Taliban Says “Give Us Money!” Forgets to add “please.”

 

Not The Good Guys

Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taliban_Humvee_in_Kabul,_August_2021.png

Since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, the country has faced one disaster after another. The new government has internal enemies — i.e. ISIS-K — which seems to be able to strike whereever it wants to, whenever it wants to. It also has few, if any friends abroad. And, worst of all, it is short on cash. Or, to put it less diplomatically but more honestly, it is flat out broke.

Part of the reason for that is the previous government of Afghanistan had its funds offshore—in US and other Western banks. When that government fell, Western governments weren’t particularly eager to hand over that money to a regime which had made a habit of attacking Americans and Europeans. 

But now the people of Afghanistan are facing real privation. They are short of food, medicine, and heating oil just at a time when the weather is turning cold. As such, it may be time for the world to consider lending a hand, and, in fact, the Taliban’s Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, has just issued an open letter to the U.S. Congress urging its members to release the some $9 billion of Afghan money currently sitting frozen in U.S. banks.(1) 

It would seem a reasonable request. Except…the Taliban has not exactly gone out of its way to reassure anyone that it would use the money purely for humanitarian purposes. As recently as last month, the Taliban’s interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, offered cash and land to the families of suicide bombers who’d died in the recent war against the US and others.(2) This wasn’t the sort of statement that was calculated to reassure nervous international funders and government officials.

Almost certainly, the world is going to have to do something to help the people of Afghanistan through the winter and later. But, clearly, the trick will be to find a way of doing so without aiding and abetting anti-American jihadists in the process.

~mjt

1. “Taliban calls on US Congress to release frozen Afghan assets,” Aljazeera, Nov 17, 2021, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/17/taliban-calls-on-us-congress-to-release-afghan-assets

2. “Taliban promises Rs 8,409 cash and land to families of suicide bombers,” October 19, 2021, https://www.firstpost.com/world/taliban-promises-rs-8409-cash-and-land-to-families-of-suicide-bombers-10069501.html

Copyright©2021 Michael Jay Tucker