After U.S. President Joe Biden's decision last Friday to carve out half the assets of Afghanistan's central bank for U.S. victims of terrorism, including the 9/11 attacks, criticism is mounting of the unusual move, made through an executive order. Many experts say it will act as a final death blow to the country's economy.
"The richest country in the world has decided to rob the poorest country in the world in the name of justice for a crime in which no Afghans participated," said Barnett Rubin, a former advisor to the U.S. and Afghan governments.
"There is something wrong with a financial system where one state can unilaterally block the national assets of another to pay off questionable claims by its own citizens," said Munir Akram, Pakistan's ambassador to the U.N., in a statement on Friday.
The U.S. has held approximately $7 billion of frozen assets of Da Afghanistan Bank, or DAB, since the Taliban takeover in August. In an executive order on Friday -- his first related to Afghanistan -- Biden moved to consolidate all the Afghan assets within the U.S. into the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and issued a recommendation that half, or $3.5 billion, be set aside as damages to be paid to victims of terrorism. However, that second half is also potentially subject to litigation, pending at least one court order.
Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesperson, said that DAB deserves to be entrusted with the assets because it is an independent entity. "It doesn't belong to any faction or government," he said. "So, this step taken by President Biden, in our view, is against the law and international practices."
The administration has faced a wave of criticism since the announcement on Friday. Hamid Karzai, the former president of Afghanistan, called on Biden to reconsider the order, saying it was an "atrocity against Afghan people." Hundreds of civilians holding banners protested in Kabul on Saturday for the release of all assets. DAB protested the executive order as an "injustice," declaring that it would "never accept" any use of the assets other than their full return to Afghanistan.
Many regional experts are expressing disappointment with the decision.
Anonymous
PS. Where is the justice? Where is the rule of law? It is the rule of the white gangsters against the poor and hapless tribesmen, like what they did to the indigenous people of America. Shame, shame, shame, Americans, shame on you.
We lie, we cheat and we steal.
What has happened to the Champion for:
ReplyDelete1. Democracy,
2. Human Rights,
3. Rule of Law,
4. Diplomacy, and
5. Justice?
So, all this while, in the past 250 years, the US has been living and spreading lies.
This arbitrary unilateral decree by the President of USA is tantamount to declaring that the USA does not believe in
1. Democracy,
2. Human Rights,
3. Rule of Law,
4. Diplomacy, and
5. Justice.
What a colossal disgrace and horrendous shame!
The main perpetrators of 9/11 were mainly Saudis and not a single Afghan. Saudi Arabia is one the most human rights abuSer and even murdered an Saudi US PR in the US. Yet the US not only kept mum but even supported SA war and genocide in Yemen.
ReplyDeleteWithout the Saudis, there wouldn't be the petrodollars which partly allows the US to spend beyond their means, irresponsibly incurring $30T in national debt and continue to raise defence spending, causing conflicts and wars around the world. The Talebans aren't the terrorists. Its the political elite in DC.
The US has no right to arbitrarily dispose of other countries' overseas assets through its domestic law, be it "freezing" or "direct distribution." They lack legal basis and are immoral. A barbaric act that the most powerful country in the world blatantly loots the assets of one of the poorest countries can even happen in 2022. This once again reminds the international community that the financial hegemony in the hands of the US is a dangerous and destabilizing factor for the world, and should be stopped.
ReplyDeleteNow over half of the Afghan people are suffering extreme hunger and millions of children are dying from malnutrition and being left untreated, while education and social services are on the brink of collapse. Stealing the Afghan people's money at this time, do US politicians still have a conscience?
If American politicians still have the basic humanity to recognize that "the lives of the Afghan people are also lives," they should not take away Afghans' hope to survive. In particular, the US, as the initiator of the Afghan crisis, has the primary responsibility and obligation to aid the Afghan people. Statistics show that during the Afghan War, more than 30,000 innocent civilians were killed by the US military or lost their lives due to the war, and about 11 million ended up refugees. The US should even take a portion of its $700 billion defense budget to compensate the Afghan victims!
Those Western countries that often tout human rights and rules have remained silent. Exacerbating suffering of Afghan people, the US has exposed once again that the so-called rules-based international order does not defend the weak and the just, but maintains the rules and orders of major powers and hegemony.
The world should strongly condemn the stealing by the US of Afghan assets. The UN should uphold justice for the Afghan people, and take back the life-saving money as soon as possible to resolve the unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.
This is daylight robbery!
ReplyDeletePresident Joe Biden has just made himself and USA as the Unprecedented Greatest Lawless, Unethical and Immoral Mafia Gangster of the World.
Justice must prevail. The whole world cannot keep quiet.
If it can do this to Afghanistan, it can also do it to any other country.
All other countries must come together to denounce this illegal, unlawful, unethical, immoral shameful act.
Those that fell victims to the Whites were victims of their own doings.
ReplyDeleteInfighting within ones' own citizenry and country is disaster in the Making. Even without outside influence, intervention and interference, society rife with internal chaos are destine to doom.
Period
@ all
ReplyDeleteRelax lah. ALL governments engage in legalised theft. There's no exception to this. The pap is raising the GST, so that everything you buy is subject to ” Commission". The govt didn't make the goods or services in question, but thru LEGISLATION they get to collect "protection money" automatically from you when you spend such that every purchase becomes more expensive.
The US govt steals from it's own citizens on a regular basis. It steals from the world thru the USD global reserve/ Petro Dollar system by "exporting inflation".
So what are you going to do? Keep on complaining or look for "angles" where you can derive FAT PROFITS for yourself?
You choose lah. You die, your fault!
Muslim countries take away their blinders and look at what the USA is doing to Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteIs this the kind of people that cares for the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang?
The USA claims half of the US$7 billion is to compensate the victims of terrorism. The USA is the biggest terrorist, waging wars and killing innocent women and children all over the world. Have they ever given compensation to those victims themselves?
The USA and the West are the biggest hypocrites on earth.
Why no Muslim country stand up for the Afghans? The Afghans are Muslims.
ReplyDeleteIf the Muslim countries did not bother, why would the rest of the world bother? Worse, some Muslim countries are in bed with the Americans. All the Americans need to do is to offer them some sweets or a drumstick, or invite them to the White House, and they would forget what the Americans did to their fellow Muslim countries.
Why are countries keeping their wealths with the US and in the US??
ReplyDeleteSimply put,
these are wealths that lncumbent Regime Members keep abroad for their members.
Blame the US? Lolx..
To the USA this is small potato when they could even rob the land of the Native Americans. They even used genocide to make sure the Native Americans cannot have the numbers remaining to stage any attempt to take back their land.
ReplyDeleteIn this world the most evil race must be the British, the forerunners of the USA, Canadian and Australian Whites. All three have committed genocides in the respective countries they seized and occupied. But they have slyly written out this part of history, and most people are unaware of their dark sinister history.
The Brits even tried the same vile tactic against the South Asian Indians and Chinese, but failed, because these two countries have their long civilised heritage of thousands of years and cannot be easily dominated, unlike the Native Americans and Aborigines of Australia. These latter Natives, innocent and with weak natural heritage, enabled the Whites to overwhelm them and seize their land.
In fact what happened in South Africa today is also a good example. The Whites overwhelmed the Blacks initially by force, but could not decimate them in sufficient numbers because the whole continent of Africa is populated by Blacks, who are not innocent Natives and their massive numbers enabled them to resist and take back their land.
The situation in South Africa is a reversal of what can happen when people in sufficient numbers fight back. That is the same that the South Asian Indians and Chinese did and were not overwhelmed or else they would have been forced to live in concentration camps or the sanitized version called 'reservations'. The same kind of reservations reserved for animals in a zoo.
It is a pity that the Native Americans and Aborigines have no way to reverse their fate.
Freezing the assets of foreign country is already bad enough and legally controversial. But to unilaterally transfer the assets to Americans is 10000000% illegal. The bank is merely a custodian of money not owner. It can do thing to obstruct or delay the withdrawal right of owner (think CPF) but to completely transfer ownership, this is different ball game. Cannot like that one.
ReplyDeleteFreezing the assets of foreign country is already bad enough and legally controversial. But to unilaterally transfer the assets to Americans is 10000000% illegal. The bank is merely a custodian of money. It can do things to obstruct the withdrawal right of owner (think CPF) but changing ownership unilaterally is THEFT and unlawful. Cannot like that one.
ReplyDeleteWhat a joke.
ReplyDeleteBiden should have taken ALL the $7B!
The lesson is --- if you're not willing to fight for your money, you never deserve it in the first place.
How could poor countries fight with the most powerful country?
ReplyDeleteBut they deserved to lose their money for their stupidity in believing and trusting the devil. Anyone with a little commonsense would easily see the Americans as the most evil people on earth. But the stupid would easily believe in words and propaganda and refuse to put on their thinking caps.
How many of these silly countries and people choose, of all places, to put their money in American and western banks? How many times they have heard of such savings being confiscated by the Americans but they refused to face the truth, that they could be next.
Germany even has its gold bullions stolen under the American care.
Political leaders and politicians come and go, so there is no questioning their foolishness in parking their countries reserves in US banks and vaults. That was also because the US$ is still the reserve currency of the world and essential for global trade. After all, most political leaders do not last more than a decade in power. Doing what others are doing is the most sensible thing and is seen as 'being with them and not against them'. But it is changing slowly.
ReplyDeleteThe Russians and Chinese are doing big trade deals away from the US$, and into EUROs and finding alternatives to SWIFT, and if successful, many other countries will be following their lead, particularly Iran, Venezuela and Cuba, with some ASEAN countries like Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia likely to follow. Even the Saudis, the hardcore US$ ally, has been doing some serious thinking about closer ties with Russia and China. That basically makes US sanctions lose it's desired effect.
One thing that benefitted the whole world had been the fiat US$ earned and accumulated by China, which have been used to fund all the infrastructure developments both at home and abroad by China. And of course enabled China to upgrade it's military power as well.
The European 'Kabul moment' had happened:
ReplyDelete'That “Kabul moment” has already happened.
And that shameful flight has already proven beyond any reasonable doubts that:
Russia is militarily stronger than the US+NATO and all the western threats are just that, empty threats. The “real truth” is that the US and NATO fear the Russian military.
That nobody will fight for the Ukraine and that all the promises made to the Ukraine in the past three decades by the West were every bit as false as all the promises made to Russia in the same past three decades. The AngloZionist Empire will go down in history as the “Empire of hypocrisy and lies”.
NATO is a paper tiger whose sole purpose is to “keep the Germans down and the Yanks in” but it simply does not have the means to “keep the Russians out”. Good thing that Russia wants nothing to do with the EU. Let the EU “have fun” with immigration, trannies, poverty, COVID-repressions, civil protests, etc. etc. etc.
The US wants to further impose its domination of Europe, including by selling the EU energy at vastly inflated prices. They are willing to set the Ukraine ablaze and let the EU spiral down into an unrecoverable spin.
'
http://thesaker.is/tomorrow-will-be-a-big-day-even-if-nothing-happens/
@Matilah,
ReplyDeleteBesides Kevin/Turtle Investor, you can also refer to KPO for rapid escalation in degenerate cryptos. KPO & CZM is a S'porean couple in their 30s with a baby daughter. Just google KPO and CZM blog.
He went from $600K in stocks in Dec 2019 to over $2M in stocks + cryptos by Dec 2022. This is excluding his HDB & CPF which should be another 3/4 of a million at least.
His wife just resigned & become full-time housewife. Cryptos is the main way for Gen Y & Gen Z to have an upper middle-income family on 1 breadwinner salary, just like 1950s USA.
It's also a real opportunity for families to have an upper middle-income lifestyle on ZERO employed status.
Starting from this year, he's now focusing on passive income i.e. dividends & crypto interests. But his target is to eventually $10+M his portfolio.
Hollywood.
ReplyDeleteMorning, will put this up tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteThey sent almost half a million Rambos to Vietnam and unknown numbers to Afghanistan too. In the end these Rambos found out the hard way and eventually have to 'run bo' or disappeared with tails between their legs, leaving the South Vietnamese and previous Afghan Government (that also followed them and 'run bo) in chaos. Does that ring a bell?
ReplyDeleteTo add insult to injury, they were fighting the North Vietnamese and Taliban with overwhelming military force, aerial superiority, carpet bombing and chemical weapons against mere rocket launchers and AKs and small guns. And yet they lost. And they want to confront the Russians, whose military is practically on par with them today?
As Vigo said, only in Hollywood!