How US Economic Warfare is Destroying Afghanistan

The United States government cannot stop inflicting misery on the people of Afghanistan. After almost 20 years of war and occupation, the Biden Administration has an even crueler policy towards Afghanistan.

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President Joe Biden (D-Delaware) and his advisors are denying the Afghan people one of the essential tools needed to survive in the modern world money.?The Intercept’s?Ryan Grim alleges Afghans cannot buy food?because they have no cash.

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Afghans have no cash because the US government prevents cash from entering Afghanistan. For example, the US government refuses $7 billion in foreign currency reserves to the Bank of Afghanistan, Afghanistan’s central bank.

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Instead, the US Federal Reserve transferred the funds?to the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), Grim reports.The BIS is a bank or clearinghouse for central banks that Grimm?wrongly describes as a “Swiss bank.”

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Instead, the BIS is an international institution with some anti-American leanings. Notably, the BIS is organizing the?Renminbi Liquidity Arrangement (RMBLA)?a pooling scheme that will allow corporations and central banks to conduct international business in Chinese Yuan, or Reminbi.

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No Money and no Food

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The Fed’s action is causing starvation and misery in Afghanistan because there is no cash.

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There is no cash because the Bank of Afghanistan cannot pay the company printing Afghanistan’s currency, the Afghani. Like most countries, Afghanistan does not print its own money. Instead, European companies print the Afghani.

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With no money, Afghan families have no way to buy food in a country with no digital payments infrastructure. Ironically, the Fed’s action hurts?the?urban and cosmopolitan Afghans most likely to oppose the Taliban most.

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To explain, Afghan farmers in the countryside can grow food. Afghan professionals and intellectuals in the city have to buy food. Yet, now there’s no cash to buy food with. One result is famine that could touch 90% of Afghanistan’s population.

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This action strengthens the Taliban because many of those people are leaving Afghanistan. Over six million Afghans have fled their homes and 2.6 million people have left the country, the United States estimates.

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Another problem is that Taliban members with guns can simply take food. Meanwhile, unarmed civilians starve if they cannot pay the Taliban for food.

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Biden’s Sadistic Afghanistan Policy

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The White House claims the BIS will use the funds to combat inflation and stabilize the Afghani, Grim reports. They could use some of the money for humanitarian aid.

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Grim alleges this action makes it impossible for the Bank of Afghanistan to distribute money to Afghans and get the nation’s economy running. Hence, Afghanistan will remain an economic basket case and Afghans will starve.

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The Bank of Afghanistan funds are just part of the money the Biden administration has seized. The US government also seized $3.5 billion?and redistributed it to a fund for September 11 victims, The Intercept?reports.

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Hence, the money will go to people hurt over 21 years ago, while innocent Afghans who had nothing to do with the September 11 horror will suffer. Remember, most of the September 11 terrorists were Saudi Arabian citizens. Holding Afghans responsible for the actions of a terrorist group over 20 years ago is cruel.

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Disgustingly, Intercept?writer Lee Fang alleges $525 million of the money?will go to lawyers representing the 9/11 victims’ families. Enriching American lawyers is more important to Biden than keeping Afghans from starving.

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A Brief History of Economic Warfare

The seizure of the Afghan money is just the latest example of US economic warfare. This seizure represents a frightening new level of economic warfare that targets ordinary people rather than governments.

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Such economic warfare is nothing new. What is new is the way central banks are being weaponized by the US and other governments. For example, I think the Renminbi Liquidity Arrangement (RMBLA)?is an effort to weaponize?the yuan against the dollar and the United States.

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To explain the central banks of China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Chile are participating in the RMBLA. The RMBLA could be a defense against US economic warfare or an effort to undermine the dollar.

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You can say modern economic warfare, like modern warfare, began in World War I. During that conflict, the British cut the German Empire off from North American markets, industry, natural resources, and food sources with its “Starvation Blockade.”

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In the Starvation Blockade, the Royal Navy kept neutral ships from traveling to Germany and its allies, Turkey and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Additionally, the Royal Navy stopped ships traveling to neutral nations such as the Netherlands, from which they could ship food, or munitions to Germany and its allies. The Starvation Blockade worked when Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and Austria-Hungary collapsed.

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Did Economic Warfare Create Nazi Germany?

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What differentiated World War I economic warfare from earlier efforts, such as Napoleon’s Continental System, was that the economic warfare continued after the conflict ended. British and French politicians punished Germany with reparations.

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In particular, the Treaty of Versailles punished the German people with a fine of 132 billion gold marks ($262 billion). The German government had to divert funds from rebuilding and social services to paying the debt. In fact, the debt was so high it took 92 years to pay.

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One result was hyperinflation, which made 42 billion marks worth one American cent ($0.01.) To its credit, the US government tried to alleviate the debt with the Dawes Plan, which loaned Germany money to pay reparations. However, the Dawes Plan collapsed at the beginning of the Great Depression.

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The pain the Treaty of Versailles inflicted radicalized many ordinary Germans and legitimized a young politician named Adolph Hitler. Many Germans saw Hitler as a hero because he refused to pay reparations.

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Thus, economic warfare designed to punish Germany for one aggressive war helped trigger a far worse conflict. Because of reparations, many Germans viewed all non-Germans as enemies and began believing a war was the only way to reestablish their country’s independence and affluence.

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I think the economic pain the Treaty of Versailles inflicted on Germany resembles the economic hardship US policies are inflicting on Afghanistan. In Germany, that pain fueled the rise of Hitler and Nazism.

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Similarly, the economic pain could radicalize Afghans and drive them into the hands of ISIS and other radical groups. Thus, the economic warfare designed to stop terrorism could trigger worse terrorism.

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To explain, America’s starvation policy could create a generation of angry young Afghan men who will join ISIS. Just as the Starvation Blockade and the Treaty of Versailles created a generation of angry young German men who formed the Nazi Party.

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Hence, America’s leaders learned nothing from the aftermath of World War II. After World War II, the United States helped rebuild West Germany through the Marshall Plan which turned an enemy into a staunch ally. Simply releasing cash and giving humanitarian aid could help create a better relationship with Afghanistan.

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How Economic Warfare led to Pearl Harbor

The most catastrophic economic warfare in American history occurred between 1939 and 1941.

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In the 1930s, the Imperial Japanese Army invaded occupied extensive areas of China. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (D-New York) opposed the invasion but refused to take any military action.

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To explain, FDR did not want to be seen moving towards war as he sought an unprecedented third term in 1940. Americans opposed the Japanese invasion, but they did not want to die for Nanjing. FDR understood going to war for China was political suicide.

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Instead, FDR began economic warfare against the Japanese Empire. In 1939, FDR terminated the 1939 Commercial Treaty with Japan. On 2 July 1940, FDR signed the Export Control Act, which authorizes the president to stop the export of “essential defense materials.”

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On 31 July 1940, FDR used the act to stop the exports of aviation fuel, lubricating oil, iron, and steel to Japan. On 16 October 1940, FDR embargoed the export of scrap iron and steel outside the British Empire and the Western Hemisphere.

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By 26 July 1941, FDR froze all Japanese assets?in the United States. A week later FDR, embargoed all exports of oil to Japan.

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The British government, and the Dutch government-in-exile in London, also embargoed exports to Japan. By 1941, the Nazis were occupying the Netherlands. This action threatened the Japanese war machine because its primary source of oil was Indonesia, then a Dutch colony.

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Like Biden, FDR thought he could avoid war with economic action. FDR’s economic warfare backfired. On 18 October 1941, a new radical Japanese government led by General Tōjō Hideki took power. Tōjō was dedicated to Japan’s imperial expansion at all costs.

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As Prime Minister, Tōjō began planning an attack on the United States and Japanese invasions of Indonesia, the Philippines, and the British Empire. On 7 December 1941, Imperial Japanese Navy aviators began the war by sinking much of the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

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The result of FDR’s economic warfare was the Pacific War between the United States and the Japanese Empire that caused 2.5 million deaths. Those deaths included 111,606 Americans and 1.74 million Japanese.

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Instead of preventing war, FDR’s economic warfare triggered one of the most destructive conflicts in human history. That war so was catastrophic, US President Harry S. Truman (D-Missouri) felt he had to use the atomic bomb to end it.

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Economic Warfare Fails Again and Again

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Sadly, the miserable failure of FDR’s economic warfare did not discredit the concept. Instead, such economic warfare has become America’s weapon of choice. One reason presidents love economic warfare is that it punishes enemies without getting Americans killed or taxes raised.

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Thus, we had economic warfare against Cuba and Iran after clumsy military operations against those nations failed. Sadly, the Cuba and Iran embargoes are still in place decades after the conflicts that triggered them became meaningless.

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In particular, America’s sanctions were designed to punish Cuba for siding with the Soviets in the Cold War. That was a legitimate pretext in 1970, but why are the sanctions still in place in 2022, 31 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union? Moreover those sanctions pushed Cuba closer to the USSR and made the island a staunch Soviet ally.

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Notably, the Communist regime in Cuba, which sanctions were supposed to destroy,?is still in power. Similarly, the Islamic Republic of Iran still stands after over 40 years of sanctions.

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History shows economic warfare often fails and backfires. Unfortunately that history could soon repeat itself in Afghanistan.