Connect with us
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=12]

Daily Caller

$40 million weekly cash shipments from US are stabilizing Afghanistan’s Taliban government

Published

3 months ago

8 minute read

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Rep. Tim Burchett

 

It is common knowledge that the Afghanistan withdrawal was a complete disaster, but lots of people do not know that the Biden administration has been sending cash to the Taliban every week since then.

When the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, our troops were ordered to leave behind $7 billion worth of military equipment which ended up in the hands of the Taliban. According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the Taliban also likely gained access to approximately $57.6 million in funds that the United States had provided to the former Afghan government. But that was just the beginning of the financial atrocities.

“According to an August 2023 World Bank report, the UN has purchased, transported, and transferred $2.9 billion in U.S. currency to Afghanistan since August 2021,” said a SIGAR report published in January. “This included $1.8 billion provided in 2022 and $1.1 billion provided in 2023, as of August 2023.”

“The U.S. is the largest international donor to Afghanistan, having provided about $2.6 billion in funding to the UN, other international organizations (PIOs), and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating in Afghanistan since August 2021,” said the SIGAR report.

The U.N., which handles the transportation of these payments, claims it needs to send cash because the country does not have the infrastructure to wire funds.

I recently hosted a guest on my podcast who goes by the name of “Legend” to talk about these payments. He is an Afghan American and former U.S. Army noncommissioned officer who has deployed to Afghanistan multiple times, and who traveled to Kabul during the Afghanistan withdrawal to rescue individuals left behind.

Legend confirmed: “Yes, the money does end up feeding and supporting the Taliban.” He explained that the United Nations flies the cash from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan Central Bank which is managed by a terrorist who is on an active U.S. sanctions list. That bank then holds an “auction” where groups bid to take those dollars and convert it to the local currency. Every week the winner of that auction is someone associated with the Haqqani Network, a terror group with ties to Al-Qaeda.

These terrorists take the money and convert it to Afghani to distribute. Some of that money stays with the Haqqani Network, some goes to the terrorists running the bank, and the rest of the money is given to the local implementing parties or non-government organizations (NGOs).

However, the Taliban is the group handing out NGO licenses in Afghanistan. If a Taliban sympathizer asks for an NGO license, they get it. So, many of these groups send money directly to the Taliban or to support the families of suicide bombers.

Legend also said if the United States suspended these weekly payments, we would see signs of the Taliban and other Afghanistan-based terror groups crumbling within a year. The $40 million weekly cash shipments have stabilized the Afghani, making the Taliban’s newly printed currency the world’s best performer, beating the U.S. dollar in September 2023.

It is not like this administration doesn’t know who they’re dealing with. President Joe Biden was a senator and Vice President Kamala Harris was an attorney in the 1990s when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan with an iron fist. During that time, women were stripped of their rights and treated as prisoners, and the Taliban provided safe haven to al-Qaeda in the years leading up to the 9/11 attacks.

When the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021, their spokesperson said: “Nobody will be harmed in Afghanistan. Of course, there is a huge difference between us now and 20 years ago.” It was a laughable statement, and no sane person should have believed it. Terrorists don’t change.

The Taliban’s return to oppression started slow. First, they banned women from driving more than 45 miles without a male relative. Then they stopped them from going to school. Then they banned women’s faces and voices from being displayed in public, and prohibited women from looking at men they are not related to. These women are now prisoners in their own country as much as they were in the 1990s. And we are funding their oppressors.

The fact that a single penny of American tax dollars has ended up in the hands of terrorists is a disgrace. I introduced a bill that would do three things to stop it:

First, my bill states the policy of the United States is to oppose support to the Taliban. It also calls for a report on any foreign countries that have given support to the Taliban and calls for the secretary of State to develop a strategy to discourage foreign countries from providing support. Second, it calls for a report on cash assistance programs in Afghanistan and the safeguards in place to prevent the Taliban from accessing it. Third, it requires a report on the Afghan Fund and the Afghanistan central bank and what controls are in place to make sure those funds are not diverted or misused.

The House passed my bill earlier this year, but unfortunately the Senate won’t vote on it. This should be a bipartisan issue, and we need to keep pushing for it.

Many people lost everything because of the Afghanistan withdrawal. Women lost their freedom, Afghan citizens lost their lives, and 13 U.S. servicemembers were killed. One of those servicemembers was my constituent, Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss. He had recently finished a deployment in Afghanistan when he heard we were evacuating and he volunteered to go back to help. He was 23 years old when he was killed.

We need to honor their sacrifice as best as we can. That starts by halting the payments we have been sending to the Taliban. No more American money for terrorists.

Rep. Tim Burchett has represented Tennessee’s 2nd District in the U.S. House of Representatives since January 2019. Prior to that he served for eight years as mayor of Knox County, 12 years in the state senate and four years in the state house.

Related Topics:

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

More from this author
Daily Caller / 12 hours ago

LNG Farce Sums Up Four Years Of Ridiculous Biden Energy Policy

armed forces / 13 hours ago

Canada among NATO members that could face penalties for lack of military spending

National / 13 hours ago

Canadian gov’t budget report targets charitable status of pro-life groups, churches

Daily Caller

LNG Farce Sums Up Four Years Of Ridiculous Biden Energy Policy

Published on December 21, 2024

By

 

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

That is what happens when “science” isn’t science at all and energy reality is ignored in favor of the prevailing narratives of the political left.

As Congress struggled with yet another chaotic episode of negotiations over another catastrophic continuing resolution, all I could think was how wonderful it would be for everyone if they just shut the government down and brought an end to the Biden administration and its incredibly braindead and destructive energy-policy farce a month early.

What a blessing it would be for the country if President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were forced to stop “throwing gold bars off the Titanic” 30 days ahead of schedule. What a merry Christmas we could have if we never had to hear silly talking points based on pseudoscience from the likes of Biden’s climate policy adviser John Podesta or Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm or Biden himself (read, as always, from his ever-present TelePrompTer) again!

What a shame it has been that the rest of us have been forced to take such unserious people seriously for the last four years solely because they had assumed power over the rest of us. As Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead spent decades singing: “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”

Speaking of Granholm, she put the perfect coda to this administration’s seemingly endless series of policy scams this week by playing cynical political games with what was advertised as a serious study. It was ostensibly a study so vitally important that it mandated the suspension of permitting for one of the country’s great growth industries while we breathlessly awaited its publication for most of a year.

That, of course, was the Department of Energy’s (DOE) study related to the economic and environmental impacts of continued growth of the U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) export industry. We were told in January by both Granholm and Biden that the need to conduct this study was so urgent, that it was entirely necessary to suspend permitting for new LNG export infrastructure until it was completed.

The grand plan was transparent: implement the “pause” based on a highly suspect LNG emissions draft study by researchers at Cornell University, and then publish an impactful DOE study that could be used by a President Kamala Harris to implement a permanent ban on new export facilities. It no doubt seemed foolproof at the Biden White House, but schemes like this never turn out to be anywhere near that.

First, the scientific basis for implementing the pause to begin with fell apart when the authors of the draft Cornell study were forced to radically lower their emissions estimates in the final product published in September.

And then, the DOE study findings turned out to be a mixed bag proving no real danger in allowing the industry to resume its growth path.

Faced with a completed study whose findings essentially amount to a big bag of nothing, Granholm decided she could not simply publish it and let it stand on its own merits. Instead, someone at DOE decided it would be a great idea to leak a three-page letter to the New York Times 24 hours before publication of the study in an obvious attempt to punch up the findings.

The problem with Granholm’s letter was, as the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board put it Thursday, “the study’s facts are at war with her conclusions.” After ticking off a list of ways in which Granholm’s letter exaggerates and misleads about the study’s actual findings, the Journal’s editorial added, “Our sources say the Biden National Security Council and career officials at Energy’s National Laboratories disagree with Ms. Granholm’s conclusions.”

There can be little doubt that this reality would have held little sway in a Kamala Harris presidency. Granholm’s and Podesta’s talking points would have almost certainly resulted in making the permitting “pause” a permanent feature of U.S. energy policy. That is what happens when “science” isn’t science at all and energy reality is ignored in favor of the prevailing narratives of the political left.

What a blessing it would have been to put an end to this form of policy madness a month ahead of time. January 20 surely cannot come soon enough.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

Continue Reading

armed forces

Canada among NATO members that could face penalties for lack of military spending

Published on December 21, 2024

By

 

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By J.D. Foster

Trump should insist on these measures and order that unless they are carried out the United States will not participate in NATO. If Canada is allowed entry to the Brussels headquarters, then United States representatives would stay out.

Steps Trump Could Take To Get NATO Free Riders Off America’s Back

In thinking about NATO, one has to ask: “How stupid do they think we are?”

The “they,” of course, are many of the other NATO members, and the answer is they think we are as stupid as we have been for the last quarter century. As President-elect Donald Trump observed in his NBC interview, NATO “takes advantage of the U.S.”

Canada is among the “they.” In November, The Economist reported that Canada spends about 1.3% of GDP on defense. The ridiculously low NATO minimum is 2%. Not to worry, though, Premier Justin Trudeau promises Canada will hit 2% — by 2032.

A quarter of NATO’s 32 members fall short of the 2% minimum. The con goes like this: We are short now, but we will get there eventually. Trust us, wink, wink.

The United States has put up with this nonsense from some members since the collapse of the Soviet Union. That is how stupid we have been.

Trump once threatened to pull the United States out of NATO, then he suggested the United States might not come to the defense of a NATO member like Canada. Naturally, free-riding NATO members grumbled.

In another context, former Army Lt. Gen. Russell Honore famously outlined the first step in how the United States should approach NATO: Don’t get stuck on stupid.

NATO is a coalition of mutual defense. Members who contribute little to the mutual defense are useless. Any country not spending its 2% of GDP on defense by mid-year 2025 should see its membership suspended immediately.

What does suspended mean? Consequences. Its military should not be permitted to participate in any NATO planning or exercises. And its offices at NATO headquarters and all other NATO facilities should be shuttered and its citizens banned until such time as their membership returns to good standing. And, of course, the famous Article V assuring mutual defense would be suspended.

Further, Trump should insist on these measures and order that unless they are carried out the United States will not participate in NATO. If Canada is allowed entry to the Brussels headquarters, then United States representatives would stay out.

Nor should he stop there. The 2% threshold would be fine in a world at peace with no enemies lurking. That does not describe the world today. Trump should declare the threshold for avoiding membership suspension will be 2.5% in 2026 and 3% by 2028 – not 2030 as some suggest.

The purpose is not to destroy NATO, but to force NATO to be relevant. America needs strong defense partners who pull their weight, not defense welfare queens. If NATO’s members cannot abide by these terms, then it is time to move on and let NATO go the way of the League of Nations.

Trump may need to take the lead in creating a new coalition of those willing to defend Western values. As he did in rewriting the former U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, it may be time to replace a defective arrangement with a much better one.

This still leaves the problem of free riders. Take Belgium, for example, another security free rider. Suppose a new defense coalition arises including the United States and Poland and others bordering Russia. Hiding behind the coalition’s protection, Belgium could just quit all defense spending to focus on making chocolates.

This won’t do. The members of the new defense coalition must also agree to impose a tariff regime on the security free riders to help pay for the defense provided.

The best solution is for NATO to rise to our mutual security challenges. If NATO can’t do this, then other arrangements will be needed. But it is time to move on from stupid.

J.D. Foster is the former chief economist at the Office of Management and Budget and former chief economist and senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He now resides in relative freedom in the hills of Idaho.

Continue Reading

Trending

X