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View Full Version : Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai says Nato caused 'great suffering'



سيف الله
10-08-2013, 09:06 AM
Salaam

An interview

President Hamid Karzai has criticised Nato for failing to bring stability to Afghanistan in over a decade there.

"On the security front the entire Nato exercise was one that caused Afghanistan a lot of suffering, a lot of loss of life, and no gains because the country is not secure," he said.

He said Nato had incorrectly focused the fight on Afghan villages rather than Taliban safe havens in Pakistan. Mr Karzai has just six months remaining in office until a successor is elected.

"I am not happy to say that there is partial security. That's not what we are seeking. What we wanted was absolute security and a clear-cut war against terrorism," Mr Karzai said of the Nato campaign.

Speaking in one of his last major interviews before stepping down, he told BBC Newsnight that his priority now is to bring peace and security to Afghanistan, including a power-sharing deal with the Taliban. He said that his government was actively engaged in talks with the hardline Islamic group with this aim in mind:

"They are Afghans. Where the Afghan president, the Afghan government can appoint the Taliban to a government job they are welcome," he said. "But where it's the Afghan people appointing people through elections to state organs then the Taliban should come and participate in elections."

Women's rights

He dismissed concerns that bringing the Taliban back into government would sacrifice the tenuous gains on the status of women made in Afghanistan.

"The return of the Taliban will not undermine progress. This country needs to have peace. I am willing to stand for anything that will bring peace to Afghanistan and through that to promote the cause of the Afghan women better," he said.

"I have no doubt that there will be more Afghan young girls and women studying and getting higher education and better job opportunities. There is no doubt about that; even if the Taliban come that will not end, that will not slow down," he added.

Before the elections for Mr Karzai's successor the United States is keen to finalise a bilateral security agreement which will also formalise US-Afghan relations following the 2014 Nato troop withdrawal.

The US wants this signed by Mr Karzai, to avoid it becoming an election issue. However, the Afghan leader told Newsnight he was in no hurry to sign a pact:

"If the agreement doesn't suit us then of course they can leave. The agreement has to suit Afghanistan's interests and purposes. If it doesn't suit us and if it doesn't suit them then naturally we will go separate ways."

The US is becoming more and more pessimistic about the issue and has said it will consider a zero troops option.

Troop drawdown

Mr Karzai has had troubled relations with his Western backers in recent years for openly criticising Nato, whom he has accused of having no respect for Afghan sovereignty.

In 2009, US President Barack Obama described Mr Karzai as an unreliable and ineffective partner. However, speaking to Newsnight Mr Karzai dismissed the claim saying he was characterised in this manner "because where they want us to go along, we don't go along. They want us to keep silent when civilians are killed. We will not, we cannot".

He said that in the years immediately following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan he had had good relations with the-then President George W Bush as in "those beginning years there was not much difference of opinion between us".

"The worsening of relations began in 2005 where we saw the first incidents of civilian casualties, where we saw that the war on terror was not conducted where it should have been."

Mr Karzai said the war should have been conducted "in the sanctuaries, in the training grounds beyond Afghanistan, rather than that which the US and Nato forces were conducting operations in Afghan villages, causing harm to Afghan people."

There has also been much criticism of the Afghan government's failure to deal with corruption, which along with lack of progress on significantly improving women's rights, saw Norway cutting some its aid to the country last week.

"Our government is weak and ineffective in comparison to other governments, we've just begun," Mr Karzai said. "But the big corruption, the hundreds of millions of dollars of corruption, it was not Afghan. Now everybody knows that. It was foreign.

"The contracts, the subcontracts, the blind contracts given to people, money thrown around to buy loyalties, money thrown around to buy submissiveness of Afghan government officials, to policies and designs that the Afghans would not agree to. That was the major part of corruption," he said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-24433433
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Independent
10-09-2013, 10:30 AM
^^ What's Karzai up to here? As the withdrawal of Nato troops progresses he is plainly looking to the future, understanding the reality of power, and seeking a political compromise with the Taliban. In order to achieve this he needs to distance himself from the US. Everything he says needs to be seen in the context of the coming political and military reality. It must be galling for the Americans to hear this but that's politics.

It's reminiscent of the situation in France at the end of WW2 with De Gaulle. The Americans hated him and opposed the idea of gifting him power. But Churchill (who didn't like De Gaulle either but swallowed his pride) persuaded them it was necessary for French unity. Similarly, for all his faults, Karzai is the best of what's available if Afghan unity is to be achieved (assuming it's at all possible).

Only time will tell if Karzai succeeds in finding a compromise with the Taliban. At the very least, it will be at the price of giving them de facto control of southern Afghanistan.

It's also interesting to look at the long term perspective. After all these years of US involvement, there is no pipeline. There is no exploitation of energy resources. And the way things are heading, there won't even be a pro western government left in place. If any of these things were the true objective of 9/11 and the invasion, they would have taken place. The US has had ample opportunity to build a pipeline and install a compliant government. They haven't done so, because that wasn't the prime objective.

The prime objective was to expel Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, eliminate Bin Laden, and punish the Taliban for harbouring him in a direct response to 9/11 and previous incidents. This is what they actually did, as opposed to what people say they were trying to do.

In the event none of those objectives will deliver what the Americans hoped for. Al Qaeda is multiplying elsewhere and Afghanistan may yet be Taliban-ruled again. But that's politics. Not for the first time, the Americans have won the war but messed up the peace.
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سيف الله
12-23-2013, 12:20 PM
Salaam

Another assessment of the Afghanistan conflict. British perspective

Mission accomplished? Only if it was to throw away 446 lives



Was our mission accomplished in Afghanistan, as David Cameron seemed to say last week? The truth, as so often, is worse than you think. The 446 servicemen and women (so far) who died in Afghanistan, and the many more (whom we seldom see) who were terribly wounded, had no real mission to accomplish.

Everyone who understands what happened on September 11, 2001, knows that atrocity originated in the Arab world, not in Afghanistan. Look at who the hijackers were.

The first attack on the Taliban state was a wild, furious and illogical loss of temper by the US government, trying to calm mass public grief, and to look as if it was doing something.

The unlovely nature of the Taliban regime was an excuse invented afterwards. If the USA is so opposed to militant, fundamentalist Islamic governments that oppress women and persecute other religions, why doesn’t it invade Saudi Arabia?

Overthrowing governments by force is quite easy. It is the next stage that is hard. The Taliban, rather patiently, have waited for us to lose interest and will shortly be back.

Then, how could we seriously set out to destroy the opium poppy trade? That trade is rich and successful because of our own greed and guilt at home, where we deal softly with the morons who buy and use illegal drugs. What then gives us the right to persecute and ruin Afghan poppy farmers?

It is our lax drug laws that allow demand to flourish and so push up the price of poppies to the point where there is little sense in growing anything else, if you are an Afghan farmer.

Anyway, in the end we didn’t dare to destroy their crops.

As for the desperate Helmand episode, it was a crude blunder. Comrade Dr Lord Reid, the onetime Kremlin apologist who had mysteriously become Defence Secretary at that time, simply did not understand what was going on. That is why he made his crass remark about leaving without a shot being fired.

There was never at any stage any worked-out purpose for a British presence in Afghanistan. Anyone who knew any history knew that the Afghans resent foreigners and fight like tigers to drive them out. Ever since the Afghans defeated us in 1842, at the Gandamak massacre, all intelligent soldiers and statesmen have known better than to get mixed up in Afghan affairs.

But the intelligent people were ignored. The whole thing was driven from Downing Street, nowadays not much more than a glorified public relations company.

The Government wanted good news, so the Army obediently gave it to them. It was all rubbish. We achieved nothing. Within weeks of our departure, the wind will blow dust over the remains of our bases and we will be forgotten.

And which of those responsible will ever dare to tell the bereaved and the maimed that their loyalty, discipline and courage were thrown away to make politicians look good?

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/
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RedGuard
12-23-2013, 01:03 PM
Without our help Karzai will lose anyway. Maybe he does not want to share the fate og Najibullah
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Prayer4life
12-26-2013, 06:57 PM
Karzai, the puppet with the fake corny afghan accent lol!
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