American Taxpayers Paying for Terror | Frontpage Mag

Who controls the aid after America pays for it? That question should come before every appropriation for territory dominated by a terrorist organization. Washington prefers to announce how much it has given. The regime controlling access, recipients and local operations has a different calculation: how much money and power can it extract? American generosity can become the raw material of an enemy’s survival.

Joseph Heller understood the absurdity. His Milo Minderbinder contracted to bomb his own side and defended the transaction as business. Washington’s version invokes humanitarian necessity. The proclaimed purpose may be admirable. The consequences depend upon who controls what happens after the money leaves American hands.

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How did we reach the point where that principle needed spelling out?

After the Taliban seized Afghanistan in August 2021, the United States continued financing humanitarian and development assistance through international organizations and nongovernmental partners. American officials authorized the expenditure. The Taliban held coercive power where the assistance arrived. A donor could specify the intended beneficiaries without controlling whether the regime allowed those people to receive it.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction supplied an uncomfortable answer. Its May 2024 audit found that 38 implementing partners had paid at least $10.9 million in American-funded taxes, fees, duties and utilities to the Taliban-controlled government. Incomplete reporting meant the figure was likely only a fraction of the total. These were identified payments, not an estimate invented by opponents of foreign aid.

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Who authorized such payments? Part of the answer is available in plain sight. In February 2022, the Biden administration’s Treasury Department issued General License 20. It maintained restrictions on transfers to the Taliban and Haqqani Network while permitting specified payments for taxes, fees, import duties, permits, licenses and utilities. Officials sought to facilitate economic activity and relief without lifting terrorism sanctions generally.

The resulting imbroglio was hardly mysterious. Washington restricted the regime with one instrument while allowing certain revenue-producing transactions with another. Some payments were legally authorized. That makes the policy question more pressing: why were these concessions considered acceptable, how much did they yield, and what limits were actually enforced? A license establishes permission. It does not establish wisdom.

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The report also examined a culture of denial within the international aid community. This matters enormously. An unavoidable loss, candidly disclosed and rigorously contained, is one thing. A system that minimizes interference while continuing to seek public money presents a different problem. When does reassurance become dissimulation? Certainly an official cannot establish success simply by repeating the purpose printed on a grant.

The machinery can reward continuation. Organizations require permission to operate, while each disruption threatens the next delivery. The regime understands these dependencies. If donors will not suspend a compromised arrangement, what incentive remains for the authorities to stop compromising it?

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The moral cost extends beyond the balance sheet. The Taliban sheltered al-Qaeda before September 11 and fought American forces for years afterward. American families buried their dead. Veterans returned with injuries that no appropriation could repair. To treat revenue flowing to that regime as an incidental administrative expense asks those families to accept a distinction the recipients have no reason to respect.

What becomes of national interest when the taxpayer must finance both resistance to an enemy and arrangements that replenish its resources? Ordinary Americans are required to meet their obligations precisely. Their government should face an equally exacting test when spending their earnings. Compassion purchased with someone else’s money carries a duty to account for its consequences. Otherwise, the official enjoys the moral satisfaction while the taxpayer and intended beneficiary bear the loss.

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The danger reaches beyond Afghanistan. In November 2024, federal prosecutors announced an indictment alleging that a Syrian aid official diverted more than $9 million in American-funded humanitarian assistance to armed groups, including the al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusrah Front. An indictment is an allegation, not a conviction. Nevertheless, the case illustrates the concrete conduct that investigators must pursue: money intended for civilians allegedly redirected to combatants, with the original beneficiaries deprived twice over.

Gaza presents the same fundamental question about control. At a February 2025 congressional hearing, Middle East Forum executive director Gregg Roman cited $2.1 billion in American assistance since October 7. He testified that 90 percent of aid delivered through American agents reached Hamas-controlled areas and argued that the assistance underwrote Hamas’s survival until the ceasefire. His indictment concerned the strategic benefit to a U.S.-designated terrorist organization operating where aid was delivered.

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These cases involve different programs and legal circumstances. H.R. 260 specifically addresses Afghanistan and the Taliban. Its importance lies in forcing scrutiny of the channels through which assistance can benefit an enemy.

What would the bill require? The Senate-reported version calls for identifying foreign countries and organizations providing assistance to the Taliban, examining their receipt of American assistance, and implementing a strategy to discourage such support. It also requires suspension of assistance to countries or organizations determined by the secretary of state to have assisted the Taliban.

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Such obligations will accomplish little if Congress accepts desultory oversight and familiar assurances. Legislators must demand usable accounts of transactions and recipients, examine discrepancies and require correction. Agencies should explain how they will remediate identified failures before another award repeats them. Reporting becomes valuable when someone acts upon what it reveals.

Where investigators establish deliberate fraud or prohibited support, the response belongs in a courtroom. Where officials accepted a harmful but lawful arrangement, they must defend that decision publicly. Neither problem is resolved by announcing that the money was spent with good intentions.

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Why pass a bill after those cuts? Because an executive decision can be reversed. Programs can return under new descriptions, administrators or emergencies. Congress should establish obligations that survive a change of personnel. The Congressional Budget Office expects no immediate outlay savings from the proposed rescissions because most relevant contracts and grants have already been terminated. The argument for enactment rests on accountability and prevention, rather than an imaginary immediate windfall.

Congress should finish H.R. 260 and insist upon answers. The decisive test of assistance is who can control it, exploit it and turn it into power. Americans should not be required to finance an enemy’s endurance because officials prefer to discuss their intentions. In Heller’s world, a contract excused bombing one’s own base. In ours, humanitarian language must never excuse sustaining those who would attack it.

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