Andrew Alexis Varvel

Bismarck

By every appearance, the pretended caliphate of the Taliban is ginning up a casus belli for war against the United States. Their apparent strategy is to starve millions of Afghans to death so they can then blame the United States for the starvation that the Taliban are presently engineering.

This war is not over.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme have been sending food to Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Afghanistan has been exporting dried figs to Pakistan and China.

The Taliban are now arrogantly ordering the United States to give them over nine billion dollars of foreign reserves owned by the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The problem with this demand is that these funds do not belong to the Taliban. These funds belong to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Most fundamentally, these funds belong to the people of Afghanistan.

The people of Afghanistan never chose the Taliban to rule over them. The Taliban, under the guidance of Pakistani intelligence, conquered Afghanistan.

Even if the Taliban did have any right to those funds, they owe reparations for the September 11 attacks – reparations which vastly dwarf Afghanistan’s reserves. With families of the victims of the September 11 attacks suing the Taliban for damages and requesting a judgment lien on Taliban assets, these stateside funds ostensibly claimed by the Taliban aren’t going anywhere.

So, the Taliban are using this demand for over nine billion dollars to create a pretext for war, while casually expecting that President Biden will humiliatingly surrender to their demands.

The Taliban care more about beheading mannequins and banning music than ensuring that children in Afghanistan get fed, showing how their theologians have even less honor than the drug smugglers who are funding them.

Afghanistan’s fundamental problem is the Taliban’s tactless mismanagement of its economy, as it slips into withdrawal from the drug of foreign aid.

There is a way forward – air power.

Air power can drop money onto villages, town, and cities of Afghanistan. Although Taliban thugs would undoubtedly get some of the money, dropping money from airplanes would at least provide a chance for most of the money to get into the hands of the ordinary people of Afghanistan. The money belongs to the people of Afghanistan, so they should get it – not the Taliban.

For any Afghans who may be listening, you may feel abandoned. You may feel forgotten. You may feel as though the gates of the rest of the world have slammed shut in your face. A dark night has descended upon Afghanistan, shrouded by a thick fog of ignorance. The dawn has yet to come, but come it will, with the warming rays of the rising sun.