United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken claims to be “committed to supporting the people of Afghanistan,” but the reality is Washington is starving millions of Afghan civilians with suffocating sanctions.
The American people are committed to supporting the people of Afghanistan. I met virtually today with @UNReliefChief Griffiths and International Committee of the Red Cross President @PMaurerICRC about strengthening the coordination of existing U.S. efforts with the @UN and @ICRC.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) January 15, 2022
The International Business Times reported, “Millions of Afghans are on the ‘verge of death’ as U.S. sanctions threaten half of Afghanistan’s population with food insecurity, cripple its banking system, and cause food prices to skyrocket.”
According to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), nearly 23 million Afghans, or 55% of the population, are facing “extreme levels of hunger.” Of those, almost 9 million are at risk of famine.
UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch called it “a crisis of hunger and starvation.”
Yet there is little discussion inside Washington of the disastrous impact of US sanctions.
When the US ended its 20-year military occupation of Afghanistan in an August 2021 pullout, corporate media coverage skyrocketed – and it was almost universally against the withdrawal.
Yet just a few months later, as Afghan civilians are being starved by US sanctions, the press is now utterly disinterested in the country, as Julie Hollar has documented for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).
When the corporate media could exploit the name of Afghan civilians to defend an open-ended US-NATO war, it was more than eager. But now that those same Afghan civilians are suffering under US sanctions, the press corps is out to lunch.
