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On Feb 12, 2022, at 10:15 AM, Chas Freeman via Salon <salon@listserve.com> wrote:--FM: John Whitbeck
As reported in the AFP news item transmitted below, the Afghan government has responded to the U.S. government's theft of its assets as follows: "The theft and seizure of money of the Afghan people held/frozen by the United States represent the lowest level of human and moral decay."
Indeed. Ceding the moral high ground to the Taliban and relegating oneself to a lower moral level is not easy, but the U.S. government has managed to do so.
It should be noted that the U.S. government's theft and seizure of these funds is not only immoral but, both logically and legally, incoherent. To apply half of these funds, which indisputably belong to the Afghan government, to satisfying a U.S. court default judgment against, among others, the Taliban would require accepting and recognizing that the Taliban are the Afghan government. However, the U.S. government refuses to make this essential logical and legal leap, which would require both formal diplomatic recognition and, at the very least, the immediate release of the other half of these funds to the Afghan government.
It should also be noted that, for contingency-fee lawyers, who generally receive one-third of any realized judgment, bringing lawsuits in U.S. courts against designated "terrorist" groups is a highly speculative endeavor but one that offers the possibility of obscene riches for virtually no work. Since, as a matter of American practice, designated "terrorists" are subject to assassination on sight, it is inconceivable that the defendants will show up in court. Little if any evidence -- such as evidence that the Taliban were involved in planning or even had prior knowledge of the 9/11 events, which I have never seen asserted -- will need to be presented. In the absence of the defendants, the court simply accepts the claim and issues a "default" judgment. The lawyers and their clients can then sit back and hope that, one day, the designated "terrorists" will become a government. It sometimes happens.
For the sake of both the Afghan people and the reputation of the United States, one may hope that some way will be found for the Afghan government to be represented in future legal proceedings to enforce this default judgment without its lawyers being prosecuted for "providing material support to terrorism" and that a court will demonstrate sufficient independence and courage to recognize the absurdity of this default judgment, to refuse to enforce it and to order the full and immediate release of the Afghan government's money to the Afghan government.
https://www.dailysabah.com/world/asia-pacific/us-seizes-afghanistans-frozen-assets-amid-taliban-outcry
US seizes Afghanistan's frozen assets amid Taliban outcry
by French Press Agency - AFP
KABUL Feb 11, 2022
![A Taliban fighter with his gun walks on a
street, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Feb. 6,
2022. (AP Photo)]()
The United States seized $7 billion in Afghanistan's frozen assets belonging to the previous administration on Friday, as President Joe Biden said he aims to split the funds between 9/11 victims and aid for Afghanistan, to the outcry of the Taliban.
The seizure drew an angry response from the country's new leaders the Taliban, which branded the seizure a "theft" and a sign of U.S. "moral decay."
Biden's unusual move saw the conflicting, highly sensitive issues of a humanitarian tragedy in Afghanistan, the Taliban fight for recognition, and the push for justice from families impacted by the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks collide, with billions of dollars at stake.
The first stage was simple: Biden formally blocked the assets in an executive order signed Friday.
The money – which a U.S. official said largely stems from foreign assistance once sent to help the now-defunct Western-backed Afghan government – had been stuck in the New York Federal Reserve ever since last year's Taliban victory.
The insurgency, which fought U.S.-led forces for 20 years and now controls the whole country, has not been recognized by the U.S. or any other Western country, mostly over its human rights record.
However, with appalling poverty gripping the country after decades of war and the previous government's rampant corruption, Washington is trying to find ways to assist, while side-stepping the Taliban.
The White House said Biden will seek to funnel $3.5 billion of the frozen funds into a humanitarian aid trust "for the benefit of the Afghan people and for Afghanistan's future."
The trust fund will manage the aid in a way that bypasses the Taliban authorities, a senior U.S. official told reporters, countering likely criticism in Washington that the Biden administration is inadvertently boosting its former enemy.
Aside from the new plan, "the United States remains the single largest donor of humanitarian aid in Afghanistan," the senior official said.
More than $516 million has been donated since mid-August last year, the official said. The money is distributed among nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
The Taliban fumed over Washington's move.
"The theft and seizure of money held/frozen by the United States of the Afghan people represent the lowest level of human and moral decay of a country and a nation," Taliban spokesperson Mohammad Naeem said on Twitter.
Failure and victory are common throughout history, "but the greatest and most shameful defeat is when moral defeat combines with military defeat," Naeem added.
9/11 victims seek compensation
The fate of the other $3.5 billion is also complex.
Families of people killed or injured in the 9/11 attacks on New York, the Pentagon and a fourth hijacked airliner that crashed in Pennsylvania have long struggled to find ways to extract compensation from al-Qaida and others responsible.
In U.S. lawsuits, groups of victims won default judgments against al-Qaida and the Taliban, which hosted the shadowy terrorist group at the time of the attacks, but were unable to collect any money. They will now have the opportunity to sue for access to the frozen Afghan assets.
Those "assets would remain in the United States and are subject to ongoing litigation by U.S. victims of terrorism. Plaintiffs will have a full opportunity to have their claims heard in court," the White House said.
A senior official called the situation "unprecedented."
There are "$7 billion of assets in the United States that are owned by a country where there is no government that we recognize. I think we're acting responsibly to ensure that a portion of that money be used to benefit the people of the country," he said.
And the U.S. plaintiffs related to 9/11 will "have their day in court."
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