Ex-NSA Spanta hits out at Biden over Afghan reserves

KABUL (Pajhwok): Former foreign minister and national security advisor Dr. Dadfar Spanta on Monday hit out at President Biden’s decision on earmarking $3.5 billion of Afghan reserves for 9/11 victims.

In a series of tweets, Spanta said he was feeling guilty before the people of Afghanistan for partnering with the US and considering Washington as Kabul’s friend.

“The USA is punishing Afghanistan once again and capturing Afghanistan's reserves. I feel guilty before my people and before the history of my country to have ever considered the US government as a friend and ally. May the Afghan people forgive me,” he tweeted...

He also recalled history, accusing the US of radicalising some elements, supporting them and then turning against them.

“The US promoted the most radical of radicals in Afghanistan and strengthened them in the Cold War against the USSR at the expense of the Afghans. This included Bin Laden, who received massive US support.”

He added the US offered Pakistan billions of dollars of aid and let it maintain its hegemony over Afghanistan by creating Taliban. Osama Bin Ladin was found and killed in Pakistan, he continued.

“The US boomed Afghanistan for 20 years in the name of anti-terror-war. Thousands of women, children and civilians lost their lives. We believed, I also believed, in fact it was counter-terrorism. The US supported Pakistan with $36 billion. But Bin Laden lived in Pakistan.”

Spanta wrote: “The US gave Pakistan a free hand in Afghanistan. Pakistan, with the cooperation and money of the West, dominated the Afghan resistance and created the Taliban as an instrument of its hegemony in Afghanistan.”

President Joe Biden has moved to freeze about $7bn in assets held in US financial institutions by the Afghan central bank in the wake of the Taliban takeover. He vowed to direct $3.5bn to humanitarian aid and preserve the rest for families of 9/11victims.

nh/mud