After invading, we were propping up a government there for over 20 years. Did you just awaken from a pre-y2k coma?
I think he was asking “ after the collapse, and now that the country is run almost entirely by the tally…. Why are we STILL giving them 40m a week ?”
Is this going to be one of those “oops, we had the wrong amount of money, for the wrong purpose, in the wrong city, in the wrong country, on the wrong Continent” flubs, like Trump and his 100 million for condoms in Gaza embarrassment?
That is true, but we spent $2+ *TRILLION* on the war. Seems a bit disingenuous for any conservative to now be like “omg, we are sending millions in aid”. We do still send aid even after the Taliban returned to power, but it’s less than $1billion per year I believe. It’s fair to say anything sent needs to be watched to make sure the Taliban isn’t seizing it or weaponizing against their own people, and it’s also fair to say strings should be attached. Aid should buy leverage in a situation like that. Unfortunately Taliban may be just as comfortable letting their people starve.
As I understand it this is humanitarian aid coming from the UN. Some of the money goes through the central bank in Afghanistan meaning the Taliban, by virtue of controlling the country, would effectively have control. With the US funding anywhere from 25-33% of the UN then there are some US dollars making their way to Taliban hands. So, yes, there is some money making its way to Taliban control but it is much smaller than $40M a week. I’m not against keeping money from the Taliban and would hope we’re doing everything possible to do just that. The question is how to limit Taliban access while also helping the vulnerable population.
The Bush administration changed the middle east and the USA when they decided to go way beyond just taking out ben laden. I said so at the time we were invading Iraq. We should stay out of “nation building” period. Then under Biden, we finally left Afghanistan in a disgraceful way. Leaving military equipment for the taliban to use was an idiotic decision that was surly not helping the Afghanistan people. According to the article, the 40 mil a week started in 2021. Here is a Feb article from the AP— https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-taliban-us-funding-1cc24e818172c03573a63dfb52375842 According to the report, the U.S. has spent nearly $3.71 billion in Afghanistan since withdrawing from the country in 2021. Most of that has gone to U.N. agencies. The U.S. remains the largest donor to Afghanistan, but the report said a lot of the money is taxed or diverted. “The further the cash gets away from the source, the less transparency there is,” Chris Borgeson, the deputy inspector general for audits and inspections at the watchdog, told The Associated Press last August.
The Iraq war was the biggest boondoggle in the history of our country, and almost every “conservative” on here enthusiastically supported it. I remember getting into it with quite a few posters here on Iraq. As it turns out “nation building” wasn’t a great idea in Afghanistan either, but at least that mission had nearly unanimous support. The question on this aid we send is whether it’s in any way preventing another 9-11. Most likely the answer is “not really”, but regardless the humanitarian concern does exist. I’d only look at this if it was believed the Taliban is hijacking the aid or we are unintentionally strengthening them. I don’t discount that possibility, but i have no issue with food aid entering this country in principle. At this point it just seems like scrambling to generate outrage. What happened to all the fraud they were supposed to find? BTW this is especially silly, because this was aid authorized by Congress and the President. Not fraud. Not showing evidence of waste. They could just… you know.. not do that! It’s a bad idea to drastically pull back global humanitarian aid, but quite literally they do have the votes to do that including in Afghanistan.
Not that you people care, but will put this up here for posterity. Biden had two choices thanks to your boy pulling troops out during his administration. Stick with the plan put in place by Trump and hope the Taliban keep their word. . . Or redeploy troops. I'm sure complete nonsense will be written in response. I await with baited breath the myopic partisan hackery that sees Trump as faultless on this.
I supported it just like many of our elected officials who voted for it and many other countries who joined us. I’ll also admit I was wrong.
