TEHRAN (Iran News) – For decades or better to say for centuries major global arrogant countries have been busy with looting the wealth of the nations under different pretexts and in different styles and in recent decades the American style has been the dominating style in looting the wealth of nations and the U.S. officials have been using modern style of theft which is either sanction or confiscation of the wealth.
Last week the U.S. administration had a controversial decision which shocked the world, and even some of its allies have criticized this decision and called it “theft”.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to effectively seize the Afghan central bank’s funds in the United States and repurpose half of the money as compensation to the victims of the 9/11 attacks drew rebuke and accusations of “theft” against Washington.
Biden issued an executive order last Friday that would split $7.1b belonging to Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) almost evenly between humanitarian assistance to the struggling country and funds to cover judgments from lawsuits that 9/11 victims and their families had filed against the Taliban in U.S. courts.
This arrogant decision drew criticisms from friends and foes of the U.S. “The people of Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9/11; that is an undeniable fact,” Bilal Askaryar, an Afghan-American activist, told Al Jazeera.
“What Biden is proposing is not justice for 9/11 families, it is theft of public funds from an impoverished nation already on the brink of famine and starvation brought on by the United States’ disastrous withdrawal.”
The U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed in August of last year, with the Taliban capturing Kabul amid the pullout of US troops from the country after a 20-year war.
Washington, which had negotiated its withdrawal with the Taliban, quickly moved to freeze DAB’s US-based assets. The 9/11 victims’ families then sought the money through the courts. One particular case that had obtained a default judgment against the Taliban in 2012 became central in that effort.
The plaintiffs originally sued a host of entities and individuals across the Middle East and Afghanistan – many at odds with one another and adversarial to al-Qaeda, which carried out the attacks in 2001. The defendants included former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – and the Taliban.
Halema Wali, cofounder of Afghans for a Better Tomorrow, a U.S.-based advocacy group, stressed that the money in the Afghan central bank belongs to the people of Afghanistan, who are experiencing a dire humanitarian crisis.
With skyrocketing inflation and the state institutions in shambles, the Afghan economy – which has depended on foreign aid – is all but falling apart. The UN World Food Program has warned that 23 million people are facing “severe hunger” in the country.
Reacting to this decision, the Taliban said Afghanistan will be forced to reconsider its policy towards the United States unless Washington reverses a decision to freeze part of the country’s assets as compensation for victims of the 9/11 attacks.
The move drew an angry response from the country’s new Taliban leaders, which branded the seizure a “theft” and a sign of U.S. “moral decay.”
“The 9/11 attacks had nothing to do with Afghanistan,” said Monday’s statement, signed by deputy spokesman Inamullah Samangani.
“Any misappropriation of the property of the Afghan people under the pretext of this incident is a clear violation of the agreement reached with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” the statement added, using the Taliban’s name for the country.
“If the United States does not deviate from its position and continues its provocative actions, the Islamic Emirate will also be forced to reconsider its policy towards the country.”
This is not the first time that the U.S. confiscates the wealth and money of the nations in its own or nationals’ favor under different pretexts.
The U.S. governments once in a while perform new form of their piracy and looting which are sometimes inspired from the Hollywood movies or inspire the Hollywood directors to copy the U.S. officials’ innovation in theft or action thrillers in countries.
Iranians very well know this type of sophisticated theft of the Americans as they have experienced it since 1979 when the Islamic Republic was established and billions of dollars of the country were blocked in the U.S. banks and every time some incident happens in the world and against American nationals, the American officials use Iran’s frozen money to pay damage to the victims of the incidents while Iran has no role in them.
Afghan people gradually will realize that for years they have been fooled by the U.S. officials and it is time to stand against this arrogant country to get back its money. Although the UN has urged the U.S. to release the whole amount of Afghanistan’s money, the U.S. officials have ignored it while Afghans are struggling with poverty and several shortages.
It is time for the world and international bodies to rise against the U.S. theft under different pretexts because the number of countries falling prey to the U.S. is on the rise and nations are the main victims of the U.S. theft and sanctions.
