Karzai makes irrational demands
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has sharply criticized the United States and NATO, demanding a timeline for the withdrawal of foreign forces.How many months would Karzai last if the US and NATO did what he asked? Karzai appears to be a man losing his composure and his mind. It is not like we are staying in Afghanistan because it is such a wonderful place. Karzai knows the reason it is taking so long to defeat the Taliban is their sanctuaries in Pakistan that we are only now coming to grips with. Our leaving want make that situation better. Now will halting the bombing of Taliban positions make them go away either.Karzai's comments came late Tuesday in a speech to a U.N. Security Council delegation visiting Kabul, the capital, this week. He accused the international community of failing "to fight the Taliban properly" since the U.S.-led war in the country began in 2001.
"This war has gone on for seven years. The Afghans don't understand anymore how come a little force like the Taliban can continue to exist, can continue to flourish, can continue to launch attacks with 40 countries in Afghanistan, with entire NATO force in Afghanistan, with the entire international community behind them," Karzai said. "Still we are not able to defeat the Taliban."
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Karzai, whose five-year term ends next year, has become increasingly critical of the international community. He has complained bitterly about mounting civilian casualties caused by U.S.-led airstrikes in Afghanistan and has called for a halt to NATO raids on Afghan villages. In recent weeks, he has become more forceful in his calls for negotiations with the Taliban, saying he would guarantee safe passage to Taliban leader Mohammad Omar if he agreed to talks with the government.
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Karzai, who was elected in 2004 after serving as interim president following the fall of the Taliban in 2002, is facing stiff political competition ahead of the presidential election set for September. With insurgents and criminal groups in control of parts of the country, his political foes have seized on the failure to effectively counter the threat, with some calling for an earlier election.
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Karzai probably needs to give someone else a chance to run the country after the next election. He sounds burned out and emotional.
how many months would he last? one might presume that he wouldnt last. however, keeping in mind that most who rise to that level arent exactly stupid (despite what we like to think), he would also know or presume how long he would last.
ReplyDeletethat means that he thinks he has an ace up his sleeve. something that causes him to think that in the power vacume that would remain, he has some ace that makes that situation better than the current (soft) situation he is in now.
cui buono? and what is his benifit?
obviously, whatever it is, it is large enough that he is willing to gamble his life and flush his countrymen down the toilet in one or another way.
I would say that another state has his ear. that this other state has given him guarantees, or agreements that sound nicer and are more in line with him not being a normal transitory politician, but a more permanent fixture (backed with weapons and expertise from this other entity).
you can see in his point that its classic manipulation
"This war has gone on for seven years. The Afghans don't understand anymore how come a little force like the Taliban can continue to exist, can continue to flourish, can continue to launch attacks with 40 countries in Afghanistan, with entire NATO force in Afghanistan, with the entire international community behind them," Karzai said. "Still we are not able to defeat the Taliban."
he is speaking for people in which there is no way to confirm what he is saying, but he speaks for the people.
his reasoning ignores the obvious which shows why he is falsely speaking for the people. in other words he is faulting the countries and their efforts because he knows that another kind of pragmatic state would have terrorized the people as it went door to door and indiscriminately handled the situation without care for how people would feel afterwards, or how many extra fish in the nets.
that if one chooses to fight on some platform of morals in conflict, such as we have, then one has to accept that some very pragmatic and effective methods are outside the boundaries of action.
the other side chooses to fight on a different platform of morals in conflict. so what happens is that it can do things that would be outside the boundaries of what some would try to say is normal (though how normal fits i dont know. i think they mean more usual for the time).
if taliban morals were higher: meet on a feild of battle in uniform and acceptwin or defeat by outcome... then they would have been gone the first week...
if the US(and others) morals were lower: took off their uniforms, created death squads, made 100% kill zones (like the mountain passes - you enter, you get killed). section the country off, search every house, etc. the taliban would have been gone in a year or a couple instead of seven and running...
as it is these countries have let enemy go rather than destroy or level mosques. they have refused to bomb near residences. they warn people before they come in, maximizing the safety of non combatants, minimizing their own safety. the list goes on.
if karzai is making a play the way he is, he is playing for some card for himself that the presence of all these goodie goodies will not allow without some form of interference.