OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A government watchdog group that follows Afghanistan has made a startling discovery of cash from the United States government directly benefitting the Taliban.
The United States military bravely fought, and many died, in the conflict with the Taliban that spanned more than two decades after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
And now the group discovered that, via the United Nations, more than $3.8 billion in U.S. tax dollars have gone into the nation, The New York Post reported.
“At times, this includes the UN literally flying US cash into Afghanistan through transportation firms, per the report,” The Post said.
“While that money is typically then moved to UN partners in Afghanistan, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) found that the US cash flow has both ‘directly and indirectly’ benefited the Taliban,” The Post said.
“The humanitarian assistance facilitated by the shipments provide indirect benefits to the Taliban by stabilizing and legitimizing them, because the funds allow the Taliban to focus on their priorities and policies instead of providing essential services to the Afghan people,” the SIGAR report said.
It said that “under the guise of income taxation, the Taliban have targeted and extorted money from some recipients of direct cash assistance.”
The report said that “US currency is difficult to trace” and that “the Taliban now have a greater ability to circumvent the controls of the international banking system that are intended to limit the Taliban’s ability to conduct money laundering and fund terrorism.”
That means that while the State Department, for example, has safeguards in place to ensure funds do not benefit the Taliban, there are ways to work around it.
This revelation has some veterans furious.
“This has to stop now. We are sending billions of dollars to the Taliban while failing to take care of our veterans who are struggling day-to-day with both physical and mental wounds,” Shadow Warriors Project founder Mark “Oz” Geist said to The Post.
“This is not only a slap in the face of every servicemember who served in the 20 years of war with Afghanistan and the Taliban it things even more so to those 13 families that bore the loss of their loved one when they were killed at Abbey Gate,” he said.
He said the finding was “appalling and a disgrace to those who have served in sacrificed so much.”
Former Green Beret Scott Mann echoed those comments.
“US funds — marked as humanitarian relief and counterterrorism dollars in Afghanistan — are being funneled into operationalizing, planning, and preparation of terror operations against US interests, and the homeland,” he said to The Post.
Former Navy SEAL and CIA contractor Shawn Ryan, who hosts his own podcast, was similarly furious.
“As a veteran who served in Afghanistan during the Global War on Terror, the notion of the US funding the Taliban is morally reprehensible and fundamentally against our national security interests, especially as we approach the three-year anniversary of Abbey Gate,” he said.
“Once again, the US State Department has failed to properly manage US taxpayers’ dollars. This time, $293 million has ended up in the hands of the Taliban terror regime, potentially funding future attacks on America,” The Mighty Oaks Foundation founder and Marine Chad Robichaux said.
“When will enough be enough, and when will this administration be held accountable for the safety and security of our nation and its citizens?” he said.
In June, Republican Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett introduced legislation to prevent the Taliban from receiving funds from the United States.
“The Afghanistan withdrawal is one of the Biden administration’s greatest failures,” he said to The Post. “This administration has also sent the Taliban millions of taxpayer dollars since then. I introduced a bill to prevent this administration from sending one more penny to these terrorists, but it’s ridiculous I had to do that in the first place.”
