Are US Sanctions to Blame for Suffering in Afghanistan?
There’s been a lot of pressure on the Biden administration to ease sanctions on the Taliban in Afghanistan—the terrorist group that took over the country by force, and in a couple of months took it, the economy, and human rights back to the Stone Age.
Defense Priorities Institute—a libertarian think tank recently published a lengthy series of bullet points about how we should just accept that the Taliban are now the de facto government, remove sanctions, and not worry about it because apparently, we just don’t have security interests in Afghanistan. (Never mind those pesky and lasting ties to al-Qa‘ida, the drug trade, and corruption and kleptocracy, which were named as core national security interests by the Biden administration earlier this year.)
The Intercept (because of course) is blaming US sanctions on the suffering of the Afghan people and asserting that general licenses and exemptions issued for humanitarian aid will do nothing to prevent the collapse of the Afghan economy.
As commerce ground to a halt, food and fuel prices skyrocketed, in large part due to economic sanctions placed on the Taliban by the U.S. As many as 300,000 Afghans have fled to neighboring Pakistan, and many more refugees may soon leave the country.
The collapse of the Afghan economy wouldn’t have anything to do with an actual terrorist regime having overthrown the government, would it? It would not have anything to do with businesses and financial institutions wanting to avoid the risk—not just regulatory risk, but also reputational and security risk—of transacting with terrorists, would it? And let’s not forget the fact that the UN has had the Taliban under sanctions since 1999. So why is the United States at fault?
The confusion stretches back to 1999, when UNSCR 1267 was adopted in response to the Taliban’s sheltering of Osama bin Laden, wanted at the time for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The resolution froze the Taliban’s funds and other financial resources, including money generated from property the group controlled directly or indirectly. Since then, the security council has not nullified the language of this resolution, which legally binds all member states, meaning that it remains in force. The Taliban was not added to any sanctions list because no such list existed at the time. In fact, that resolution formed the mechanism for the first UN sanctions list, to which al-Qaeda and other parties were later added.
Are US and other international sanctions helping the Afghan people? No, they are not. But to claim that the United States is somehow mainly responsible for their suffering is patently absurd. especially when the Taliban is murdering Afghans and stealing what meager earnings they have via the “zakat” tax. The United States continues to do everything in its power to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid into Afghanistan, but do we really believe that any of that aid will make it to the Afghans who really need it? I certainly do not.
…amid fears of widespread and violent human rights abuses by the Taliban, infamous for their harsh interpretation of Islamic law, and amid concerns over new opportunities for corruption and misuse of donation funds.
That potential for corruption is “a huge risk,” said Alex Zerden, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and former Treasury Department financial attaché at the U.S. embassy in Kabul.
The Taliban control all the government structures in the country, and until then they were involved in extortion and kidnap-for-ransom operations. Does anyone really believe they will allow aid to flow to those who really need it? So far, they’ve been stealing it whenever they can get away with it.
The Taliban are sanctioned for a reason - a whole host of them. The group is a terrorist regime that overthrew an elected government. They are linked to and provide support to al-Qa‘ida. They are terrorists. And if the terrorist designation was somehow removed, they would likely be sanctioned as a drug trafficking organization. They would probably face Global Magnitsky designations for their violation of human rights. They are murderers. They are not a de-facto government. We don't recognize them as such, much like we don't recognize the junta in Myanmar as a legitimate government after they overthrew a democratically elected one in February and have been imposing sanctions on the military in Myanmar ever since. Describing the Taliban as a government gives them legitimacy and recognizes them despite their inability to do what governments actually are supposed to do - protect their citizens from violence, establish basic infrastructure, etc.
If the Taliban want to be removed from terrorist lists, they need to stop supporting terrorists and engaging in terrorist acts. They need to start acting like a government, providing security and infrastructure for the people of Afghanistan, and stop murdering the citizens of the country. They need to allow humanitarian aid to reach the Afghans without stealing it or “taxing” it.
Sanctions are not helping the Afghan people, but ultimately, it’s the Taliban that are responsible for their plight.