US Backed Afghan President Took the Money and Ran

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist 

As the government of Afghanistan collapses, it is becoming exceedingly clear that Joe Biden was right.  We were never going to prevail there because the government that we helped to install was motivated by grandiosity and cash.  The leaders of Afghanistan were on our payroll, and many used their positions to grow obscenely rich.  When the US pulled out, they quit - and many disappeared, leaving the people to fend for themselves.

When the Taliban reached the capital of Kabul earlier this week, the president of the country, Ashraf Ghani, placed a letter of resignation on his desk, packed a few bags, and hurriedly left the country.   Today we learned that several of his bags were stuffed with US dollars - a hundred and sixty-nine million US dollars!  Apparently Ghani and his (our) money are currently in the United Arab Emirates.  

Afghanistan's Defense Minister has asked Interpol to arrest former president Ghani.  

The United States spent twenty years pouring at least two trillion dollars into the rathole that was Afghanistan.   We were "nation building," or creating an Afghan military and police organization capable of defending and running the country, and we were strengthening local governments and building schools and hospitals.  But even with all of that "nation building," much of the US money that flooded into Afghanistan never reached the ordinary citizens.  It was siphoned off by greedy political and military leaders who used it for their own comfort and security.

So we left (or are leaving), and they packed their bags and headed for the border as well - and Ashraf Ghani was undoubtedly not the only Afghan leader who was busy getting large amounts of US currency out of the country.

What a shame our government takes less interest in the money it throws at despots than it does in monitoring our meager incomes.   War comes with tremendous costs, and the costs of twenty years of war are damned near incalculable.  

Ashraf Ghani should be arrested and his (our) money seized.  $169 million would feed, clothe, and house many people in need in Afghanistan - or many of the refugees pouring out of Afghanistan. It could even do a lot of good right here in the United States, where it originated.   Leaving those millions of dollars with a thief is unacceptable and immoral.    

And the next time we get stampeded into one of these bloody circuses, accountants should be imbedded at every level of operation.   Free-flowing money brings corruption, and corruption brings defeat!