https://t.co/tMqWbm9oBx

Tracking Biden From The Left @BidenTracking

NEW: The lead lawyer for the victims of 9/11, who will now receive half of the $7b seized from the Afghan people is the Biden Afghan special counsel; who left the admin in January to take this legal gig and will now reap a financial windfall.

Micah Uetricht @micahuetricht

The insanity of this story is difficult to wrap my mind around. God bless the guy whose brother died in 9/11 and is saying that starving (literally, starving) Afghans should be receiving Afghanistan's assets, not family members of 9/11 victims. nytimes.com/2022/02/11/us/…

Peter Daou @peterdaou

Propaganda doesn't get more brazen than this. YOU STOLE MONEY FROM STARVING #AFGHAN CHILDREN. directleft.com/p/america-is-s…

Secretary Antony Blinken @SecBlinken

The President today signed an Executive Order as part of an effort to set aside $3.5 billion U.S.-based Afghan central bank assets for the benefit the Afghan people. The United States stands with the people of Afghanistan.

Assal Rad @AssalRad

Two-thirds of the Afghan population is under 25 yrs old. That means most Afghans either weren’t yet born or were too young to remember 9/11. The US is collectively punishing—with starvation & theft—an entire people who weren’t even alive for a crime their country didn’t commit.

Even establishment defender Ezra Klein is appalled by the viciousness of U.S. policy:

Over 20 years, the United States built an aid-dependent economy in Afghanistan. When we left, we withdrew the aid on which it depended. When the Taliban took over, we turned the sanctions and financial weapons we’d wielded against them against the government and country they now controlled. We comfort ourselves by saying we are the largest donor to the Afghanistan relief effort, but we are also a major reason the crisis is dire in the first place, and we continue to be.

Direct Left

The U.S. Is Starving Millions of Afghan…