Direct Left

Share this post

The U.S. Is Starving Millions of Afghan Children

www.directleft.com

The U.S. Is Starving Millions of Afghan Children

The calamity in Afghanistan caused by Western sanctions amounts to mass torture.

Peter Daou
Feb 11, 2022
23
2
Share this post

The U.S. Is Starving Millions of Afghan Children

www.directleft.com

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:

Twitter avatar for @BBCYaldaHakim
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
10:33 AM ∙ Jan 30, 2022
2,041Likes1,342Retweets

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:

Twitter avatar for @Gritty20202
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.
6:07 AM ∙ Jan 19, 2022
927Likes158Retweets
Twitter avatar for @TweetyMctwat
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.
3:30 AM ∙ Jan 22, 2022
72Likes26Retweets

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.

Twitter avatar for @WIGreens
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
Twitter avatar for @AP
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
4:13 PM ∙ Feb 11, 2022
1Like1Retweet
Twitter avatar for @zackbeauchamp
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.
Twitter avatar for @nytimes
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
2:06 PM ∙ Feb 11, 2022
1,279Likes417Retweets
Twitter avatar for @BidenTracking
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.
2:24 PM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
1,712Likes457Retweets
Twitter avatar for @micahuetricht
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/…
Image
3:43 PM ∙ Feb 11, 2022
Twitter avatar for @peterdaou
Peter Daou @peterdaou
Propaganda doesn't get more brazen than this. YOU STOLE MONEY FROM STARVING #AFGHAN CHILDREN. directleft.com/p/america-is-s…
Twitter avatar for @SecBlinken
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.
2:53 PM ∙ Feb 13, 2022
6Likes2Retweets
Twitter avatar for @AssalRad
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.
6:31 PM ∙ Feb 12, 2022
24,865Likes5,783Retweets

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.

2
Share this post

The U.S. Is Starving Millions of Afghan Children

www.directleft.com
2 Comments
Matthew Hoh
Feb 1, 2022·edited Feb 1, 2022Liked by Peter Daou

One thing to remember and emphasize about the current situation in Afghanistan: it didn’t start because the Taliban took power.

For years the World Food Program (WFP) has listed Afghanistan as one of the countries most in need. The year before the Taliban take over WFP listed Afghanistan as the second most food insecure nation in the world (Congo was #1). Similarly, Afghanistan’s economy has worsened annually. A decade ago, 40% of Afghans were below the poverty line. In summer of 2020, again a year before the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan’s president Ashraf Ghani stated 90% of his people lived below the poverty line. As many as 70% were living on less than one dollar a day (the poverty line is $2.20/day).

Additional facts are legion, such as a 2017 report that found 50% of Afghan children are stunted.

This all occurred as the US spent $300 million A DAY on the war in Afghanistan for 20 years. The $9 billion in Afghan assets the US has frozen, and that would provide enormous relief to the tens of millions of starving, sick, freezing and homeless Afghans, is equivalent to what we spent in one month of killing Afghan farmers and enriching warlords for the last two decades.

Where is the accountability?

Thank you for the work you do Peter and the awareness you help build and grow.

Expand full comment
ReplyCollapse
1 reply by Peter Daou
1 more comment…
TopNewCommunity

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Peter Daou
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing