Is Biden Funding the Taliban?

Far be it from us to suggest that President Biden intended to deceive when he vowed that his so-called “Afghan Fund” and other programs would send billions of dollars worth of humanitarian aid to civilians of the war-torn nation without a penny of it going to the Taliban. We were among the skeptics, though. Now it turns out that one of Mr. Biden’s own auditors is conceding that there’s no way to be sure that the money didn’t go to the militant mullahs. That’s the upshot of a new report issued by the president’s special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, operating under the moniker Sigar. Two bureaus under the State department failed to adequately vet nearly $300 million in aid disbursed in Afghanistan over an eight-month period in 2022, Sigar found. As a result, “there is an increased risk that terrorist and terrorist-affiliated individuals and entities may have illegally benefited” from the aid.Who knows how much more American money has gone astray since then? Sigar has also cast a cold eye on Mr. Biden’s “Afghan Fund.” The president launched the scheme a year after surrendering Afghanistan. He vowed to help the Afghans “without propping up the Taliban regime.” That defied credulity — and a rule of economics: the fungibility of money. Even restricted funds going to Kabul free up other funds for the Taliban to misuse.At the time the fund was launched, Mr. Biden said the money would “be used for the benefit of the people of Afghanistan while keeping them out of the hands of the Taliban.” Sure enough, though, Sigar found in an inquiry that the fund — situated in that haven of transparency, Switzerland — had “no controls in place that specifically address the issue of Taliban diversion,” as Sigar explained to Congressman Michael McCaul.The Afghan Fund’s “articles of association do not explicitly refer to the Taliban,” Sigar added, “and there are currently no specific controls in place to ensure funds are not diverted to or misused by the Taliban.” Worse yet, despite the fund’s claim that it had “robust safeguards” set up “to prevent funds from being provided to sanctioned or criminal individuals, including members of the Taliban,” that compliance program was still “under development.”If there’s any silver lining in this cloud, it’s that the Afghan Fund has, per Sigar, yet to start disbursing any money in Afghanistan. That’s but small consolation to the families of 9/11 victims, who were awarded the money in question in a federal court case. The families had sued the Taliban for its role in facilitating 9/11. The money — some $7 billion — was conveniently held in the vaults of the New York Fed on behalf of Afghanistan’s central bank. Instead of handing the central bank money to the families, though, the Biden administration first froze the funds, then sent half of it over to Switzerland for the Afghan Fund. The 9/11 families are still fighting in federal court to get the money they were awarded, and the case is being teed up for argument this Fall before the riders of the Second Circuit. The Afghan Fund, meanwhile, wants the money to “recapitalize” the central bank at Kabul, Sigar reports.That poses another worry, Sigar says, because one of the Afghan Fund’s trustees, Shah Mehrabi, also serves on the Afghan central bank’s “governing body, the Supreme Council.” This raises fears of “a conflict of interest in the form of competing fiduciary responsibilities,” Sigar observes. The fund, Sigar warns, doesn’t have systems in place to decide “whether a conflict of interest exists,” or even to ascertain “how it is defined.”It’s bad enough that Mr. Biden diverted to the Taliban money owed to 9/11 families. For the money to disappear down a rat hole of corruption would also be wrong. As for American tax dollars being spent “to benefit the Afghan people,” Sigar urges the State department to do better confirming “who is actually benefiting from this assistance.” At a time when terrorism is incubating under Taliban rule in Afghanistan, this concern is especially acute.

Is Biden Funding the Taliban?

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