Some described the decision to seize Afghan funds as a mass murder.. The Intercept: Biden crushes the Afghan economy

Economists, officials in relief organizations and members of the US Congress described US President Joe Biden's decision to confiscate billions of dollars belonging to the Afghan Central Bank as a crushing of the Afghan economy, and some described it as a "mass killing".

The American newspaper,

, said in

about this decision and the reactions to it.

Biden's decision Friday to seize $3.5 billion of US-frozen Afghan Central Bank funds will cause more death and destruction in Afghanistan than the 20-year war.

Economic activity halted

She explained that the decision to freeze these funds in America since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan has caused the economic activity to stop;

People have lost access to money in banks, government employees and teachers are no longer getting their salaries, importers and exporters are unable to import or export, the Afghani currency has collapsed in value, and inflation is more severe in Afghanistan than in the rest of the world.

Several international organizations have warned that these conditions have pushed nearly 10 million Afghans to the brink of starvation.

To survive, people burn their furniture and other possessions to keep warm, or sell them for food.

Whereas twenty years of war, long and erratic droughts and particularly harsh winters set the stage for the crisis;

The immediate cause of the Afghan people's suffering today is the seizure of Afghan assets, along with the sanctions imposed by the United States government.

The money belongs to the Afghan people

All the foreign exchange reserves in the United States and Europe belong to the Afghan people, and the decision to release only a portion of the money will continue to harm millions of Afghan children, women and families, Shah Mehrabi, a professor of economics at Montgomery College and a board member of the Central Bank of Afghanistan, was quoted as saying. suffering from one of the worst humanitarian and economic crises around the world, adding that despite press reports that central bank money will be sent to humanitarian aid groups, he hopes it will be released to the bank, which still includes two American board members.

The report stated that members of Congress are slow to absorb the effects of the Biden administration's policy of destroying the Afghan economy.

They are Democrat Chris Murphy, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Subcommittee, and Bernie Sanders.

mass murder

A top Democratic foreign policy aide - who asked not to be identified - described Biden's decision as effectively tantamount to "mass murder," adding that Biden had received warnings from the United Nations Secretary-General, the International Rescue Committee, and the Red Cross, that the Afghan Central Bank's liquidity Of paramount importance, and no amount of help can make up for it.

Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, agreed to characterize Biden's decision as a "mass famine," telling the newspaper, "Most people don't understand the economy. Nowhere close to making up for it."

At a Senate sub-hearing last week, International Rescue Committee Chairman and Executive Director David Miliband and International Crisis Group advisor Graeme Smith both delivered strong condemnations of the international community's financial policies in Afghanistan, and both dispelled arguments that humanitarian aid could compensate for the normalization of economic relations with Afghanistan. They refuted the arguments of those who point to Taliban cruelty to justify Western atrocities, and their testimony was in stark contrast to the evasiveness of the senators who attended the meeting.