$8B of US funds possibly went to Taliban.

Is U.S. Humanitarian Aid Funding the Taliban in Afghanistan?

Since the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, the U.S. has continued sending money to the country in the form of humanitarian aid. However, a recent testimony by John Sopko, the Special Inspector General to Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), has raised concerns that the U.S. cannot be confident that our $8 billion of aid to Afghanistan isn’t funding the Taliban.

The Risk of Funding the Taliban

Sopko admitted that there is effectively no monitoring of these funds to ensure they are not going to the Taliban. The U.S. does not currently recognize the Taliban as a legitimate government. No effective oversight means U.S. funds could end up in the wrong hands, “subjected to waste, fraud, and abuse,” SIGAR wrote.

The Need for Reevaluation

The U.S. needs to seriously reevaluate its funding and monitoring processes to ensure taxpayer dollars are actually helping the Afghan people, and not ending up in the hands of the brutal and barbaric Taliban government. Biden Administration officials have repeatedly stressed that this aid is strictly going toward humanitarian efforts via non-governmental organizations and other humanitarian aid organizations. However, without proper monitoring, there is no way to ensure that the aid is not being diverted to the Taliban.

Conclusion

The U.S. must take action to ensure that our humanitarian aid is not funding the Taliban. It is crucial that we reevaluate our funding and monitoring processes to ensure that taxpayer dollars are being used effectively to help the Afghan people.

Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.