U.S. to Gift $308 Million to Taliban-Run Afghanistan: White House

“Humanitarian assistance” for the country ruled by Islamist terrorist organization.

QUICK FACTS:

• The Democrat-controlled White House announced on Tuesday it will provide $308 million in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, as half the country’s population struggles with hunger.
• The country’s health crisis followed the chaotic U.S. military withdrawal and Taliban takeover in August 2021.
• Emily Horne, White House national security council spokesperson, said that the new aid from the U.S. Agency for International Development will flow through independent humanitarian organizations and will be used to provide shelter, health care, winterization assistance, emergency food aid, water, sanitation, and hygiene services, The Associated Press reports.
• The Taliban have called on the U.S. to release funds to their nation.

Reminder: it didn’t have to be like this.

Biden’s unmitigated failure was not the only way to get US forces out of Afghanistan.

America and Afghanistan will pay the price of Biden’s failures for generations to come. https://t.co/2jbU2AW7x0

— Erin Perrine (@ErinMPerrine) January 11, 2022

WHY NOT NEGOTIATE?:

• Brett Bruen, White House director of engagement under President Barack Obama, raised the question as to why the Biden administration “didn’t condition this aid on the Taliban meeting some basic human rights standards, without which the humanitarian situation is only going to worsen.”

BACKGROUND:

• AP notes how Afghanistan’s economy has been troubled since the Taliban takeover, nearly 80% of the country’s previous government’s budget coming from other nations.
• That money—which financed hospitals, schools, factories, and government ministries—is now gone, as international funding to Afghanistan was suspended and billions of dollars of the country’s assets were frozen after the Taliban took control of the country in mid-August.
• The Daily Mail points out how girls in Afghanistan have been denied access to high schools, Taliban gunmen have carried out summary executions of former officials and security force personnel, and journalists have been beaten and intimidated.
• Since the Taliban takeover, the U.S. has given more than $780 million in humanitarian aid to the former ally, notes Breitbart. However, even as the aid flowed, reports surfaced of a return of public executions, torture of those branded as opposition, return to the severe oppression of women, and Sharia Law, in Afghanistan.
• The Biden admin. also pledged to send Afghanistan 1 million additional Covid-19 vaccine doses through COVAX, an initiative by the World Health Organization to improve access to vaccines.