I WAS IN AFGHANISTAN AND I MET THE PEOPLE BIDEN IS TAKING MONEY FROM NOW. IT’S INHUMANE
As snow blankets much of Afghanistan, and small children roam without as much as a warm coat and non-punctured shoes, the crisis that the United States and her allies have walked away from is as horrific as it is heartbreaking.
Millions of ordinary Afghans stood by and supported US military personnel in a war that was not their war because they believed in the American Dream of a better life. If it wasn’t bad enough that they were abruptly abandoned in summer 2021, they have just been dealt another unjust and humiliating blow.
Last week, President Joe Biden put forth a controversial plan for distributing around $7 billion in Afghan central-bank funds frozen in the United States, signing off on a proposal to give embattled Afghans half that amount in humanitarian aid and to distribute the remaining $3.5 billion to the families of September 11 victims.
That money is derived from the $9.4 billion in Afghan assistance, which was immediately halted when the US-backed President Ghani abandoned the country without a word on August 15 last year, paving the way for the Taliban to take the Presidential Palace. This all happened against a backdrop of a messy and disastrous American withdrawal following 20 years of war and occupation.
In light of the financial suspension – and the fact that the 39 million-strong country remained afloat thanks to an “artificial economy” created by the United States over the last two decades, whereby the vast majority of the population was sustained by foreign funding and US-backed government, military, NGO or contracting jobs that disappeared overnight — Afghanistan has now slipped into the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
According to Biden’s order, the $3.5 billion will be placed into a trust fund for afflicted citizens, circumventing the Taliban’s top brass. However, double that was set aside for the Afghan people, and it belongs to them regardless of who is in power. It is more important now than ever for innocent civilians caught in the crossfire.
This is not to discount 9/11 families, who have legitimate legal claims against the Taliban, officially known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. These grieving families have been seeking financial compensation through the US legal system for years, yet there are some alternatives that would not directly deprive desperate Afghans and force them to pay for crimes committed by others.
The fact that Afghans themselves were not directly involved in September 11 is often lost in the narrative of war. George W. Bush chose to invade the deeply impoverished country after Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar declined to handover al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, due in large part to the notion of “Pashtunwali,” which places the safeguarding of guests as paramount. Omar’s loyalty was also unwavering because bin Laden was one of the few figures to back the otherwise completely pariah Taliban government, which was cut off from the international community.
Among the 19 hijackers involved in 9/11, 15 came from Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was Egyptian, and one was Lebanese. And at the same time as Washington waged its war in Afghanistan, the Taliban trained, regrouped and resided mainly in Pakistan’s tribal terrain. Moreover, bin Laden was discovered and killed inside the Pakistani city of Abbottabad almost a decade later. All these nations combined receive over $2 billion in US foreign assistance annually. No one is talking about 9/11 families dipping into that pie.
The UNICEF World Food Program (WFP) now estimates that over 23 million Afghans are suffering from acute hunger. Nine million people are already starving. At least one million children are at risk of starvation as a result of the food, water, and sanitation crisis, the United Nations warned last month. Ninety percent of Afghans already live below the poverty line.
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HOW UKRAINE’S AIR DEFENSE CAPABILITIES BECAME ITS WEAKEST LINK
Ukraine’s Armed Forces have undergone a drastic overhaul since Russia seized Crimea eight years ago, growing from 6,000 to 200,000 troops. Yet, when it comes to defending itself in the air, the military mostly relies on fighter jets made in Soviet times more than 30 years ago.
And the presence of about 150,000 Russian troops at Ukraine’s border undoubtedly makes it vulnerable.
“We need some sort of anti-missile defense systems if their (Russian) military jets invade,” laments Vitaliy Barabash, Head of the Military Civil Administration in Avdiivka, Donbas, which has been in a state of war with pro-Russian separatists for almost eight years. “We need to be able to counter their rockets, and right now, we cannot do that.”
Moreover, Igor Novikov, former advisor to Ukraine’s President Zelensky, concurred that airpower – or lack thereof – is the country’s “Achilles’ heel.”
“We do have some (airpower) left from our USSR days, old Soviet-style equipment. But both our Air Force and counter air-systems leave a lot to be desired,” he says. “That is one of the biggest asks we have of the West. To ensure our proper defense capabilities, we need to be able to defend ourselves from rockets and aircraft flying in from Russia, potentially.”
There is a growing hope that the allied countries will continue to provide MANPADS (man-portable air-defense systems) FIM-92 Stinger to defend against helicopter incursions. Nevertheless, Ukraine’s inability to push back against bombers or fighter jets remains a major concern.
Despite the fact that countries from the U.S., the U.K., and Canada to Poland, Estonia, and France continue to send everything from missiles to radars to drones, the advanced equipment often requires assistance from these foreign militaries. Until this latest crisis, in which Russia has amassed personnel and equipment near its neighbor, only the U.S. and Turkey supplied Ukraine with arms.
As tensions have escalated this year, the Biden administration has approved $200 million in new equipment and ammunition for the Ukrainian Army, including the scheduled transfer of five Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters. The capacity of Moscow’s air force, however, is still far superior.
Ukraine’s current military budget hovers around $4.3 billion, less than one-tenth of Russia’s spending. The latter is replete with everything from jet fighter planes Mig 29s, Su-27s, Su-35s and Su-34s. Additionally, Moscow has Tu-22M3 bombers in flight inside Belarus.
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RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA BATTLE UNDERWAY IN UKRAINE AS POSSIBLE INVASION LOOMS
Amid fears that Russia is preparing to invade neighboring Ukraine any day now — echoed by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, who indicated in a call with the White House over the weekend that Wednesday would be “the day,” (though he has since walked it back) — Moscow has also turned up the drama dial, complete with the Kremlin putting on perpetual propaganda plays as part of its media manipulation mechanism.
For Ukrainians trying to manage the nagging uncertainty, it’s another layer to the seemingly endless cross-border battle.
“We are getting very worried about the Russian focus on propaganda,” said a high-ranking official, who spoke with me in Kyiv on the condition of anonymity.
“For example, just a few days ago, Ukrainian police (arrested) a group who tried to make some actions during a peaceful demonstration in front of the presidential building,” he added. “These so-called protesters had a gallon of blood; one was dressed in a medical gown. It seemed they tried to make a movie showing one person laying down and medical staff desperately trying to help them.”
According to the insider, the theatrical aim was to show that Ukrainian police had turned on their own people.
“The authorities find three different groups of people in the crowd doing similar actions,” the presidential affiliate notes. “Furthermore, every few weeks, our intelligence is seeing Russian troops erecting a mobile hospital or bringing in blood. But the (Russian) frontlines are 20 miles from major cities and hospitals, so this drama is not necessary. They showcase these things to make us scared. What is next? A mobile morgue?”
The tactic has become a tried-and-true one for Russia, according to officials from Ukraine and the U.S. Ever since the early 2014 Maidan Revolution in Ukraine that saw the ousting of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych – which prompted Moscow to retaliate by annexing Crimea and back separatists in launching offenses across Ukraine’s Donbas region – the embattled eastern area has been plagued by bitter and brutal battles.
However, the Putinesque procedure is just as much about soft power as it is about hard.
Similar to the Zelensky insider, the White House earlier this month publicly stated it had intelligence on a Russian plot to produce a “very graphic” fake video of an attack on Ukraine complete with corpses, mourning actors, damaged buildings and drones.
What is the elevator pitch to the Russian people? Those instigators of violence are the Kyiv-led government, the U.S. and its NATO allies, who are bent on hurting Ukrainian civilians and those with pro-Russian views. Therefore, Moscow should step in.
Consequently, what Russians see on their state-controlled media outlets is a powerful Russian Federation military prepared to face the NATO-driven aggression, as rumors circulate that the West is planning to remove President Vladimir Putin from power and steal the country’s abundant energy resources. In the Moscow-managed media landscape, failed state Ukraine is merely a political pawn for a weak Washington and embroiled in a divided European Union.
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DISPATCHES: Biden’s inhumane Afghan frozen funds plan, Ukraine’s Air Power Problem and Russian Propaganda