Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai blasted the United States and President Joe Biden in a new interview with The Washington Post over a series of decisions he said left Afghanistan at the mercy of the Taliban.
Karzai called Biden’s Afghanistan policies since the American withdrawal from the country “morally wrong.” He said in the interview, which was conducted in October and printed this week, that the administration is further victimizing the Afghan people. He also said the United States has the moral responsibility to do more to help Afghanistan because of its frequent intervention in the country in recent decades.
“I strongly disagree with the decision to strip the Afghan reserves, keeping half of it for the possibility of distribution to the 9/11 victims with whom the Afghan people commiserate fully,” Karzai said of Biden. “We as the greatest victims of terrorism commiserate fully with American families who lost lives and suffered in that great tragedy of Sept. 11. It is morally wrong to take money from the greatest victim and the poorest victim and give it to another victim when both are victims of the same atrocity, of the same oppression.”
Karzai referred to Biden’s executive order to split $7 billion in frozen funds from Afghanistan’s central bank between rebuilding the country and paying for legal fees for the families of 9/11 victims, who have pursued financial compensation from the Taliban. The families have intensified their efforts since the militants took control of Kabul last year.
“I have had lots of disagreements and quarrels with the United States on issues … But I am not going to lay the whole blame at the door of the United States. We Afghans are responsible as well in many, many ways,” Karzai said when asked whether the United States bears responsibility for Afghanistan‘s current state.
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