Biden probably thinks this is a Solomonic decision. Except it’s the opposite of one.
I wrote about all the Afghan assets in U.S. custody last summer.
Ahmady estimates that $7 billion of DAB’s assets are being held by the Federal Reserve which includes the gold, the bills and bonds, $300 million in cash, and another $2.4 billion in World Bank funds for aiding developing countries. There’s also $700 million at the Bank for International Settlements and another $1.3 billion in international accounts.
Since then the question of the assets has been pretty clearly clarified.
The Taliban claim that the money ought to be theirs even what wealthy Afghanistan had claimed came from foreign aid. 9/11 victims agreed and claimed that with Al Qaeda’s allies in charge in Afghanistan, the money ought to be used to compensate survivors and families.
After chewing it over for a while, Biden decided to split the difference.
Half goes to the victims, half goes to the terrorists.
Afghans protested Saturday against an executive order President Biden signed a day earlier intended to free up $3.5 billion in frozen Afghanistan funds to go toward compensation for 9/11 victims.
The protesters held up signs accusing the U.S. of stealing Afghanistan’s money, The Associated Press reported. The demonstration took place in the country’s capital, Kabul, outside a mosque.
Biden’s executive order is intended to make available $7 billion in assets from Afghanistan’s central bank that is being held up in the U.S., with $3.5 billion of that amount potentially going to humanitarian aid in Afghanistan and the other $3.5 billion to compensation for the families of 9/11 victims.
As I discussed frequently since the fall of Kabul, “humanitarian aid”, particularly routed through the UN and local NGOs (as Samantha Power insists on doing) is money in the pockets of the Taliban.
The Taliban are protesting because they want the whole $7 billion, instead they’re getting, at worst 10% of $3.5 billion, but likely a good deal more.
Taliban political spokesman Mohammad Naeem accused the Biden administration in a tweet late Friday of showing “the lowest level of humanity … of a country and a nation.”
Coming from monsters who torture and murder when they’re not raping little boys… we’ll have to take that into consideration.
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