Vets Furious After Watchdog Group Reveals U.S. Funds Being Sent To Taliban
A government watchdog group monitoring Afghanistan has uncovered a shocking misuse of U.S. government funds, revealing that cash from the United States is directly benefiting the Taliban.
The U.S. military bravely fought against the Taliban for over two decades following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, with many soldiers losing their lives.
However, the group found that more than $3.8 billion in U.S. tax dollars have entered Afghanistan through the United Nations, as reported by The New York Post.
“At times, this includes the UN literally flying US cash into Afghanistan through transportation firms,” The Post reported.
“While that money is typically then moved to UN partners in Afghanistan, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) found that the US cash flow has both ‘directly and indirectly’ benefited the Taliban,” The Post said.
“The humanitarian assistance facilitated by the shipments provides indirect benefits to the Taliban by stabilizing and legitimizing them, because the funds allow the Taliban to focus on their priorities and policies instead of providing essential services to the Afghan people,” the SIGAR report stated.
The report also noted that “under the guise of income taxation, the Taliban have targeted and extorted money from some recipients of direct cash assistance.”
Additionally, it mentioned that “US currency is difficult to trace” and that “the Taliban now have a greater ability to circumvent the controls of the international banking system that are intended to limit the Taliban’s ability to conduct money laundering and fund terrorism.”
This means that although the State Department has safeguards to prevent funds from benefiting the Taliban, there are still ways to bypass these controls.
This revelation has infuriated many veterans.
“This has to stop now. We are sending billions of dollars to the Taliban while failing to take care of our veterans who are struggling day-to-day with both physical and mental wounds,” said Mark “Oz” Geist, founder of the Shadow Warriors Project, to The Post.
“This is not only a slap in the face of every servicemember who served in the 20 years of war with Afghanistan and the Taliban, it stings even more so for those 13 families that bore the loss of their loved one when they were killed at Abbey Gate,” he added.
He called the finding “appalling and a disgrace to those who have served and sacrificed so much.”
Former Green Beret Scott Mann echoed these sentiments.
“US funds — marked as humanitarian relief and counterterrorism dollars in Afghanistan — are being funneled into operationalizing, planning, and preparation of terror operations against US interests, and the homeland,” he told The Post.
Former Navy SEAL and CIA contractor Shawn Ryan, who hosts his own podcast, was similarly outraged.
“As a veteran who served in Afghanistan during the Global War on Terror, the notion of the US funding the Taliban is morally reprehensible and fundamentally against our national security interests, especially as we approach the three-year anniversary of Abbey Gate,” he said.
“Once again, the US State Department has failed to properly manage US taxpayers’ dollars. This time, $293 million has ended up in the hands of the Taliban terror regime, potentially funding future attacks on America,” said Chad Robichaux, founder of The Mighty Oaks Foundation and a Marine.
“When will enough be enough, and when will this administration be held accountable for the safety and security of our nation and its citizens?” he questioned.
In June, Republican Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett introduced legislation to prevent the Taliban from receiving funds from the United States.
“The Afghanistan withdrawal is one of the Biden administration’s greatest failures,” he told The Post. “This administration has also sent the Taliban millions of taxpayer dollars since then. I introduced a bill to prevent this administration from sending one more penny to these terrorists, but it’s ridiculous I had to do that in the first place.”