For President Karzai, it's a no brainer. What he sees as the biggest threat to his country is the growing civilian death toll brought about by foreign troops on the ground. This is feeding to create an insurgency that will be impossible to secure or abate. He spoke to al-Jazeera today, and expressed his wish, saying that his country needs to regain its sovereignty.
He intends to make this clear to his Western allies at a future London conference: enough killing of civilians, enough searching Afghan homes, and enough Afghans taken as prisoners. Without cooperation from the citizens themselves, there will never be stability.
He doesn't want to undermine the Taliban, but rather bring them into the fold. He advised that there is a difference between the Taliban and the terrorists. He asserted that the Western paradigm that states that every bearded, turbaned Afghan is a terrorist must stop.
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Comments
"No-Brainer"
Right.
Karzai is a neocon puppet who has done nothing but allow himself & his cronies to profiteer from the invasion. This interview is nothing but counterpropaganda to deflect any perceived responsibility that HIS sorry ass has in actually forming something like a functional Afghani government & security infrastructure.
He's trying to play both sides. He knows damn good & well that if the US & NATO left tomorrow, he & his buddies would have their heads stuck on pikes in about six hours unless they got the f... out of the country immediately.
It's a clear signal that he's not gonna do a f... thing to actually help Afghanistan, but he damn sure won't take any blame for the bloodbath that's gonna happen. I say we take the little weasel at his word & withdraw.
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