‘Quit sending good money after bad.’ Rand Paul wants Afghanistan aid halted.
Sen. Rand Paul asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday to resist sending any more American treasury to Afghanistan, calling further payments “aid and comfort to the enemy.”
“Let’s quit sending good money after bad,” Paul said during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. “Releasing money to the Taliban will add insult to injury.”
Blinken told Paul the Biden administration would not release an estimated $10 billion in assets unless the Taliban made good on its commitments to the U.S. government.
That money has been frozen by the U.S. since the Taliban recaptured Afghanistan last month. The funds are seen as a key piece of leverage over the Taliban, which are being pressured to respect women’s rights and establish a rule of law.
But withholding the funds could crush an Afghan economy that the U.S. spent two decades trying to establish.
Paul, who long supported the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, also assailed the Biden administration for leaving behind $80 billion in weapons and equipment.
Blinken responded that most of that weaponry -- including planes and helicopters -- is already inoperable or will be soon due to a lack of maintenance.
Still, Paul suggested the U.S. should’ve destroyed its abandoned equipment before exiting the country.
“Maybe we should’ve bombed the helicopters and the planes we left behind,” Paul said. “Once they took all of our stuff, we should’ve said, ‘You’ve got 20 minutes to get out of it because we’re going to blow it all up.’ Then you would’ve sent a message of strength.”
Blinken confirmed the Biden administration is still reviewing whether a drone strike in Afghanistan accidentally killed a man who worked for a U.S. aid group. The New York Times revealed in an investigation the strike killed 10 people, including several children, but Blinken would not speculate on the incident.
“I don’t know, because we’re reviewing it,” Blinken told Paul.
“There is blowback to that,” Paul scolded on the potential of innocent victims. “If that’s true … guess what, maybe you’ve created hundreds or thousands of new potential terrorists from bombing the wrong people. We can’t sort of have an investigation after we kill people. We have an investigation before we kill people.”
This story was originally published September 14, 2021 at 1:29 PM.
