Last month marked the three-year anniversary of the deaths of 13 U.S. service members as the U.S finished its undignified withdrawal from Afghanistan after two decades of war. On August 26th, 2021, two suicide bombers attacked the gates of the Kabul airport, killing 13 and wounding another 18 U.S. Servicemen and women, as well as 60 Afghanis.

Despite the United States’ 20–year war against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, citizens’ tax dollars are now funding the very organizations that killed almost 2,500 American soldiers during that conflict.

How many tax dollars?

The amounts are in the tens of millions of dollars per week.

I first came across this story while watching an episode of The Shawn Ryan Show in which host Shawn Ryan interviews Sarah Adams, a former CIA “targeter” who has been tracking terrorists for many years. In the interview, Adams posits that the terrorists who attacked our embassy in Benghazi on September 11, 2012—causing the deaths of a U.S. ambassador, a staff member, and two Global Response Team members—are connected to the Taliban, our tax dollars, and the threat of terrorism we face now.

But first, how did it all start?

Former President Trump signed a deal with the Taliban leader in Doha, Qatar, on February 29th, 2020, negotiating the United States’ 14-month withdrawal plan. The agreement’s main point was that the Taliban would cease any offensive actions against the U.S. during its withdrawal, including the end of combat deaths in Afghanistan during Trump’s presidency.

Then in November of 2020, Trump was ousted by Joe Biden and was rendered unable to see his negotiation through. The disaster and dollars started rolling.

Ms. Adams tells Ryan that there are three “buckets” of money we should examine. The first bucket, according to Adams, is $7 billion that was owned by Afghanistan from before the war that we held in the Federal Reserve Bank in New York since the Afghan government fell to the Taliban in 2021. $3.5 billion was set aside to go to victims of the attacks on 9/11 by President Biden, but the latest news is that a judge blocked the payout on Constitutional grounds in February of 2023. The other $3.5 billion was put in a Swiss bank account, according to Adams, and handed to the Taliban.

The second bucket is American tax dollars at work. Adams says that the planes arrive in Afghanistan weekly with an amount ranging from $43 million to $87 million. The money arrives at the central bank in Afghanistan and is then sent to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). This sounds innocent until one realizes that these NGOs have been infiltrated or subverted by the Taliban, a claim that is further backed up by Adams in the interview.

Adams calls the third bucket “the ISIS Dollars.” This money is much harder to follow, and I encourage you all to watch the episode starting here to find out how the money reaches ISIS and who has set up shop in Afghanistan with the Taliban’s blessing. The full episode is worth your time, but the link will take you to the funding section. In short, the money comes off the same weekly planes as the $43–87 million we discussed earlier. From there, it changes hands a few times but eventually finds its way into the hands of ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and other groups.

Finally we have everything we left to the Taliban in the botched evacuation and withdrawal, including estimates of $7 billion or more in equipment alone—but not accounting for American facilities, training centers, or other infrastructure, like Bagram Air Force Base.

America spent 20 years fighting the War on Terror. Thousands of lives were lost, thousands were injured physically and emotionally, all so that we could turn Afghanistan into the worst military disaster since Vietnam. Now, our tax dollars continue to flow into the hands of our enemies while our veterans are homeless, and we are over $35 trillion in debt. Surely, it’s time to demand change and hold our representatives accountable. It’s time to end this madness.

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Image credit: Pexels