Will Biden Betray the 9/11 Families To Help the Taliban?

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The next big fight in Afghanistan will be the campaign to get President Biden to capitulate in respect of the money. This is being signaled in Kabul, where the Taliban government has unleashed protesters to march on the shuttered American embassy bearing placards that read, “Let us eat” and “Give us our frozen money.” With billions of dollars at stake, could a march on the Federal Reserve be next? Or the United Nations?

A similar battle is playing out at London, where the Maduro regime in Venezuela just failed to gain access to $1.9 billion of gold reserves in the vaults of the Bank of England. Britain’s Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the money belonged to the country’s opposition government, led by Juan Guaidó. Mr. Maduro claims the money would be spent “to aid Venezuela’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic,” the Financial Times reports. Yes, though we know a bridge for sale at Brooklyn.

The Taliban and their enablers also claim the money is needed for humanitarian purposes. A United Nations undersecretary warned Sunday that Afghanistan’s economy “is in free-fall,” services there “are collapsing,” and the entire population could be pulled down with it. The scale of the nation’s problems has led countries to reevaluate their opposition to the Taliban regime, Pakistan’s foreign minister said: “Forces that had serious reservations are now engaging and talking.”

The Biden administration has already shown worrying signs of going wobbly. Thomas West, America’s envoy for Afghanistan, dropped the ball when the Voice of America asked about “the Taliban’s appeal to release” its frozen assets in November. Instead of offering a clear explanation as to why the funds were being withheld, or suggesting America could use the money as leverage in future dealings with the Kabul regime, he meandered in bureaucratic legalese.

The “reason that those assets are not moving is not because there is some executive branch action to freeze them, so to speak,” Mr. West said, calling it “a misnomer.” He cited “very complicated legal reasons, as well as judicial reasons, for why that money is not moving from particular banks into other places.” After the Biden administration’s humbling surrender in Afghanistan, this is hardly the stern denial that are the Taliban’s just deserts.

For one thing, the Taliban aren’t the only ones with their eyes on the frozen billions. The families of Americans killed on September 11, 2001, also want the money — and have a far better claim. In 2012, a federal judge determined the families were entitled to approximately $7 billion in damages from the Taliban for its role in the terrorist attacks that day. Other victims’ families are now also looking for their share. The Biden administration has asked for more time to decide.

That is not a good sign. The administration “has been actively considering the complex issues” surrounding the frozen billions, a Justice department lawyer explained in November, asking until January 28 to announce its position. A federal magistrate judge granted the request in “the interest of comity,” acknowledging “the treatment of the Afghan funds” at the Fed “involves numerous complicated questions of law and policy.”

Is it really so all-fired complicated? Could Mr. Biden’s Justice Department even be considering siding against the September 11 families in this dispute? Before one imagines that it’s impossible, bear in mind that, in the name of diplomatic immunity, the Clinton administration once went into court against the estate of Alisa Flatow, the American coed who was slain when Iranian-sponsored Palestinian-Arab terrorists bombed a bus in Israel.

Mr. Biden will also have to decide whether he’ll let the Taliban take a seat at the United Nations. Afghanistan’s pre-Taliban envoy stepped down from the position last week. The Taliban’s new representative took control of its U.N. mission Thursday. Earlier this month, the U.N. credentials committee punted on the question of seating a Taliban envoy, leaving it up to the General Assembly to sort out at a future date.

America’s place on the U.N. Security Council would enable it to veto any attempt to seat an envoy from the Taliban — a designated terrorist organization. The matter, like the dispute over the frozen billions, is a question of will, with American credibility on the line. Will Mr. Biden hold fast, or continue the course he began this summer by capitulating to the Taliban and surrendering Afghanistan?

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Image of Taliban negotiators in 2020 via Wikimedia Commons.


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