Rep. Mast criticizes US funding of Taliban

 Red State:

It couldn’t have been much fun being Secretary of State Antony Blinken Wednesday. First, he was eviscerated in a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting by Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) over the disastrous U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan—for which finally Blinken expressed regret—but then he was grilled by Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) over the estimated "tens of billions" of U.S. taxpayer dollars he says the Biden-Harris regime has been funneling to the Taliban.

Mast, who was elected Tuesday to become the new chair of the Foreign Relations Committee in January, asked if Blinken had even been to Afghanistan since America’s 2021 ill-fated pullout, which left 13 American servicemen dead from an ISIS suicide bomb. Blinken admitted he had not, and that we are not in control of the U.S. embassy there.

Then Mast drilled down:

"There's an American citizen out there, literally woke up this morning losing 30% of their paycheck. And a good percentage of that is going to the Taliban or other programs abroad," Mast said. "And this is something that we all need to think about, and we will be thinking about deeply for the next two years. There's a joke that's made often out there about kids going to college to learn basket weaving, and what a joke that would be. But the United States right now is literally sending tens of millions of dollars to the Taliban. 14.9 million, to be exact, to teach Afghans how to do carpet weaving." 

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 But Mast wasn’t done:

"We are giving $280 million to the United Nations to do cash transfers for food in Afghanistan," Mast continued. "Yet we're not sending an ear of corn from Iowa, a sack of potatoes from Idaho, or a cucumber or an orange from Florida. And that discounts the fact that there's no American tonnage going through our ports to send those things out of here, either. It's just cash transfers." 

 Mast had plenty more to say, including asking why the heck we would send $75 million to teach Afghan women to become farmers. "I don't believe that we spend $30 million in the United States of America to teach women to be farmers," he pointed out. He also wanted an explanation for the $3.5 billion that was transferred to the Afghan fund "that is tended to protect the macro financial stability on behalf of the Afghan people." 

"What the hell does that mean? Can you tell me? I don't know, that's a bunch of gibberish to me," Mast demanded.

Blinken’s response was predictably weak:

In response, Blinken said he respectfully disagreed with Mast's opposition to the Afghan funds, saying, "The work we have done through these partners, and many other countries have done, has saved many, many lives in an incredibly difficult situation." 

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I agree with Mast.  There is no assurance that the terrorists who now control Afghanistan will use the money for food.  They are probably likely to spend it on weapons to control the parts of  Afghanistan that oppose Taliban rule.  Don't forget the Taliban's abusive treatment of women in that country.  The US should not owe the Taliban anything.

This is more evidence this guy must be replaced:

Antony Blinken Claims Disastrous Afghanistan Withdrawal Strengthened U.S. on World Stage

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...  American forces rushed to pull out of Kabul as the Taliban advanced, leaving behind American citizens, U.S. allies, and billions in equipment, and handing the Taliban a massive propaganda win as images of U.S. incompetence spread around the world.

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