Release the Afghanistan funds

Please urge President Biden to immediately release all $7 billion in Afghanistan funds being held in the US to the central bank of Afghanistan . We have no right to keep any of that money; it belongs to the people of Afghanistan and they need it now.

“Parents sell kids as families face crisis of poverty,” is the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle on December 30, 2021 (Parents selling children shows desperation of Afghanistan by Elena Becatoros, Associated Press.) “Aziz Gul’s husband sold the 10-year-old girl into marriage without telling his wife, taking a down-payment so he could feed his family of five children. Without that money, he told her, they would all starve. He had to sacrifice one to save the rest.”

“Years of runaway corruption, increased poverty, lack of jobs, a steady increase in people forced below the poverty line, and erratic development all combined into a crushing malaise, said analyst Nasratullah Haqpal. Most Afghans had high hopes after 2001, when the Taliban were ousted and the U.S.-led coalition declared victory, ‘Unfortunately the only focus was on the war, the warlords and the corrupt politicians’ said Haqpal. People just became poorer and poorer and more disappointed and more unhappy… that is why these 20 years of investment in Afghanistan collapsed in just 11 days,” — Kathy Gannon, Associated Press

After hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the war in Afghanistan, this is the legacy of America’s occupation. The people of Afghanistan are also the victims of 9/11 and need help now. No Afghans attacked us. Neither the citizens, nor the government of Afghanistan played any part in the 9/11 attacks. The US has never said otherwise.

It would be a crime against humanity to continue to withhold any of the Afghanistan funds. How can we accuse Putin of war crimes when people in Afghanistan are selling their children to feed their families?