Help me understand. If $9.5 Billion of Afghanistan's money has been frozen, is the Talban

[Ninga]

stupid, are the confident they don’t need it? Can we hold it up in perpetuity??

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-17/u-s-freezes-nearly-9-5-billion-afghanistan-central-bank-assets

“The U.S. has frozen nearly $9.5 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank and stopped shipments of cash to the nation as it tries to keep a Taliban-led government from accessing the money, an administration official confirmed Tuesday.

The official said that any central bank assets that the Afghan government has in the U.S. will not be available to the Taliban, which remains on the Treasury Department’s sanctions designation list.

Ajmal Ahmady, acting head of Da Afghan Bank, the nation’s central bank, early Monday tweeted that he learned on Friday that shipments of dollars would stop as the U.S. tried to block any Taliban effort to gain access to the funds. DAB has $9.5 billion in assets, a sizeable portion of which is in accounts with the New York Federal Reserve and U.S.-based financial institutions.”
-snip-

[Walleye]

1. Yes they are stupid. You can just tell by the way they oppress women

[Ninga]

2. I wonder if we then do not have leverage.

[Walleye]

3. It's hard to have leverage against a people who refuse to act in their own self interest

Which is related to the reason it’s almost impossible to defend against suicide bombing. It’s hard to deal rationally with the irrational

[Klaralven]

4. It's mostly important to the 25% of Afghanistan's population that are urban

In particular the 10% that live in Kabul and feed off of international aid and NATO military spending and subsidies.

It's not clear that it matters to the 75% of Afghanis that are rural.

[fescuerescue]

5. I'm surprised that they kept their money in their enemies bank.

[TexasTowelie]

6. It was the Afghan government, our partner, that was keeping their money in our bank.

The Taliban is attempting to gain access to that money by claiming that they are the government of Afghanistan.

[fescuerescue]

7. Well they are pretty much in charge

So it's not a crazy argument.

[multigraincracker]

8. Like what happen in Iran.

It was their money any we use it in negotiations. Then TFG said we gave them our money.

I think that was how it worked. Correct me if I’m wrong.

[secondwind]

9. The World Bank has frozen their assets... which is why they are how they are now, more compliant and

maleable. They were helpful with our exodus from Afghanistan.. I wouldn't be surprised if we strike a deal with them somehow, for something... Other countries are probably going to do the same thing.

[Justice matters.]

10. Doorstep China is full of US$ cash...

With all the cheap crap they dump all over the planet...

[Chainfire]

11. I am not a fan of theft.

It it is their money, give it back. They won, they are the legitimate government of Afghanistan whether we like it or not.

[harumph]

12. Why is it the Taliban's money? How did they contribute to the GDP?

Do they somehow get credit for jerking off to women in body length table-cloths or
anally penetrating young boys? So, ya see, it's not stealing. It's not their
fucking money and they didn't earn it. The only reason they're still a thing is
because we didn't have the balls to give Pakistan an ultimatum after they
were found to be hiding OBL. Pakistan has been sheltering these SOBs like
an occult infection of the gums by allowing them safe harbor. If we can't
go all-the-way (and we won't because we cling to the pretense of civility)
we don't need to be mixing it up with countries like Afghanistan. They're
Pakistan's and China's problem now.

[Chainfire]

13. It is pretty simple. The money belongs to the government/people of Afghanistan.

The Tailban is the government of Afghanistan. How would you justify us keeping their money? You just want to gift the funds to American banks?

You don't have to like them, I certainly don't, but what is right is right. However, if you want to give them another reason for hating Americans, keep the money and hand the radicals one more recruiting slogan.

We had our chance to "fix" Afghanistan, we failed, as evidenced by the hasty withdrawal with our tail between our legs. We just haven't been very good at "government building." It looks like we would have figured that out by now.

Give them back their money and see if we can figure out how to get along with them without occupying their country with American troops, planes bombs and bullets.

[iemanja]

14. They froze the Iranian funds

for nearly 4 decades. I don't know why they couldn't do the same with the Taliban's.