The Folly of Biden’s ‘Afghan Fund’

Not since Robert Strange McNamara used the World Bank to steer funds backed by American taxpayers to the North Vietnamese has there been as outrageous a move as President Biden’s decision to set aside billions of dollars to fund Afghanistan in the Taliban era. Mr. Biden’s démarche, which involves a new Swiss-based entity called “The Afghan Fund,” defies credulity by vowing to aid the Afghan people without propping up the Taliban regime.Mr. Biden insists the money, some $3.5 billion, will not go to the Taliban. He claims the funds will “be used for the benefit of the people of Afghanistan while keeping them out of the hands of the Taliban,” a Treasury statement today notes. This runs contrary to a basic rule of economics, the fungibility of money. Aid sent to the Afghan people relieves pressure on the Taliban, enabling them to prioritize their murderous intentions.Yet the “Taliban are not a part of the Afghan Fund,” Mr. Biden blithely contends, “and robust safeguards have been put in place to prevent the funds from being used for illicit activity.” Such assurances are the rationalizations of the appeasement-minded, among them the deputy State secretary, Wendy Sherman, who vows the billions will “improve economic stability for the people of Afghanistan while continuing to hold the Taliban accountable.”It should reassure no one concerned about the ethics of this plan that the new “Afghan Fund” will operate out of that haven for transparency in financial transactions, Switzerland. The money in question, currently on deposit at the New York Fed, will now migrate into an account with the Bank for International Settlements, and the White House promises “an external auditor will monitor and audit the Afghan Fund as required by Swiss law.”The decision to move forward with plans to send billions to Kabul is all the more perplexing considering that last month, America’s envoy there said that under Taliban rule, Afghanistan lacks “safeguards and monitoring in place to manage assets responsibly.” This was underscored when it was found that a top Al Qaeda official, Ayman al-Zawahri, and his family were living next door to a Taliban cabinet minister’s guest house at Kabul.That alerted Mr. Biden and his team, the Wall Street Journal reported, to the “resurgence of global terrorism emanating from Afghanistan.” Whatever reservations this may have produced in the White House appear now to have been overcome. Yet Mr. Biden’s plan to prop up the Taliban regime despite its ties to Al Qaeda is especially troubling because the money being disbursed has been awarded by an American court to families of 9/11 victims.It is no small thing that the victims’ families, who filed suit against the Taliban for their role in fomenting the terrorist attacks that day, won a judgment against the militant group. The amount awarded, some $7 billion, coincides with the amount on deposit at the New York Fed from Afghanistan’s central bank. Efforts to convey the money to the 9/11 families recently got a setback in court when a federal magistrate judge deemed the funds off-limits. Other families of 9/11 victims say the Afghan central bank funds should be set aside for the Afghan people themselves, as our Scott Norvell reports. That corresponds with the view of the head of foreign affairs of the National Resistance Front, Ali Nazary, who has told the Sun the money should be left at the Fed for a legitimate government at Kabul, and the 9/11 families’ claims should be paid by Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their sponsors.That’s certainly a better idea than what’s in the works from Mr. Biden. It’s been little over a year since he surrendered Afghanistan to the Taliban. Now, he wants America to take money that could have gone to the families of 9/11 victims to relieve the regime responsible for that day’s horrors. That kind of logic is on a par with McNamara turning on the taxpayer-backed World Bank’s cash spigot to benefit the Communists tyrannizing Vietnam.

The Folly of Biden’s ‘Afghan Fund’

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