Don’t Wage Economic War on Afghanistan

#Sanctions advocates from the hardline Foundation for Defense of Democracies recently made the case for piling on sanctions on #Afghanistan by adding the #Taliban to both the FTO list and the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Hawks have been disastrously wrong about the use of sanctions for decades, and now they propose to strangle a country that has been wracked by #war for the last four decades. The last thing that Afghanistan needs after generations of armed #conflict is a new #US #economic war.

These calls for designating the Taliban would have a few practical effects, all of them bad: it would impede the delivery of #aid and the conduct of #trade with the rest of the world, it would deprive the #Afghan #people of being able to import goods from elsewhere, it would worsen the #refugee #crisis, and it would give Taliban every incentive to cooperate with and support #hostile groups.

#USA #PerpetualWar #antiwar #propeace #peace #pacifist #pacifism #HumanRights #humanitarian