With Allies like Hamid Karzai Who Needs Enemies?

6 Responses to With Allies like Hamid Karzai Who Needs Enemies?

1. Tina says:

   Friday, January 3, 2014 at 2:26 pm

   I agree this guy is a man of two faces. I’m not so sure its entirely because he’s a screwball.

   He certainly showed a friendly, open-to-democracy face following 911. The differences in our cultures and the usual differing opinions and diplomatic challenges during times of war were handled fairly well by Bush.

   Karzi made a speech to our Congress in 2002. A joint press conference is recorded at the official White House web site in which Karzai said:

   PRESIDENT KARZAI: Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. President, it’s a tremendous privilege and honor for us to be invited again by you and the First Lady to the White House. It was a great honor for me today to be speaking to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress. I will cherish that memory of talking to the representatives of the American people.

   There, today, I thanked America for the help that it gave us liberate ourselves and rebuild ourselves and prosper. That help has been the source of all growth in the past two years. Our economy in the year 2002 grew by 30 percent, in the year 2003, by 25 percent or more. In the year 2004, the growth is estimated to be 20 percent. And we are hoping, as some of the banks have predicted, that the Afghan economy will grow to 2008 by 15 percent, and beyond that, for another five years, by 10 percent.

   Thank you very much. This could of not been possible without your help, without America’s assistance.

   We are sending today five million children to school. Almost half of those children are girls. Our universities are open. Our universities are coming up in all — all over the country, in other provinces of the country. We are building a national army, a vital institution for the defense of our country. You want us to stand on our own feet; you want us to defend our own sovereignty and provide security to our people, and you’re helping us do that.

   In 2005 Bush and Karzi signed a troop agreement:

   WASHINGTON — President Bush and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan signed a landmark agreement yesterday to keep American troops in that country indefinitely and commit the United States to the long-term reconstruction of the fragile Afghan democracy.

   The two leaders, meeting at the White House, entered what they termed a ”strategic partnership” to battle Islamic extremism, build democratic institutions, and work together to replace the burgeoning Afghan opium trade with viable economic alternatives.

   They downplayed recent public disagreements over the US handling of Afghan detainees, instead adopting a formal plan ”to strengthen US-Afghan ties to help ensure Afghanistan’s long-term security, democracy, and prosperity.”

   The four-page agreement, which did not specify US funding or troop levels, nevertheless marked a key diplomatic victory for Karzai, who has expressed fears the United States would abandon Afghanistan prematurely, as it did after backing anti-Soviet guerrillas in the 1980s, specialists said.

   Anti-Bush, anti-war articles were in full bloom by this time in America. The left was doing its best to make sure Bush lost his backing for the war by this time. Don’t know that I can blame Karzai for having doubts that America could or would follow through.

   By 2008, when Bush and Karzai again met in Afghanistan, Karzai had this to say:

   PRESIDENT KARZAI:…We’re already very grateful to all those countries, nations who have come to help Afghanistan, and who have already helped Afghanistan. Canada is among the countries that’s the frontrunner in assistance to Afghanistan. Their plans to withdraw their troops by 2011 or ’12 is not in contradiction to the understanding that we have with them. They will continue to assist us in various other forms in Afghanistan.

   What is important here is that while we are continuing to fight terrorism and to bring institutional strength and stability to Afghanistan, we’re going to improve the economy and improve the governance and services to the republic by the government. We also work on enabling Afghanistan to eventually stand on its own feet. The Afghan people don’t want to be a burden on the international community forever. And we are grateful already that the international community is helping us in blood, and their taxpayers’ money.

   We are grateful to Canada. We are grateful to all other countries, as partners for building Afghanistan for fighting terrorists who are the enemies of all of us. So we are happy in any form of assistance other countries give us and will be grateful for it.

   In 2009 Obama phoned Karzai to congratulate him on his re-election and and, according to the NYT, admonish Karzai.

   New tone? It would seem so. America’s new leader is a very different political and diplomatic animal:

   What he is seeking, Mr. Obama told reporters afterward, is “a sense on the part of President Karzai that, after some difficult years in which there has been some drift, that in fact he’s going to move boldly and forcefully forward and take advantage of the international community’s interest in his country to initiate reforms internally. That has to be one of our highest priorities.”

   The administration wants Mr. Karzai and the Afghan government to put into place an anticorruption commission to establish strict accountability for government officials at the national and provincial levels, senior administration officials said Monday.

   In addition, some American officials and their European counterparts would like at least a few arrests of what one administration official called “the more blatantly corrupt” people in the Afghan government.

   Administration officials declined to provide the names of people they wanted to see arrested and acknowledged that such arrests were a long shot.

   A decidedly set of undiplomatic commands (showing disrespect for the leader of Afghanistan) changes the “partnership” Bush established. Obama’s call for new Afghan government bureaucracies is typical…a big show and no real result is the liberal way.

   The extremist political left in America has shown itself to be more aligned with Marxist governments around the world than the free republic in which the reside. If Karzi seems two faced perhaps it’s at least partly because he fears he can’t depend on America to follow through ideologically, diplomatically, or militarily from one president to the next.

   By 2012 Karzai is still thanking the President and taxpayers:

   PRESIDENT KARZAI: Thank you, Mr. President. We have had a good meeting today in which Afghanistan reaffirmed its commitment to the transition process and to the completion of it in 2013, and the completion of withdrawal of our partners in 2014, so that Afghanistan is no longer a burden on the shoulder of our friends in the international community, on the shoulders of the United States and our other allies.

   Afghanistan, indeed, Mr. President, as you very rightly put it, is looking forward to an end to this war, and a transformational decade in which Afghanistan will be working further for institution building and the development of sounder governance in the country and a better economy, where the Afghans will be taking steady steps towards self-reliance in all aspects of life, that Afghanistan will be collecting its own revenues.

   But in the meantime, that the world community, in particular the United States and our allies in NATO and ISAF, will be with us to make sure that we take steady and strong steps and are back while you are making those steps towards 2024, when Afghanistan will be largely defending itself and providing for itself.

   Mr. President, the partnership that we signed a few weeks ago in Kabul has turned a new page in our relations. And the new page is a page of two sovereign countries working together for the mutual interests — peace and security and in all other areas of concentration.

   Mr. President, I’m bringing to you and to the people of the United States the gratitude of the Afghan people for the support that your taxpayers’ money has provided us over the past decade, and for the difference that it has made to the wellbeing of the Afghan people — to our education and health and the building of the Afghan government.

   But reports by 2013 are less assuring. Breitbart reported:

   Afghan President Hamid Karzai says before he signs a Bilateral Security Agreement with the United States, he has two demands: that “the Americans should stop attacks against Afghan homes” and that there be “peace in Afghanistan.” In an interview tih RFE/RL’s Akbar Ayazi, Karzai said (Quotes highlighted):

   I have demanded an end to all American attacks against Afghan homes and the beginning of a realistic peace process. Whenever the Americans meet these two demands of mine, I am ready to sign the agreement. And when these two demands are implemented, this agreement is in Afghanistan’s interests.

   Asked whether Susan Rice, the U.S. national security adviser, told him the U.S. would stay out of the Afghan elections coming up in April, Karzai responded that he had talked to her, but he wasn’t entirely trustful in the U.S. not interfering:

   I briefed her about how America and other Western nations interfered in the previous presidential election, how they delayed the election, how they maligned the first round ballot. Keeping in view that experience, and as the president of Afghanistan today, it is my duty not to allow foreigners to either malign Afghanistan’s next presidential election or stretch the process so that they can manipulate it. She assured me that this time there will be no interference in our election. So for now, I have her assurance. But I am watching them to see whether they interfere in the election or not. And I will talk about it then.

   Karzai confirmed that the Obama Administration actually told him that the Taliban, which provided al Qaeda its base of support for September 11, was not an enemy of the U.S. He said:

   Last year, during my visit to Washington, in a very important briefing a day before I met U.S. President [Barack Obama], his national security adviser Tom Donilon, and senior White House officials, generals, and intelligence officials, the national security adviser met with me. He told me: “The Taliban are not our enemies and we don’t want to fight them.”

   The NYT headline in this same time frame in 2013:

   “Obama’s Security Advisor Tells Karzai to Sign Agreement”

   Strong arm diplomacy? Arrogant dictatorial decree?

   KABUL, Afghanistan — President Obama’s national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, told President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan on Monday to stop his delay in signing a security agreement or potentially face the complete and final pullout of American troops by the end of 2014, according to American and Afghan officials.

   Karzai has seen the effects of the Obama administration policy in other surrounding nations. Terrorists and dictators are advancing and democracy is a concept kicked to the curb.

   I think Obama basically just wants out and will do whatever it takes to be rid of this war that taints his presidency. He has no heart for the roll of Commander-in-Chief. His only interest in the country was the opportunity to have the death (not capture) of OBM on his watch. Just as Carter policies betrayed those seeking freedom in Iran and turned that country over to the extremist Mullahs, the approach taken by Obama, Biden, Rice, Hillary, Kerry, will leave the entire ME in peril and the.world a very dangerous place.

   The release of these prisoners in Afghanistan echoes the release of men from Gitmo…many of them have returned to the field of battle. What was he thinking…good question. Apparently for now at least, he has reconsidered. But id he can’t count on America anymore….
2. Libby says:

   Friday, January 3, 2014 at 2:45 pm

   Jack, you should just not pay attention to all this. It’s not a partisan issue, and there’s nothing we can do about any of it.

   At this point in the nation’s political history, there will be no occupation of Afghanistan. We’re sick of it; we can’t afford it; we’re done.

   We will leave. There is a very slight chance that the Afghani populace will rouse itself to resist the Taliban. If this comes to pass, we will all be pleasantly surprised. But more likely, the country will go back to the Taliban.

   We will sanction, embargo, all that sort of thing … but that is all.

   The middle east will continue roiling, boiling, and erupting. We will continue to make descrete interventions over the next 30, 40, 50 years … until something REALLY bad happens: the Pakistanis, perhaps, unable to decide between Afghanistan and India, nuke both.

   Then, there will be a world war, number three, and after much carnage, near anhiliation, the world’s Muslims will come to see the concept of jihad in a more metaphysical light.

   But we don’t have to worry about any of this, do we?
   • Post Scripts says:

     Saturday, January 4, 2014 at 12:11 pm

     That was well said Libby. Worry won’t help and it will likely take an apocolyptic sized event to nueter the aggressive tendencies of Muslim jihadists.
3. Tina says:

   Friday, January 3, 2014 at 8:25 pm

   Amazing how non partisan all this is now that the Democrats are in charge.

   And the lovely little 50 year scenario just happens to exclude many of the possible horrendous things that might befall an American city or two.

   Worry is a useless activity. Being informed and aware never hurt anyone!
4. Tina says:

   Friday, January 3, 2014 at 8:58 pm

   Charles Krauthammer

   Here is why the history is crucial. The reason that al-Maliki does not listen to Obama — no matter what he says about reconciling with the Sunnis — is because America has no leverage. America evacuated. Obama decided we were going to liquidate our presence. We were supposed to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement and to leave a residual element in Iraq that would train the air force, that would train the army, that would also have special forces on the ground that would go on operations, and that perhaps most important, would mediate between the Sunnis and the Shiites and the Kurds as it had been doing during the surge.

   Instead, Obama decided for political reasons that he would evacuate and call it a great victory. He ended the war, but he ended the war in a way that liquidated our gains. The war was won when Obama came into office; al Qaeda was completely decimated. The Anbar Sunnis, who are now under attack, had had turned against al Qaeda, joined the infidel — us — in defeating al Qaeda. And al-Maliki had taken all the extremists Shiites in Basra and all the way up into Baghdad as a demonstration of how he is a nationalist and not just a sectarian. All of this happening, what we needed was an agreement and a presence. Obama liquidated it and as a result he has created a vacuum in which Iran has come in, al Qaeda is strong. Not only now in Iraq, but also in Syria and it is a catastrophe.

   AP Reporter Grills State Department Spokeswoman: Did the US abandon Iraq.

   PJ Media’s Richard Fernandez:

   The administration’s Foreign Policy has been going badly for some time. Al-Qaeda has been retaking Western Iraq. The Coalition anticipates losing much if not most of the territory it gained from the Taliban the minute it leaves Afghanistan. President Obama’s “war of necessity” in Afghanistan is now officially more unpopular than Iraq at its most unpopular. Heck it’s more unpopular than Vietnam. US intelligence estimates the whole thing will collapse when the coalition pulls out.

   A civil war may be breaking out in Lebanon. President Obama has abandoned the Western-backed rebels in Syria and reached out to the Islamists. The Islamists have laughed in his face.

   All worth reading if you wish to be informed without the filtering and whitewash that’s liberally applied to this administration…and will be in the next two elections.

   America might as well be leaderless (We might be better off if we were).
5. Libby says:

   Monday, January 6, 2014 at 11:00 am

   Actually, Tina … we seem to have a handle on the urban thing. Even the EU, which was plagued for a bit, seems to have things under control.

   And those same NYT journalists you refuse to read report from all our various agencies that AQ is in pretty bad shape. It has been driven into places with no infrastructure, and rendered largely ineffective … as an organization.

   They still have the web, and are still inspiring individuals to misbehave on their own … but, as said, we’ve got the toxic materials locked down pretty good … except for the firearms, of course, and who’s fault is that? (Next time some “Major Hassan” opens fire, don’t you come crying to me.) Still, there’s is real limit to the amount of carnage a lone wolf can wreak.

   And things could degenerate quicker than in my little timeline. If Pakistan and it’s nukes were to go over to the Taliban this year, my nephews would be drafted, and Pakistan would lose its sovereignty for the next generation or two.

   But I think Pakistan is well aware of this, and we don’t really have to worry just yet.

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