The United States will provide humanitarian aid to the Taliban.

 

Taliban fighters. The Hill/Getty.

After a diplomatic meeting with the Taliban the United States has decided to give humanitarian aid but not recognition of the Taliban. The Hill. The talks took place in Doha and were the first face to face meeting since the fall of the Afghan government. The United States agreed to provide humanitarian aid in order to facilitate the evacuation of foreign nationals. The Taliban also agreed to prevent terrorism from taking hold in Afghanistan, which may be a major problem for them considering the massive bombing they had on Friday. 

My Comment:

What a joke. We have zero reason to help the Taliban do anything, let alone give them aid. They have been America's enemy for 20 years now and just like that we forget every terrible thing they did to our soldiers? It's disgusting. 

Honestly, I would have been less angry if they had did the exact opposite of what they did. Recognize the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan but not send them a single cent of aid. It's pretty obvious that the Taliban are in control of Afghanistan, recognizing them is just acknowledging reality. And we probably could have gotten the same things we got with this agreement. 

The fact that there are still foreign nationals left in Afghanistan shows how badly the evacuation failed. Most of the evacuees were just people who wanted out, not vulnerable former government officials or citizens of foreign countries. We left a lot of people behind and it's a minor miracle that the Taliban haven't killed them at all. The fact that we needed to make an agreement about this is a joke.

And the Taliban agreeing to stop terrorism? Fine, but I doubt they can actually do it. The former Afghan government wasn't able to deal with ISIS even with American support and intelligence. The Taliban won't have that and they are already showing that they aren't capable of stopping ISIS now that they have gone underground. I don't think ISIS will take over Afghanistan or anything but I also don't think the Taliban's promise is worth much here. 

Even worse they are agreed about ISIS but what about al-Qaeda? I know al-Qaeda has been mostly destroyed but they have been allied with Afghanistan since before 9/11. Indeed, there isn't too much difference between the two groups. I doubt that the Taliban would actually move against al-Qaeda given their strong links. 

Is there a need for humanitarian aid? Of course! The Taliban are failing in running the country and simple things like health care and power are failing. And that's assuming that they can even feed their people. But that does not mean that we should give them anything. And considering they took over our huge stores of weapons and supplies, I say we have already helped them enough...