Thread by @Trinhnomics

You can kill 7 innocent children & 3 adults & not have any consequence whatsoever as it is an "honest mistake." Meanwhile, there's a looming famine in Afghanistan. The US didn't just pull the troops from Afghanistan, it pulled the lifeline of 40m people.

nytimes.com/2021/12/04/wor…

About 75% of the former government’s budget was donor-funded, as was 40% of its GDP.

US sanctions mean that 40% of GDP is not funded as aid money doesn't flow there (no bank would want to touch it).

So just like that, economic freefall & famine looming
voanews.com/a/un-aid-chief…

The US slapped sanctions (+freezing 10bn of reserves) on Afghanistan for obvious reasons - the Taliban took over.

But 40 million people suddenly also don't have means to feed themselves as the aid that they need can't flow.

So now what? People are desperately hungry.

I'm not an Afghanistan expert & just read a few articles tonight & so far all the stories show development experts/agencies calling the US to reconsider its tough sanctions that have contributed to an economic collapse & humanitarian crisis.

theguardian.com/global-develop…

Btw, that Guardian article got the population of Afghanistan wrong, it's 40m not 23.

The 23 million number is the people in that country that face food insecurity. 9 million people are near famine.

That is a lot of people. Don't forget we also got Covid on top of famine.

NYT: "Overnight, billions of dollars in foreign aid that propped up the prev Western-backed government vanished and U.S. sanctions on the Taliban isolated the country from the global financial system, paralyzing Afghan banks and impeding relief work by humanitarian organizations"

“We need to separate the politics from the humanitarian imperative,” said Mary-Ellen McGroarty, the World Food Program’s country director for Afghanistan. “The millions of women, of children, of men in the current crisis in Afghanistan are innocent people who are being condemned"