The tragic events of September 11, 2001 changed our world permanently. Although those who staged those events have not yet been identified, Washington unequivocally declared a “war on terror”, directed at the overthrow of Al Qaeda (a terrorist organization banned in Russia) and the Taliban regime (banned in Russia), supported by American satellites. But it is also common knowledge that al-Qaeda was created by the CIA with the money from the monarchical regimes of the Persian Gulf to actively oppose the Soviet forces, who were the actual fighters against terrorism.

As time passed, the United States no longer needed the boogeyman who had done the dirty work for Washington, hence the decision was made to “destroy” al-Qaeda by “pinning” the tragic events of 9/11 on it. However, this war was only proclaimed on paper, and it was never won, as the US still needed a tool to continuously threaten states in the Middle East region. At the same time, Washington, while carrying out its aggressive plans, occupied Afghanistan for 20 years in a mean and cynical manner, in violation of all international norms, and took no real action there, except for increasing poppy crops and then helping the Taliban to transport drugs from that Asian country.

Misery and hunger became commonplace for Afghans during this period. Many left their country in search of security or better opportunities, whether as a result of the US invasion, during the brazen arbitrariness of the US and its satellites for 20 years, or after the return of the Taliban and their seizure of power. The wounds of that day for the Afghan people remain open till this very moment, and one wonders who will answer for all this and make up for the huge losses suffered by the Afghans. As you can see, the US and its allies are in no hurry to do so and, moreover, are trying to pay with Afghan money for the victims of the sad events of 9/11, which the Afghan people had nothing to do with.

Twenty years later, the American style of “nation building” clearly failed in Afghanistan. And such a deafening collapse was documented when the West rushed to pack up and hastily evacuate Afghanistan last August, leaving the country facing its worst humanitarian crisis. As international organisations struggled to find the necessary funds to feed the starving Afghans, President Joe Biden found no other solution than to seize assets belonging to the previous Afghan government. The US Democrat has solemnly signed an executive order dividing the Afghan funds between the victims of the September 11 attacks and much needed help for Afghanistan in rebuilding the country.

When the Afghan government collapsed last August, and the Taliban took control of the country, the US quickly froze the assets of Afghanistan’s Central Bank. The idea was to prevent any use of resources by the Taliban government. Very few Afghans knew much about such assets and their value until they were frozen. It was later revealed that the frozen amount was about $9 billion, of which $7 billion were deposited in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the rest was in European banks. The reason why the former Afghan government chose the US Federal Bank was the institution’s high credibility and prestige around the world. The recent decision by the US government to allocate half of those $7 billion it had frozen to compensate the families of 9/11 victims and use the rest for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan came as a big shock to Afghans around the world.

Ever since the US government froze these assets, the Taliban have been constantly calling for their release. Few people in Afghanistan know the actual purpose of the precious currency reserves held outside the country. Many believe that these assets serve as reserve funds to help the Afghan government in times of extreme need or emergency when alternative means of financing become unavailable. While governments have the right to use such funds in extreme situations and financial emergencies, this should only be done as a last resort. The actual purpose of these hard-earned foreign exchange reserves is to ensure the stability of Afghanistan’s central bank and the monetary discipline of the value of afghani, the national currency.

The US government’s decision to divide the assets has caused a sense of grief and despair among Afghans all over the world. They are surprised that the de facto rulers of Afghanistan are legally linked to the people of the country, who are the real owners of these assets. The vast majority of Afghans believe that these funds belong to them and the whole country. The Taliban have called this move, ordered by “great democrat” Joe Biden on Afghanistan, “theft”, which reflects the lowest level of “moral decay”. Many Afghans also criticised the US action, saying it was “unfair and vile”. Even former Afghan President Hamid Karzai reminded Washington that Afghans were also victims of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden’s past and called on the American president to reverse his unjust edict. But he did not question who was likely to compensate the Afghans for their colossal losses as a result of the illegal occupation by the US and NATO and the arbitrariness that the occupiers had perpetrated on Afghan soil.

The Taliban, who fought insurgent warfare against the US-led forces for 20 years and now control the entire country, have not been recognised by the US or any other country, mainly because of their human rights abuses. However, with abject poverty gripping the country, not only is Washington not helping the Afghans, it is looking for different ways to further rob them. It plans to put $3.5 billion in frozen funds into a special fund to support people affected by 9/11, at least for now, as the cost of supporting the claimants is estimated at $10 billion over the next 10 years alone. Compensation, reparation and ensuring that victims and their families are well taken care of is a legitimate right in international relations. President Biden’s decision to release frozen Afghan assets will naturally be welcomed in a midterm election year in America, but it is very difficult to understand why the assets of poor and destitute Afghans are being used to supplement the US compensation scheme. It also begs the question: what have the Afghans got to do with it, if, as the US media itself reported, the Saudis were the terrorists. Let them pay compensation to the victims of Saudi terrorists. This is the law, and everyone must obey it, including the US leadership.

The irony is that 20 years after 9/11, the bleeding wounds remain open both for the American victims, as a result of Washington’s mindlessly aggressive policies, and for the Afghan people, who have suffered for some 20 years under the oppression of occupation by the US and NATO forces. The US federal government seems to have failed to find a suitable funding mechanism for victims to extend this compensation scheme to those who deserve it, so it uses Afghan funds instead. Similarly, the Taliban last year rushed to seize control of Afghanistan by quietly and simply expelling foreign forces, primarily Americans. But they did not take into account how to finance their rise to power or their responsibility to provide basic necessities to all Afghans, where to find money to rebuild the country, after the plundering of its national wealth by the US.

In this difficult environment, the new Afghan government, trying to find a way out of the economic crisis, decided to step up efforts to rebuild relations with the rich Gulf States. In this context, a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) delegation met for the first time in Qatar with Afghan representatives. Representatives of individual GCC member states had previously met with the Taliban in various capacities, mainly to discuss the delivery of humanitarian aid, security and logistics. While the very fact that a meeting like the one in Doha was a remarkable event in itself, participants were able to exchange valuable information and deliver important messages.

Ironically, since the end of the war in Afghanistan, the country has been plunged into a humanitarian crisis by the US and NATO due to economic isolation, depleted financial resources and an inability to provide basic social services. At a meeting in Doha, GCC officials stressed the importance of addressing the urgent humanitarian needs of the Afghan people as international reports reflected the grim reality. According to the UN World Food Programme (WFP), Afghanistan is facing the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, with needs exceeding those of Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Tens of millions of lives are at stake. The WFP has found that 22.8 million people are at acute risk, while 8.7 million face extreme levels of hunger, indicating a serious risk of widespread hunger. The UN estimates that 97% of Afghans could fall into poverty before the end of 2022.

Afghanistan is now trying every way possible to establish a peaceful life and provide basic livelihoods for the Afghan people. And a number of countries have come to the aid of this Asian country, with the exception of the United States, which is still trying to rob poverty-stricken Afghans, using their frozen money for its own selfish interests.

Viktor Mikhin, corresponding member of RANS, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

After keeping it under direct occupation, destroying the country for 20 years – and failing to militarily defeat the Taliban (banned in Russia) – Joe Biden’s executive order to simply seize half of Afghanistan’s little over US$7 billion to use it to pay to the victims of 9/11 is just a mockery of the “values” that the US always claims to hold. With the world’s richest country stealing from probably one of the poorest countries in the world where millions, including children, are starving, serious questions about the very war that the US fought for twenty years have arisen. If the US were to ultimately ‘compensate’ the victims by paying them – and not by defeating the perpetrators of 9/11 – why did the US stay in Afghanistan for two decades and kill hundreds of thousands of people, including innocent civilians? Besides the fact that the assets being seized include years of savings of common people of Afghanistan means that common Afghans – who played literally no role in 9/11 and who actually suffered immensely from the US invasion of Afghanistan for twenty years – will be paying out of their pockets for the loss that victims of 9/11 families faced, the very decision to seize Afghanistan’s assets means that the Joe Biden administration is bent upon inflicting as much damage to Afghanistan as possible even after formally withdrawing from the country. This, in practical terms, means that the US war on Afghanistan is not over.

A travesty of justice as it already is, the utter sense of injustice is further exacerbated by the fact that none of the 19 hijackers who blasted planes into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on the morning of 9/11 actually came from Afghanistan or was of Afghan origin. Should the people of Afghanistan – who have suffered excruciatingly more than the victims of 9/11 collectively – be made to pay for a crime that they did not do in the first place, or conspired to do at all?

Even if the US administration believes that the Afghan Taliban supported al-Qaeda (terrorist organization ,banned in Russia), let’s not forget that it was the US itself that made a pact with the same Taliban to get out of Afghanistan. Yet, it has not recognised them as a legitimate government of Afghanistan. As John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said, “There’s a legitimate question to be asked as to how a country’s sovereign wealth can be used to satisfy the debt of an entity that is not recognised as the sovereign government.”

Besides it, the money does not belong, and has never belonged, to the Afghan Taliban. By making common Afghans pay for the Taliban’s support for al-Qaeda, the US administration – and its judicial system – has exposed its utter failure in being able to differentiate between declared terrorists and common people. Going by the US logic, every single person living in Afghanistan, many of whom were not even born when 9/11 happened 21 years ago, is a terrorist – a supporter of the Taliban and al-Qaeda and responsible for the loss that families of the victims of 9/11 suffered.

This prejudiced extension of responsibility to all the Afghans is a mockery of their own loses. As data compiled by Costs of War project of Watson Institute of Brown University shows, more than two-thirds of Afghans were suffering from serious mental health issues caused by the war as early as 2009.

What about the terrorist militias, accountable to no one in Afghanistan, that the CIA created in Afghanistan itself and the crimes they did? According to a 2019 report of Watson Institute,

“the militias reportedly have committed serious human rights abuses, including numerous extrajudicial killings of civilians. CIA sponsorship ensures that their operations are clouded in secrecy. There is virtually no public oversight of their activities or accountability for grave human rights abuses.”

Shouldn’t Afghans sue the CIA – and by extension the US government itself – for the crimes it did in Afghanistan?

What about the extent of abuse and mistreatment the US military extended to thousands of Afghans in its secret jails – including those at Bagram airbase – in its so-called ‘war on terror’? According to a 2010 report of Open Society Foundation, “confinement conditions” in the US military run jails included systematic – and utterly inhuman techniques – of torture, including “exposure to excessive cold”, “exposure to excessive light”, “sleep deprivation”, “denial of religious duties”, “nudity upon arrival”, and, among other things, “lack of transparency.”

These methods, as the report further shows, contradict the very “field manuals” the US military officially uses to conduct its war. The abuse extended to the detainees is, thus, not only systematic, but also criminal. However, given the fact that these crimes were committed by the US military, rather than Afghans, means that there will be no repercussions here, nor would Afghan victims of these crimes be offered anything from the US taxpayers’ money.

At the same time, by not allowing Afghans to use their own money to tackle the extremely poor economic conditions, the US is condemning Afghanistan, even after formally withdrawing from Afghanistan, to a very long term dependence on foreign aid, assistance and charity.

While some in the US believe that not giving the money back to Afghanistan’s Central Bank will starve the Taliban regime and force them to change their ways of rule, it remains that the ultimate burden will be felt by the common Afghans. The question, therefore, is:

If, in the wake of the disaster that looms large over Afghanistan, millions perish due to the lack of resources, would somebody in the US still file a case in any court of law to hold the Biden administration accountable for directly condemning via am executive order millions to death? This is unlikely to happen, given that US democracy is always seen righteous and perfectly judicious.

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

At the end of December 2021, the Biden administration, in another of its now blatantly false propaganda campaigns, tried to convince the world of the supposedly “humane treatment of the people of Afghanistan.”

It should be recalled that at the time the matter concerned the delivery of one million doses of coronavirus vaccine produced by the US company Johnson & Johnson to Kabul as part of US humanitarian aid. Moreover, the damaging health effects of this particular US vaccine were openly discussed in the US itself even back then, leading, among others, to the closure of vaccination centers in North Carolina and Colorado, which was covered by none other than The Wall Street Journal. Even then, about a hundred complaints received by the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention after the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine prompted its medical staff to take a closer look at this anti-Covid-19 drug and “duly appreciate” the Biden administration’s “humanitarian gift” of this brand of vaccine to Afghanistan. At the time, there were also suspicions as to whether this “donation move” was not only a way for the United States to get rid of a failed vaccine, but also an opportunity to thereby “punish” Kabul for the scandalous expulsion of the US troops from that country in August.

And here is new evidence of the alleged “humane attitude of the White House towards the Afghan people” demonstrated on February 11 by President Joe Biden signing an executive order blocking $7 billion in assets of the Central Bank of Afghanistan, which are held in American financial institutions. As a result, these assets of the Central Bank of Afghanistan will remain in the US. Half of them will be held “for possible compensation of claims in US courts,” and about $3.5 billion will be put into a US trust fund “to help Afghans.”

It is remarkable that Biden signed the order just hours before the US Department of Justice was to present to a federal judge an action plan regarding the frozen funds, amid urgent calls from US lawmakers and the UN to use them to address the dire crisis that has worsened since the Taliban (a movement banned in Russia) seized power in August last year. According to senior US administration officials, the money blocked on US territory was deposited in Kabul’s accounts as a result of two decades of foreign financial support, thus legally justifying the US’s right to solely dispose of these finances. With the signing of this order, all of the foreign holdings of the Central Bank of Afghanistan held in the US will now be transferred to a single consolidated account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Washington notoriously froze Afghan funds held in the US since the Taliban came to power, explaining that the new Afghan government is not recognized as legitimate by the world community. However, the worsening humanitarian situation in Afghanistan has led to increased pressure on Washington by the UN and other states not indifferent to the plight of ordinary Afghans.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has already accused Washington of exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and hindering the restoration of normal life in the republic, as the situation is largely the result of a failed US and NATO campaign. “The $7 billion seizure of assets held by the Central Bank of Afghanistan in the United States, announced by President Biden’s executive order, raises questions about the sincerity of White House statements about the desire to help stabilize the country,” Zakharova said.

The decision by the head of the White House to divide the amount in half is also noteworthy: the first half is to be distributed to the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks. However, there were no Afghan nationals among the perpetrators of the biggest terrorist attack in US history. “Why should the Afghan people, who were in no way involved in organizing these attacks, now have to pay for them?”, Zakharova notes. In addition, according to Maria Zakharova, Washington’s claim that it has the right to give the second half of the $3.5 billion in aid to Afghans as humanitarian aid cannot be called anything but a mockery, as the money already belongs to the Afghan people.

But another remarkable thing is that when Joe Biden blocked the Afghan funds held in the US, he did not say a word about the reparations to be paid to Afghanistan by the US itself for the military and material damage that the US-led armed coalition was inflicting on this country and its people for 20 years!

The US administration’s decision not to return the assets of the Central Bank of Afghanistan is no different from the “behavior of bandits,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on February 15. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said that such an example once again confirms that the “rules-based” world order, which the US allegedly advocates, does not protect the rights of the weak and justice, but only supports the hegemony of the United States. He added that as a party to the crisis in Afghanistan, the US should stop exacerbating the suffering of the Afghan people, release those assets, lift unilateral sanctions and acknowledge its obligations to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in that country.

Commenting on Washington’s actions, surprising unanimity was shown by the Taliban and the country’s former authorities. “The theft by the US of money blocked and belonging to the people of Afghanistan and taking possession of it is an indicator of the human and moral decline of the country and the people,” Mohammad Naeem, spokesman for the Taliban’s political office in Qatar, wrote on Twitter. At the same time, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, according to Tolo News, said: “Washington, for the sake of future generations of Afghans, must immediately return the funds that belong to the people of Afghanistan, not the governments.”

Meanwhile, US and international media stress that the decision to transfer billions in frozen assets from the account of the Central Bank of Afghanistan to other uses is plunging the country deeper and deeper into economic disaster. Not only that, but also that the move will effectively bankrupt the country.

Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the United Nations Secretary-General, recalled regarding Joe Biden’s decision on the Afghan assets: “We have said on several occasions and we’ve called many times for the release of Afghanistan’s frozen assets.” He said the UN believes that humanitarian aid alone is not enough to cover the needs of the Afghan people.

And against this background, attention is drawn to a February 16 initiative by British Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss, who, on behalf of Britain and with the UN, intends to hold an international virtual conference “to help Afghanistan,” in the hope of raising $4.4 billion. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Truss, true to her servile allegiance to Washington, did not even attempt to criticize the blatantly inhumane move by the Biden’s administration to block the Afghan fund, the tightening of the humanitarian disaster in that country by the United States, clearly expressing “solidarity” with the actions of the current US administration. In addition, Elizabeth Truss does not even indicate where or how she expects to use the international funds raised in this way, or whether they will once again be blocked by Washington “for domestic needs” and to at least partially cover the costs of the predatory Afghan military campaign. All this is especially so in view of the provisions of the order signed by Joe Biden on February 11, under which all the foreign holdings of the Central Bank of Afghanistan held in the US will now be transferred to a single consolidated account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Vladimir Odintsov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

When the US decided to withdraw its military forces from Afghanistan in mid-2021, Joe Biden assured his Afghan counterpart, Ashraf Ghani, of full US support against the Taliban (banned in Russia) to preserve the so-called “democratic” gains the country made during twenty years of US occupation. Evidence that we have previously examined clearly indicates that the US badly failed in its two most fundamental objectives in Afghanistan: defeating the Taliban and reconstructing the war-torn nation. With various US presidents having clearly misled their own people with regards to the war in Afghanistan, believing Biden’s words for siding with the people of Afghanistan forever could only be naïve. As it stands, the Biden administration is not only not siding with the people of Afghanistan, but is also imperceptibly supporting the Taliban, including the Haqqani network it once considered its most dangerous enemy in Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, 2nd February the US treasury department issued some “clarifications” with regards to the possibility of transferring aid – including financial aid – to Afghanistan even if it includes transactions, contracts, agreements involving the Taliban and/or Haqqani network. That the US did not want to publicise this development is evident from the fact the treasury issued new guidelines as “frequently asked questions – newly added.”

While the US official narrative is that they want to “help” the people of Afghanistan to survive the economic crisis looming large over Afghanistan, the US could have very well “helped” these beleaguered people with aid transferred via the UN or other dozens of NGOs and agencies working in Afghanistan. Washington, on the contrary, decided to take an alternative route that leads directly to better ties with the Afghan Taliban. The question, therefore, is: why?

Against the context of fast developing regional scenario – in particular with regards to brewing tensions between Washington and Moscow over NATO’s expansion to Ukraine, and with China over Taiwan – the US appears to have rediscovered the strategic importance for Afghanistan, even if it is led by the Taliban, to advance its interests in a more effective manner. Therefore, even though the US continues to emphasise that they will not recognise the Taliban, the steps it is actually taking point to gradual legitimation, if not outright recognition, of the Taliban as a de facto and de jure government of Afghanistan.

Therefore, by explicitly using sanctions relief and wide ranging exemption as a diplomatic tool, the US is wooing the Taliban, which is significant for two reasons. First, the Taliban regime needs external help to legitimise itself. It needs financial help to survive politically, which it cannot get on a scale it needs without the US sanctions relief. Secondly, both Russia and China have not yet decided to recognise the Taliban because of the latter’s failure to crack down on transnational jihadi networks. That the US has nonetheless decided to co-opt the Taliban/Haqqani network shows how Washington is not only helping the regime to survive, but also using the same help as a tactical manoeuvre.

The US government supported think-tanks are already producing a narrative that supports this line of action. The United States Institute of Peace is at the centre of this new narrative, drawing people’s attention to “positive” steps the Taliban regime has taken vis-à-vis improving the financial situation of Afghanistan. The irony of the matter is that the USIP is now defending the same regime the US – and most of the EU – has been criticising ever since it took over in August 2021 for being too “exclusive” and too “rigid.” The Taliban regime has taken no steps to include Afghanistan’s various, non-Pashtun ethnic groups into its decision-making circles. As far as gender inclusivity is concerned, the Taliban have already confirmed that their Islamic Emirates will not offer secondary education to girls.

Also, the Taliban regime has not taken any steps to eliminate either the ISIS-K, the ETIM (terrorist organizations, banned in Russia) or other transnational jihadi networks. Although Taliban officials have been claiming that terrorism has reduced in Afghanistan, it is obvious to many observers that level of terrorism in Afghanistan during winters is always low. Even Taliban’s own insurgency against the US and Kabul would have slown down in winters every year, with “spring offensive” every year being the official start of fighting season. Given that the Taliban have not undertaken any meaningful operations against these groups, it is difficult to believe that these groups have died out on their own.

The US knows that the Taliban regime has not taken these steps. Even though it does not have the CIA on the ground in Afghanistan, it still has access to information via, for instance,  the Norwegian Refugee Council, which has an extensive network comprising thousands of field workers and is known to have kept a durable relationship with the Taliban over the years. The US policy is, therefore, not being shaped by mere goodwill; it is based on an active assessment of the situation and how best it could be used to Washington’s advantage vis-à-vis its global strategic competitors.

Therefore, the fact that the US has decided to extend support to the Taliban/Haqqani network means that the US no longer considers transnational terrorist networks based in Afghanistan as a threat to its interests. At the same time, Washington is quite unlikely to heed any objections that Russia or China may have with regards to allowing the Taliban to consolidate their rule without first eliminating transnational extremists.

Therefore, although the Biden administration only recently celebrated the killing of the head of the ISIS in Syria, it is obvious that Washington is following a very different anti-terrorism policy in Afghanistan insofar as it is now supporting a group it once considered the most brutal of the Taliban factions.

Quite obviously, the US motivation behind changing its policy is to prevent the Afghan Taliban from leaning too much towards Afghanistan’s neighbours – Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran – and instead lure them into its new strategic game.

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Ever since the Taliban (an organization deemed terrorist and banned in Russia) took control of Afghanistan last August amid a shameful and chaotic US withdrawal, the country, ravaged by war and occupation for 20 years, has plunged deeper and deeper into disaster, causing new waves of displacement, further impoverishing it and raising the specter of mass starvation.

Deprived of billions in aid, credit and assets from an international community unwilling to recognize the new government in Kabul, Afghanistan is fast becoming the worst and most difficult humanitarian situation in the world. Afghans who are unable or unwilling to join the stream of refugees are forced to survive the harshest winter in recent memory, suffering hardship due to the United States, which has occupied the country for 20 years but has failed to establish a capable government. There is a drastic shortage of basic food, fuel and medicines. But even the 5.7 million Afghans who have fled to five neighboring countries (Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan) are still in need of vital assistance. The suffering of the people was further compounded when at least 22 people died and hundreds of buildings were damaged after two earthquakes struck the isolated western province of Badghis on January 17.

In response to the deteriorating situation from all angles, the UN was forced on January 11 to launch a $5 billion appeal to help Afghans survive the very cold winter. But it must be said that many members of the international community have been reluctant to send aid to Afghanistan, fearing it might empower the Taliban, whose extreme interpretation of Islam, according to Western media, deprives girls of education, prohibits women from working in the workplace and restricts freedom of expression.

When the Taliban toppled the US-backed government of Ashraf Ghani last summer, they lost access to financial reserves under full US control of the World Bank and IMF, their assets were frozen and development assistance was suddenly suspended. In addition, President Joe Biden’s administration has frozen $7 billion of Afghanistan’s foreign exchange reserves held in New York. It is only natural that these enormous funds are not lying dormant, but are actively working, bringing in considerable dividends for the US bankers.

Despite 20 years of aggression and total Western interference in Afghan affairs, successive governments have failed to diversify the economy beyond rudimentary agriculture. In fact, almost 80% of the previous government’s budget came from Washington, which provided some of the dividends it profited from the illegal sale of Afghan drugs, as well as from other foreign donors whose troops were illegally on Afghan territory.  Deprived of this aid, the country’s weak and poorly coordinated economy now teeters on the brink of total collapse. Politicians and economists around the world remain perplexed: how to deal with an extremely dangerous situation unfolding without giving the Taliban “oxygen of legitimacy”. Washington thus seeks to bypass the Taliban by directly channeling funds through UN agencies and to those people who are still actively cooperating with the former US aggressors.

On January 11, the United States Agency for International Development announced more than $308 million in additional aid, bringing total US humanitarian spending on Afghanistan and Afghan refugees in the region since October 2020 to a paltry almost $782 million. Financiers warn that increased aid contributions are not a sustainable solution and that Afghans will only achieve lasting security and financial independence when they regain access to their bank accounts and hard currency, illegally held mostly in US banks.

Masuda Sultan, an Afghan women’s rights activist and co-founder of the human rights group Unfreeze Afghanistan, set up in September 2021 to lobby politicians on behalf of ordinary Afghans deprived of their savings under the sanctions regime, acknowledges that some progress has been made: “The UN announced its largest humanitarian funding appeal in its history, and last week the US announced $308 million in additional humanitarian aid on top of the $474 already committed.” In an interview with Saudi Arab News, she said: “But without addressing the underlying economic freeze related to the banking sector, which is a result of sanctions, the needs of the Afghan people can never be met.” In fact, the number of people needing emergency humanitarian assistance will just grow.

Aware of the growing pressure on Washington to release Afghanistan’s frozen assets, Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban government’s spokesman, recently posted a message on Twitter saying: “The United States must respond positively to the international voice and release Afghan capital.” Cheryl Benard, one of the co-founders of Unfreeze in Afghanistan and president of ARCH International, a Washington-based organization dedicated to preserving cultural heritage in conflict zones, said giving Afghans access to their legal savings would prevent a collapse of the currency and allow them to develop their communities themselves. “The bottom line is this is a post-conflict country,” Benard told Arab News. “In Germany (after the Second World War), we had the Marshall Plan and it helped them become a normal country again and rebuild their livelihoods.” It should be recalled, however, that the Marshall Plan was primarily designed to promote American interests, and it is thanks to it that US troops are still in Europe, while Soviet troops were withdrawn.

In the case of Afghanistan, the Afghans have the money themselves, $9 billion, and Washington is holding it back and instead the UN is raising new donor funds. But this was exactly what ruined the Afghan experiment for the past 20 years: The US kept them dependent on foreign experts and foreign funding. What they need now is to stand on their own feet and use their own funds, and the Afghans want to do that. Under the harsh and illegal sanctions regime imposed on Afghanistan, individuals, NGOs and small business owners cannot access savings held in foreign banks because the US fears the Taliban may try to use the money for their own purposes. In other words, President Joe Biden’s administration is preventing in every way possible (but for how long?) the Taliban from using this money to develop the economy and to alleviate the suffering of Afghans. In Washington, the current businessmen with a sick mind believe that the worse it is for the Afghans, the better it is for the US.

Benard said the transition of money into Taliban hands could be prevented by releasing the money “in small monthly amounts and if they try to take it, you can always freeze it again. You don’t give them $9 billion all at once.” The money could go directly to the Afghan central bank, where it would be regulated by law, before it is distributed to Afghan savers through currency exchanges across the country. “This is totally normal,” said Benard. “What is not normal is for the US to say, ‘We don’t like the outcome of the war, so we are freezing your money.’” It is hard to call this approach to freezing and illicitly using Afghan funds in US banks anything other than revanchist.

Shakib Noori, US-based director of sustainable development at AMS, told the best solution for Afghanistan is to ensure aid remains “apolitical and not a carrot-or-stick tool of the Western world to coerce the Taliban.” However, he said it is also important “to ensure that the current regime in Kabul does not benefit from the flow of the humanitarian assistance designated specifically for the ordinary residents of Afghanistan.”

Aid agencies said banking is not the only sector in need of support to stave off economic collapse. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, a crucial way to support the Afghan people is to shore up agriculture, which forms the backbone of the nation’s economy and its food security.  “Afghanistan is now one of the world’s largest and most severe hunger crises,” Rein Paulsen, director of the FAO’s Office of Emergencies and Resilience, told Arab News.

Half the population — 22.8 million people — are confronting acute hunger and food insecurity at the moment. Not only do they not know where their next meal might come from, but whether to stay in their homes or walk away from their livelihood in search of aid elsewhere. “Unless we tackle the causes that underlie this crisis, we can expect things to continue to get worse,” says Rein Paulsen. “This crisis is the result of a combination of factors but one key factor involves the underlying vulnerabilities that affect what is the bedrock of Afghanistan’s economy and food security: agriculture.”  Agriculture accounts for 25% of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product, 70% of Afghans directly rely on domestic agricultural production for their food or income, and 80 percent receive some sort of economic benefit from the sector. The largest share of the country’s population, 17.8 million, lives in rural areas and depends mainly on agriculture.

Politicians, economists and bankers are summing up the bleak situation in a disappointing way: “Afghanistan is falling off a cliff”, with the economic shock of losing 45 percent of GDP overnight. If the banking sector collapses, a further 30% of GDP could be lost and then there would be the question of defaulting on the state system. The US and NATO countries responsible for Afghanistan’s precarious state will have to “work with current Afghan authorities, despite the fraught history and long war.” It remains to be seen whether they want to prevent further Afghan suffering or add to old hardships.

However, the facts clearly show that no historical and economic parallels have taught neither the past nor the present rulers of the United States anything.

Viktor Mikhin, corresponding member of RANS, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

During the Christmas and New Year holiday periods, it is generally non-Christian countries which make the news. Everyday life carries on without interruption, so stories which build over a long period can mature without interruption.

It was only a few weeks ago that everybody was talking about Afghanistan. The Taliban (a radical movement banned in Russia) takeover was a foreign policy and public relations disaster for the West, and not a good thing for most Afghans either.

Even though most Afghans understand Sharia Law, and it makes sense to them as a moral code on which to found a state, the Taliban attracts those who use moralism to disguise criminality, as they did last time they were in power. Trump Evangelicals, as it were.

So we should logically be hearing a range of stories about what is happening now under the Taliban. With a global public hungry for anything which validates Islamophobia, news organisations should be undercutting themselves to produce ever more lurid stories, from a range of perspectives, and through these creating a connected narrative which produces a framework through which subsequent stories can be read.

But what stories are we seeing? Women protesting against their Taliban-imposed status, the scrapping of the electoral commission, alcohol being destroyed, revenge attacks on those who worked for the previous government. Exactly what we would have expected to see, in any classroom model, should the Taliban ever take power again.

That is precisely what is wrong with these stories. They may refer to current events, but they are not about current realities. They rely for their impact on existing perceptions of the Taliban, and Afghanistan itself – they don’t make any attempt to tell us anything we don’t already know, even when it will confirm this narrative.

These stories could easily have been recycled from last time the Taliban were in power. It will not be surprising to find that some of them have been – firstly it will be old photos, then facts presented as contemporary, with only passing mention of their actual provenance – “for twenty years they have been doing this”, with only things that happened twenty years ago offered as evidence of this assertion.

Maybe the Taliban are the same bunch of bloodthirsty psychopaths hiding behind religion that they always were. But the world around doesn’t stand still – so even if they are, the context in which they are doing it is different, and the same actions won’t have the same effect.

Saying how bad the Taliban are, and how much Afghanistan and Afghans will suffer, should be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Instead journalists are lining up to point at the fish in the barrel, instead of shooting them.

We are hearing the same things because everyone is scared of saying anything new. If they did, the narratives they created would come back and bite them. Mainstream journalists would end up as the fish in the barrel, and having shot themselves, nobody would miss them.

Same Story, Opposite Ending

Many readers will remember, or know about, the day in 1989 when Nicolae Ceausescu gave his final speech in Bucharest to the usual band of paid, cheering acolytes. It was his final speech because the coup which overthrew him was practically at his door, and he ended by fleeing the rebellious crowds who were storming his palace.

Ceausescu thought that he could head off the revolt by appealing directly to the people and demonstrating his continuing power. But he failed utterly, because his words demonstrated exactly the opposite.

Ceausescu was far from stupid. He knew what he had to do to control people. But he used this grand speech, which he was advised against making, to repeat the same old stories he had been telling all his life – how every Romanian was a committed revolutionary and socialist because they knew it was good for them, how he had created freedom and paradise and would raise the minimum wage and pensions to show his continuing socialist credentials.

Romanians had stopped listening to these lies long ago. Now they were prepared to risk everything to get rid of the system which had ruined them, the old leader needed to offer the majority a vision they could at least tolerate, to make the fight not worth that risk.

Instead he told everyone he belonged to the past, and was incapable of moving beyond that. So his people made sure he didn’t, and even though Romania didn’t change much, no one wants to identify themselves as a “Nikolist” anymore.

Why did he do it? Because if he had offered something the people could accept, he would have to implement it. Socialism would have to actually raise living standards, not keep everyone in poverty. It would have to give Romania a genuinely independent future, not the fantasy freedom of mild dissidence within the Eastern Bloc. It would also have be progressive, creating a new future, whatever that consisted of, instead of what everyone had been told since 1945, when it really was a new beginning.

The same old stories were supposed to remind people of the certainties they knew, not the uncertainty they had never experienced, but was soon to engulf them. Exactly as repeating the same old stories about the Taliban, without addressing new horrors, is supposed to evoke the same certainties, so we don’t want to think about the alternative.

As in Ceausescu’s case, if we want to say anything new about the Taliban, we have to deliver on it. What can be delivered? Is the world going to forgive and forget, and treat Taliban government members as legitimate statesmen rather than terrorist thugs with an unacceptable ideology?

The implication of the old stories is that the Taliban, and all they stand for, are not only dangerous to Afghans but everybody else. We are being told to believe, probably correctly, that the Taliban are going to wreak havoc by sponsoring terrorism and the narcotics trade, because that is where their ideology will inevitably lead.

But the moment you say that these things are happening now, you have to do something about it now. When these things were said before – when we were all given the impression we have of the Taliban – they were the reason for the US conquest and long occupation and state-building exercise. If you say them again, you will be taken at your word – and be expected to go back in, apologise for pulling out, and this time wipe the Taliban off the face of the earth.

Everything Except the Subject

Repeating the same old stories makes people feel good about the past. They feel they were justified in previous actions, no matter what their consequences, if they can be reminded of how right they were then by what is happening now.

But now is now, and reportage of the current facts cannot be the same because the world isn’t the same. Repeating these stories is designed to keep them in the past, frozen, so no one addresses the actual crimes of the present day.

The rights of Afghan women, or lack of them, were a big international issue last time the Taliban were in power. The latest reports convey a genuine fear that not only will those days return, but they are already being imposed, even though Taliban claims otherwise.

All Westerners are well aware of woman’s rights issues – words and actions once considered acceptable are entirely unacceptable today, and rightly so. Supporting gender equality is public policy in the Western world, and this policy is worn as a badge of pride – such progressive ideas are believed by the West to distinguish it from other political blocs, in particular Third World and Muslim countries.

If the Taliban won’t treat women as equals, as the West understands this, it means they are backward and dangerous. But shouldn’t it also mean you should help those women who want to escape this regime, if the alternatives they seek are superior?

If the West believes its own rhetoric about gender equality it should evacuate every Afghan girl or woman who wants it, and resettle them in Western countries to preserve this fundamental human right. That will never happen, because the West wants to keep those same women in subjection to show the world how bad the Taliban are, to justify previous actions, rather than give them the rights they are striving for because it is the right thing to do.

The scrapping of the electoral commission is another action which would naturally cause concern. In every country, elections are monitored both internally and by outside agencies, such as the EU and UN, to ensure basic standards are met. So if Afghanistan wants to abolish its electoral commission, what does it have to hide?

Every Third World country has well documented evidence that “observing elections” means nothing more than ensuring the result foreign sponsors want, and turning a blind eye to abuses of the democratic process if committed by their chosen friends. Amongst many examples which can be cited is the Zimbabwe-Rhodesia election of 1978, declared “reasonably free and fair” by international observers, despite the fact there was no voter registration and the official turnout in some districts was over 100%.

The Taliban maintains that each Afghan election under the US-sponsored regime was rigged, and this view is widely accepted. So much for electoral commissions. But what does protesting against the Taliban disbandment of it actually mean?

If the Taliban are denying Afghans democratic rights they are also denying them human rights, in Western thinking. Wasn’t that why the Western occupation took the course it did? Wasn’t introducing pseudo-democracy supposed to make the country less likely to sponsor terrorism, the ostensible reason for invading it?

If you went in once to protect Western ideals of humanity, which most Afghans also share, surely you now have to do it again? But that won’t happen, because questions will be asked about why it doesn’t happen elsewhere – not least by former Soviet Bloc nationals, who are sick and tired of hearing Westerners pontificate on how bad Communism was, and how much better freedom is, when they did nothing then to rescue them from Communism and do everything now to prevent them enjoying freedom.

Put Up or Shut Up?

Afghanistan repels every invader in time. It does things the Afghan way, always has, always will.

The Taliban may not represent that Afghan way, but they are closer to it than the West is capable of being. This is why the latest Western intervention has gone so horribly wrong. It never delivered for most Afghans because it was nothing to do with them. But the West can’t face the fact that it doesn’t have all the answers, and that some people, somewhere, might not want the Western alternative, or think it superior.

We are told the Taliban is the same demonic monstrosity of old, and that is probably true. Few Afghans who fled the country before – they formed for many years the world’s largest refugee population – want to return now. But if you went in the first time because their ideology and actions led them to sponsor and commit terrorism, shouldn’t you do it again if they haven’t changed?

Everything which happens under the Taliban this time round will be referred to its previous period of rule. A story will only be interesting if it reminds people of the past. If Taliban commits some new atrocity, no one will be interested in reporting it, or helping the victims, because they don’t want the responsibility which goes with that.

The Western attitude towards the Taliban now is that of a doctor who only knows six diseases. In order to keep practising, he has to pretend that every ailment his patients suffer from is one of the six diseases he knows, even if it patently isn’t.

If he has to admit he doesn’t know what to do in most cases, he will lose his authority, and the power that comes with it. Maintaining that is more important than learning enough to treat the patients, and more important still than caring about their welfare.

Afghans are only allowed to suffer the way the West wants them to – and then for as long as it salves Western consciences. They will never be free of the Taliban if no one will engage with the reality of it, rather than the convenient cartoon. But those who do will be condemned as dangerous radicals with no voice, until the military-industrial complex needs different fantasies to keep its gravy train running.

Seth Ferris, investigative journalist and political scientist, expert on Middle Eastern affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The finance minister of Afghanistan in the new government of the Taliban (banned in Russia) has prepared a national budget which, for the first time in two decades, will be financed without foreign aid.  This comes as the country becomes mired in an economic crisis and confronts an incipient humanitarian catastrophe, which the United Nations has called “an avalanche of hunger”.  Ahmad Wali Haqmal, a spokesman for the finance minister, has not revealed the scope of the budget, which runs to December 2022.

Afghanistan’s global donors suspended financial aid when the Taliban seized power in August 2021, but the Western powers have also frozen access to billions of dollars of Afghan assets outside the country’s borders. It is well understood that these assets are not actually “frozen”, but being actively put to work in the economies of Western countries, above all the US, bringing them colossal dividends. If at some point Washington is compelled to return this money – which does not appear probable – it will be the original sum, without the dividends added to it by all-American know-how. That this is a brazen act of plunder would be perfectly apparent even without accounting for the current destitution of the Afghan people.  One is reminded of the tremendous sum of dollars frozen by Washington back in 1979 after the success of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, when the Americans fled from that country as they more recently fled Afghanistan.

The budget for the year 2021, prepared by the former government under the “wise guidance” of the IMF, projected a deficit regardless of the 219 billion Afghan dollars arriving in aid and grants and the further 217 billion dollars from internal revenues. At that time the rate of exchange stood at about 80 Afghan dollars to one US dollar, but the local currency has strongly depreciated since the return of the Taliban, especially in the most recent period, and now stands at 130 to the US dollar.

The Taliban inherited not only weak institutions but also a non-existent economy, and now an incipient humanitarian crisis. Consequently, the real test for the Taliban has only just begun: seizing power is one thing, but providing the exercise of that power with legitimacy and effectiveness is quite another.  Every day Afghanistan draws nearer to a humanitarian crisis, and its economy is in free-fall due to the financial sanctions imposed in response to the Taliban takeover, which have paralyses the banking system and thus affected every facet of economic life. At a time when not one country has extended diplomatic recognition to their government, the Taliban are actively working with the international community, both through Doha and directly with the countries of the region. It would seem that at present the group may be seeking not recognition but collaboration (which amounts to a de-facto recognition) and humanitarian and financial aid. Although the provision of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan by several countries is an encouraging sign, it is insufficient to meet the vital needs of the Afghan population.

For precisely this reason, many analysts believe that in these difficult circumstances it is important that the international community make a co-ordinated effort to ensure that Afghanistan does not fall into a humanitarian catastrophe.  If the Taliban cannot strengthen their position and establish some semblance of stability, there is a danger not only of the outbreak of civil war, but also that transnational terrorist elements will exploit the situation and fill the power-vacuum. Even at the time that the Taliban came to power in August 2021, there was a serious upswing in attacks by the Khorasan Province of Daesh (banned in Russia). The danger that Afghanistan may fall victim to transnational terrorist elements thus poses a threat equal to that of internal problems such as economic and humanitarian crises.

One must not forget that the Taliban arrived in power not by their own forces, but as a result of the Doha Agreement, which was made possible by the defeat of Al-Qaeda(banned in Russia) and had as a basic condition that the Taliban would not host any terrorist elements on their territory. However, refusing any constructive communication with the current Afghan government, withholding urgently needed economic aid and freezing their assets, leaves them in no position to strengthen and consolidate their exclusive control on that territory. It bears repeating once more that at this stage all these events and the important questions they raise must be viewed broadly, with a vision not limited to immediate political concerns.  It is urgent that the international community abandons its current policy and ensures that the country does not dissolve by continuing to work with the Taliban and providing the necessary humanitarian and economic aid. Afghanistan should be viewed not as a regional problem, but rather as a collective global responsibility, demanding a co-ordinated and coherent approach.

In this regard the positive role being played by Pakistan is notable. The country is hosting an extraordinary session of the council of foreign ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation concerning the situation in Afghanistan: the first and largest multilateral international discussions of Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover.  Representatives of the fifty-seven member-states throughout the Muslim world, including Afghanistan, along with representatives of Russia and other countries, the World Bank, and the emergency aid organs of the United Nations met to seek a way out of Afghanistan’s current dire predicament.  The general secretary of the OIC, Hissein Brahim Taha, called for a broadening of the role of the OIC mission in Kabul. The mission is to be provided with the financial, personnel, and material-technical resources to enable it to fulfil all its obligations in co-ordinating operations to provide humanitarian and development aid to Afghanistan. He also made an urgent appeal to the member-states of this influential international organization and other governments to provide humanitarian aid through the OIC mission in Kabul.

From the very beginning Pakistan was a staunch supporter of a peaceful resolution to the conflict through a negotiated settlement with the Taliban. Unfortunately, the international community under American leadership insisted on more than two decades of bloodshed and wasteful spending before recognizing the wisdom of this solution. More than that, Pakistan was at the forefront of the effort to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. On multiple occasions it called on the international community not to “abandon” the Afghan people, to provide humanitarian and economic aid and to participate in a political settlement to prevent the collapse of the Afghan state. For its part, besides the 3 million refugees it has already received, Islamabad is providing a constant stream of humanitarian aid and has committed itself to grant Afghanistan $28 million to this end.

Although the OIC meeting is an encouraging step in the right direction, much greater effort by the whole international community is needed to ensure that Afghanistan regains some semblance of stability and a functional economy. Moreover, instead of washing their hands of the matter, all those involved in the situation must meet their obligations and treat Afghanistan’s future as a collective responsibility. Here the burden rests primarily on the two main interest parties, the United States and the Taliban. After all, it was the brutal American invasion, conducted under a flimsy pretext, that brought Afghanistan into its present parlous state. If there were any justice in the world and if the norms of international law held sway, the American presidents responsible would stand trail for the crimes they committed in the country. The US at large, meanwhile, would pay colossal compensation to help re-build the country and return it to its normal conditions. But as it is, while Iraq pays reparations to Kuwait the US enjoys the loot of the failed states it created in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya.

It bears emphasizing once more that the Taliban didn’t arrive in power out of nowhere, but as a result of a deal with the US, and as such Washington bears responsibility for fulfilling that agreement by guaranteeing that the Afghan state does not collapse. By the same token, now that the Taliban act as the de-facto representatives of the Afghan people on the world stage, they must recognize that if they do not fulfil their own commitments to reform they will lose any chance for the support and recognition from the international community, and to an even greater extent from the countries of the immediate region, which they so sorely need to legitimize their government. For just this reason one can only hope that common sense will prevail among the Taliban and they will focus their efforts on creating a future political structure which will be inclusive, responsible, and accountable and, above all, which will serve the Afghan people. They ought not to forget that this is the 21st century.

Viktor Mikhin, corresponding member of RANS, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

In the current situation, after the withdrawal of the US military contingent from Afghanistan and the Taliban (the movement is banned in Russia) came to power in this country, Washington is actively making adjustments to its strategy in Central Asia. As can be seen from the changes in the actions of the White House, on the one hand, Washington is not ready to come to terms with the loss of influence in the region. On the other, it seeks to turn Central Asia into a geopolitical confrontation with Russia, China, Iran and several countries in solidarity with them. At the same time, the US is striving to preserve its monopoly on managing extensive cross-border processes its intention to dominate world politics.

Washington’s updated strategy for Central Asia today includes counteracting the activity of China and the influence of Russia in the region, ensuring regional isolation of Iran to remotely control the situation in Afghanistan, creating or maintaining a hotbed of tension in the center of Eurasia and the SCO space. The main goal of these actions is to export destabilization from Afghanistan, for which there are tremendous opportunities: drug trafficking, the growth of religious extremism and terrorism, etc.

As part of the long-term work of the US in the Asian direction, there is a desire to create a Washington-London-Tel Aviv-Doha-Islamabad axis to annex the capitals of individual Central Asian countries. In general, it reflects the well-known concept of Greater Central Asia voiced by Professor Frederick Starr.

To strengthen aggressive actions, the NATO bloc is activating in the West. The Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) is in the East, with the desire to entice India into the anti-Chinese military-political link. The creation of AUKUS, a trilateral defense alliance of the United States, Great Britain and Australia, is also aimed at this.

After the withdrawal from Afghanistan, for the loss of the possibility of conducting technical intelligence in the territories of neighboring countries of Central Asia, Iran, Pakistan by the United States, military-diplomatic activities are unfolding on the development of new facilities for conducting legal, technical intelligence in the direction of Afghanistan and adjacent regions on the territory of one of the countries of Central Asia, as well as Pakistan. The US began searching for new opportunities for the deployment of the US Army, particularly in Central Asia, right after the withdrawal of the armed forces from Afghanistan on August 31, 2021. Information about this was already appearing in The Washington Post and several other American media outlets. Although Russia, like the Central Asian republics, initially opposed such desires of the US, American diplomats persistently continued to explore various options for restoring access to bases in Central Asia, including facilities in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, where they were previously located. So, these aspirations of Washington can be traced in its negotiations with Uzbekistan. It is proposed to bypass the legislative ban on the deployment of military bases of foreign states on the territory of this country by creating the so-called “counter-terrorism centers.” American representatives are making similar attempts in Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.

To implement its updated strategy for geopolitical confrontation with Russia, China, Iran and some countries in Central Asia, Washington began to actively involve Asian states close to it, especially South Korea and Japan, using them to slow down Eurasian integration. In particular, it was evidenced by the example of Mongolia, which, under the influence of Washington, rather quickly signed two agreements on free trade zones (FTZ) with South Korea and Japan, which complicated its conclusion of the same deal with the EAEU. Similar aspirations can be traced concerning Uzbekistan as part of the preparation for a similar agreement on creating a free trade zone with South Korea, which may also become a deterrent in its legal rapprochement with the EAEU.

An essential aspect of the adjusted US strategy in Central Asia is the preservation of instability in Afghanistan using various proxy resources and anti-Taliban forces. And here, according to Washington’s plans, the use of American private military companies would play an important role. In early December, the meeting in Dushanbe between the leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, Ahmad Massoud and the founder of the US private military company Blackwater, Erik Prince, was clear proof. Previously, Massoud had appealed to what he called “Afghanistan’s friends in the West” to speak for him in Washington and New York, in Congress and Joe Biden Administration.

According to the New York Times, in mid-September, Ahmad Massoud Jr., the leader of the new anti-Taliban resistance, hired a public relations company in Washington to help him gain military and financial support from within the United States. At the same time, the publication quoted the representative of Massoud in Washington, who confirmed the fact of signing a contract with the lobbying firm Robert Strike. According to him, the main goal is to stop any attempts by any government to give legitimacy to the Taliban or anyone else, apart from Massoud as the legitimate leader of Afghanistan.

At the same time, Politico reported in September that Republican Senator Lindsay Graham had declared his support for former Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh. To bolster the legitimacy of the anti-Taliban resistance as part of a revised White House strategy in Central Asia, Graham linked Saleh and Massoud to prominent British and Indian diplomats and important media figures.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Although the official death toll from COVID-19 currently exceeds 5.4 million, it is estimated by individual experts that the actual fatality statistics could be as high as 15.2 million. Unfortunately, many countries of the world have found themselves particularly vulnerable to the negative consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, especially the poorest countries and states affected by armed conflicts. And one of these countries is Afghanistan. After the withdrawal of American troops and the seizure of power in the country by the radical Taliban movement (the organization is banned in the Russian Federation), almost all medical institutions that assisted patients with COVID-19 were closed, and health workers stopped receiving wages.

Therefore, it is not surprising that there is an increased attention in all countries not only to the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan but also to the effectiveness of vaccines produced across the world against the coronavirus pandemic.

In this regard, involuntary attention is attracted by the message that appeared the other day that two million doses of the coronavirus vaccine produced by the American company Johnson & Johnson were delivered to Kabul as part of humanitarian aid from the United States. This was announced on December 23 by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). US Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West previously announced the allocation of $ 474 million by the United States to provide humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan and transfer a batch of coronavirus vaccines to the country through the COVAX, a global mechanism for equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.

In the “informational support” of this “humanitarian gift” organized by Washington, attention is drawn to the grateful reports from the International Children’s Fund UNICEF on Twitter on December 24, clearly made at the direction of the United States: “We thank our donors for helping to keep healthcare workers, teachers and vulnerable groups safe.”

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken also took part in this information propaganda campaign of the United States, saying: “The first tranche of 1M COVID-19 vaccine doses arrived in Afghanistan today, adding to the 3.3M the US previously provided via #COVAX. We are committed to supporting the humanitarian needs of the Afghan people, which includes providing safe and effective vaccines to save lives.”

But why are these complimentary reports attracting attention?

First, it should be recalled that as early as April of this year in the United States, several dozen people vaccinated with Johnson & Johnson developed alarming side effects. And the authorities decided to close two mass vaccination centers using this drug. In particular, the vaccination center in North Carolina was closed after the revealed cases of side effects in the Johnson & Johnson shot’s recipients: four people were admitted to the hospital. Before that, the center managed to vaccinate more than 2,300 people. Colorado stopped vaccinating people with Johnson & Johnson after more than ten people had experienced side effects: two were hospitalized, as reported by CBS. Regional health agencies and social services decided to close the centers “out of great caution” after consultation with representatives of Johnson & Johnson. This was reported in the  Wall Street Journal .

The US authorities approved using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at the end of February. The vaccine itself consists of only one component, and it is single-shot. Only people over 18 years of age can be vaccinated with this drug, as indicated in the United States.

In this regard, the grateful UNICEF feedback on receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine from the USA in Afghanistan on December 23 caused frank surprise. Since this international organization dealing with the protection of children could not but know that the use of this vaccine for children was not recommended by the US itself! So, by such a step, the said international organization again demonstrates to the world its excessive “loyalty” to the United States, which should not be allowed by any country of the UN family as the organization is supposed to be entirely politically neutral and not engaged. And even more so, it should not thank Washington for the vaccine, which cannot be applied to children.

About a hundred complaints received by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) after the Johnson & Johnson vaccine prompted its medical staff to take a closer look at this anti-Covid-19 drug. According to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), two weeks after vaccination, some men over 50 years of age developed symptoms of Guillain-Barré syndrome. That is acute autoimmune polyradiculoneuropathy, a rare disease in which the immune system attacks nerve cells. In the spring in the United States, there was a recommendation to suspend vaccination with Johnson & Johnson due to cases of blood clots in patients who received this vaccine against coronavirus. Some of them later died.

In early July, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommended against the use of Johnson & Johnson vaccine for people who have had Clarkson’s disease, an idiopathic systemic capillary leak syndrome. This happened against the background of detecting three cases of the syndrome on the second day after vaccination. However, two of these cases were subsequently fatal.

The fact that Johnson & Johnson vaccine induces low or no production of antibodies effective against the new omicron strain was recently reported by Bloomberg News Agency, citing direct results from the studies carried out by University of Washington (Seattle) and the Swiss pharmaceutical company Humabs BioMed. Experts under the US regulatory authority Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have advised against using Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine whenever possible, which they noted “can only be used if there is no choice.” In November, scientists at the Institute of Public Health, the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of Texas Health Science Center found that the most significant reduction in protection against coronavirus provided by any vaccine concerned the Janssen vaccine (Johnson & Johnson). Amid the spread of new coronavirus strains, protection against infection has decreased from 86.4% in March to 13.1% in September.

The US firm Johnson & Johnson manufactures the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine. Its use was approved in the United States in February, and the vaccine received approval from the EMA in March this year. The drug became the third vaccine certified for emergency use in the pandemic. The vaccine contains a recombinant (i.e., it passed the redistribution process of genetic material, leading to the creation of new gene combinations) adenovirus type 26, incapable of replication. The total dose of the drug is administered once. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine, like the Russian Sputnik V, is based on human adenoviruses. However, unlike Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, Sputnik V’s research shows that even the first dose induces an immune response without negative consequences for human health. But the United States have used unfair political competition and have pushed vaccines of American origin on the international arena; it has artificially inhibited vaccines from China and Russia, particularly Sputnik V, through its influence among the international regulators of the pharmaceutical industry.

Considering the harmful consequences of using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for human health, discovered even in the United States itself, the “donation step” demonstrated by Washington with this particular vaccine being dispatched to Afghanistan raises natural questions. In particular, is it an attempt to rid the United States of an unsuccessful vaccine, or is it a way to “punish” Kabul for the scandalous expulsion of the US troops from Afghanistan in August 2021?

Vladimir Odintsov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

-for Qatar and then travel to Afghanistan to discuss in detail the operation of Kabul airport, which is considered to be the main hub for receiving humanitarian aid meant for Afghan citizens and providing international flights. Taliban is interested in Ankara’s proposal for an apparent reason: after the US withdrawal and the flight of many American-trained specialists a severe lack of equipment and workforce in airport maintenance has ensued. That is why Taliban now could really use Turkish or Qatari helping hand. It is also essential for ordinary people since Afghanistan is a landlocked nation and all deliveries are carried out by air. Hence, the humanitarian aid hinges on the airport operations.

As of recently, a number of nations interested in solidifying their presence in Afghanistan, especially China and Pakistan, have been filling space in this country, with the airport operations and provision of security in them remaining one of the few vacant spheres. This is why Turkey and Qatar have scrambled to fill both these voids.

In November, amidst grave concerns regarding disastrous humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, Taliban started talks with the EU representatives to receive Europe’s assistance in getting Afghan airport operations back on track. Member of Taliban leadership and acting Foreign Minister of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (since 2021), Amir Khan Mutaqi, as well as Ministers of Education, Health, Finance, Internal Affairs and Taliban intelligence chief took part in these talks. The European delegation was headed by the EU Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas Nicholson. These talks did not lead to much progress, however, since Europe made providing funds for maintaining airport operations contingent on Taliban’s creating an inclusive government, pushing democratic reforms and ensuring an equal access to schooling for girls. Moreover, Taliban was asked to guarantee that under no circumstances would Afghanistan become a haven for any organizations or groups that would threaten the security of other nationalities, ethnic groups and countries.

Against such a backdrop, Ankara believes that Taliban, now suffering from political and economic isolation, will welcome the Turkish proposal since it may prove handy in overcoming those difficulties. That is why Turkey, having gained the backing of Qatar, its long-time ally, intends to bolster its influence in Afghanistan through taking part in running Afghan airports thus pressing its claim to become not only the center of gravity for Turkic peoples, but also a leading Muslim country in the region. Moreover, as Ankara believes, Turkey acted exactly like such an entity when Ottoman Empire still existed, with Afghanistan being a part of its sphere of influence while Islam was primarily associated with Istanbul and Turkey.

Turkey is counting on the West to support these plans to run Afghan airports since 2,000 Turkish soldiers were a part of a multinational military force within the ISAF mission in Afghanistan from the very beginning. Between June 2002 and February 2003, and then between February and August 2005 Turkish commanders were in charge of this mission incorporating 43 countries. The main task that Turkey performed in Afghanistan was to secure Kabul airport. This June on the margins of NATO summit in Brussels, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan brought up the possibility of Turkish military taking up the task of ensuring the security of Kabul airport in the wake of the US military withdrawal while speaking with his US counterpart Joe Biden, and obtained the latter’s support in this matter. Ultimately, it is no wonder that Washington supported Turkish ambitions in Afghanistan since Turkey is a NATO member while Americans would not be Americans if they did not leave someone to keep an eye on the chaos in the region that they had left — at least for now. It is quite possible that Erdoğan, well-versed in political matters, by wringing this consent from the US also snatched a whole package of preferences, from military-technical cooperation on his terms to a package of political benefits.

But Turkey’s ambitions extend well beyond securing the airport. Even before Taliban took over Kabul, Ankara had believed that it might play a huge role in Afghanistan with the latter becoming some sort of Klondike for Turkey. The matter in question is not only establishing control over Afghan drug trafficking, but also numerous rich mineral deposits, including iron ore, copper, gold, rare earth metals and, possibly, oil. Moreover, Erdoğan has vested interests in the Afghan uranium deposits that have not been fully explored. Given nuclear aspirations that the Turkish president announced at the Economic Forum in 2019 and the process of building a nuclear power plant, these deposits will soon be in high demand. At the same time, lithium reserves in Afghanistan are thought to be comparable in size to Bolivian deposits. Incomplete estimates by Western experts indicate that the total value of minerals that can supposedly be explored in Afghanistan amount to $1–3 trillion, and these estimates account only for 30% of the Afghan territory that had been investigated by the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

In its “rapprochement policy” with Afghanistan Ankara relies on the successful use of “religious advantages” including and taking into account the repeated statements by the Taliban spokesperson (which he made, in particular, during the late-August interview with BBC and Turkish channel A Haber), according to whom Taliban wants to establish good relations with Turkey since Afghanistan and Turkey are “brothers in faith”. It did not take long for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to embrace this argument as he plays this religious card. “Turkey has nothing that contradicts Taliban’s beliefs”, he said.

Besides, imposing control over Afghan airports is also instrumental for Ankara due to its objective concerns regarding the flow of Afghan refugees to the EU through Turkey. Fearing a refugee wave coming out of Afghanistan, the Turkish government even started to build a wall on the Iran border. On the other hand, Turkey is clearly trying to become a mediator between the West and Taliban in order to improve its reputation in the eyes of Washington and Brussels.

To consolidate his position in Afghanistan, Erdoğan is undoubtedly pursuing ambitious plans believing that if fortune smiles upon him, he will be able to “put US and UK imperial ambitions to shame” as the latter never succeeded in “keeping Afghan demons at bay.”

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.