David Goldman/AP Photo
A U.S. Army soldier walks past an American flag hanging in preparation for a ceremony commemorating the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, at Forward Operating Base Bostick in Kunar province, Afghanistan, September 11, 2011.
When speaking about American foreign policy, U.S. officials across the political spectrum constantly invoke virtuous ideas such as human rights and international law. Today, for instance, as the State Department has focused its attention on the potential of a Russian invasion in Ukraine, the language employed is the all-familiar discourse of sovereignty and an international rules-based order.
Actual U.S. actions tell a different story. American troops violated Iraq’s sovereignty in a 2003 war of aggression, in blatant violation of international law—just one of numerous such instances of unprovoked invasion and occupation. From endless war in Syria and Somalia, to economic devastation in Iran, to aiding crimes against humanity, and arming war criminals and dictators, the reality of U.S. foreign policy belies the boastful rhetoric of the U.S. as a force for good in the world.
But no case illustrates the immorality and self-inflicted harm of U.S. foreign policy like that of Afghanistan—where the Biden administration recently pilfered billions of dollars in assets from a nation gripped by famine.
Though the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of the U.S. and Afghanistan is America’s longest war, U.S. meddling in Afghanistan dates back several decades. U.S. intrusion into Afghan affairs even predates the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. As professor Stephen Zunes notes, the U.S. began arming the mujahideen in Afghanistan six months prior to the Soviet offensive with the knowledge that it would increase the chances of a Soviet invasion. National-security adviser to President Carter Zbigniew Brzezinski claimed this would be a positive outcome by coaxing the Soviets “into the Afghan trap” and draining their resources.
As Middle East scholar Fawaz Gerges argues, while President Reagan in the 1980s used hostile language toward Islam and Muslims, he simultaneously supported militant Islamic elements as long as they resisted the Soviet Union. According to Fawaz, these short-sighted policies and “U.S.-backed Islamic guerillas in Afghanistan would come to haunt the United States,” alluding to the tragic attacks of September 11, 2001. In these calculations, essentially no attention was given to the costs on Afghans themselves or the reverberations of these policies throughout the region.
In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration unleashed its “war on terror,” which largely went after states and impacted millions of people who were not responsible for the shocking attacks. Despite plunging Afghanistan into yet another decades-long war, U.S. officials continuously misled the public about its progress, ending in failure after 20 years with the Taliban’s swift reconquest of Afghanistan—leaving them in firmer control than they were in 2001.
The U.S. is collectively punishing an entire group of people who were not even alive for a crime their country did not commit.
As if fomenting the extremism and chaos that helped create the Taliban in the first place and a brutal 20-year occupation were not enough, the U.S. continues today to collectively punish the Afghan people with sanctions and by freezing access to most of the Central Bank of Afghanistan’s currency reserves. As the world’s largest economy and with the power of the dollar, the U.S. utilizes economic ruin as a tool of warfare. Despite the ineffectiveness of these policies—as seen in a six-decade embargo on Cuba or the failure of “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iran—and the fact that innocent civilians bear the brunt of the destruction they cause, the U.S. continues to expand its use.
American sanctions have obliterated the Afghan economy, and as a result millions of Afghans face starvation. More innocent civilians may die of hunger than died in 20 years of war. In light of this dire situation, it is hard to accept the idea that the U.S. ended the war in Afghanistan, when for millions of starving Afghans, the devastation of war continues in the form of a siege.
But the most blatant and appalling injustice was served recently, when the Biden administration announced it would be keeping approximately $3.5 billion of Afghanistan’s assets for the victims of 9/11. This is theft, plain and simple—and it will worsen the ongoing economic collapse. Activists and civil society organizations, such as Afghans for a Better Tomorrow, are justly outraged. “Let us be clear: all of the $7.1 billion in reserves belongs, rightfully, to the people of Afghanistan and ought to be used to allow the Central Bank of Afghanistan to perform its basic functions,” the organization said in a statement.
Consider the fact that two-thirds of the Afghan population is under 25 years old. That means most Afghans either were not yet born or were too young to remember 9/11. Remember also that most of the hijackers were Saudi, and none were Afghan. The U.S. is collectively punishing—with starvation and theft—an entire group of people who were not even alive for a crime their country did not commit.
This is morally bankrupt. These are not the policies of a just society, though it is not surprising given the inequities and injustices inside our own borders. These are not policies that promote human rights and democracy, or support an international rules-based order. Quite the contrary, by abusing human rights and placing ourselves above the rules, the U.S. does spectacular damage to that very order.
The American narrative is that we are not only exceptional but that we are also exceptionally moral and a force for good in the world, while, in reality, we wreak havoc on it. In actual fact, the U.S. is currently playing a central role in the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen—complicit in the Saudi-led war and blockade—and the world’s worst oncoming humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. Without recognizing these contradictions and working to end them, the new world order promised in the aftermath of catastrophic world wars can never be realized.
