Karzai pouts, takes ball, goes home
The Associated Press reports that Afghan President Zarzai threw a tantrum yesterday when it was reported that the US will conducting peace talks with the Taliban in Qatar.
“In view of the contradiction between acts and the statements made by the United States of America in regard to the peace process, the Afghan government suspended the negotiations, currently underway in Kabul between Afghan and U.S. delegations on the bilateral security agreement,” Karzai’s statement said.
I’m guessing that Karzai is afraid that if the US strikes a deal with the Taliban, it will affect his retirement plan. Karzai has made himself irrelevant in the process – he takes in bags of untraceable cash from the US & the UK and doesn’t hold accountable the Taliban for the violence in his country. He makes excuses for the green-on-blue attacks that are incoherent and ridiculous and has called the US the only terrorist organization in Afghanistan. Screw him. Withdraw yesterday.
And, oh yeah, now that the Afghans are responsible for the security of our troops there, it looks like four US troops were killed on Bagram airbase yesterday by some sort of indirect fire.
Category: Terror War
He’s afraid that the Taliban won’t let him keep his hats. And we know how much he loves his hats.
Need a couple good jdams as parting gifts over there first
Call me cynical, but I keep waiting for Karzai to bail on Afghanistan (after we leave) and flee to America to seek safety or asylum or whatever he wants to call it.
For all the BS he talks about Iran, I’m thinking he’d rather be here.
Fuck Karzai.
As soon as the US withdraws, his corrupt ass will be taking the first flight out of there…
…or he’ll be worm food.
Maybe he’ll be one of those random drive-by shooting victims in his ‘hood.
Apparently we can’t please Karzai if we offered to hang him with a new rope. We try to get rid of the Taliban, and he hammers on us for killing the enemy. We then attempt to engage in peace talks with the Taliban, and he pitches a fit over that.
The man needs a sedative; I’d prefer it to be in calibers, but milligrams could work, too.
How in the heck did Karzai get picked, way back when, in the first place? He must have seen the main chance and schmoozed State with mirages of all things good, complete with red, white and blue bunting.
Almost as great an oxygen thief as POTUS.
When we leave it will be like the rich ass hats in Vietnam who took the money they lined their pockets with and fled to America or anywhere that would take them.
“How in the heck did Karzai get picked, way back when, in the first place?” — Blow jobs.
Nicki: we backed Karzai because he was the only choice in late 2001 that seemed to have a prayer of actually running a unified Afghanistan.
At the time, Karzai was one of the few anti-Taliban Pashtun leaders. The Pashtun tribes make up about 50% of Afghanistan’s population, so getting their support (or at least acquiescence) was critical.
The best non-Pashtun candidate, Ahmad Shah Massood, had been assassinated by al Qaeda suicide bombers on 9 September 2001. He may have been the only one capable of uniting the various Afghan factions. We’ll never know.
Most of the others potential candidates (like Dotsum) had baggage that would have made them NO-GOs from square 1 with the majority of Afghanistan’s population, or were actively hostile to the US (Gullbuddin Hekmatyar). Even Ismail Khan (Herat) would have been problematic, as he’s Tajik.
Bottom line: Karzai was the best choice available, but he didn’t pan out. IMO, there still don’t seem to be any clearly better options in terms of Afghan leadership from the perspective of US interests.
wah.
Addendum to my comment 10: I neglected to mention one other possible choice for Afghan leadership that, like Massood, history ruled out before we could act to support him. One other Pashtun leader existed after Massood’s assassination who might have been a good choice. That individual was Abdul Haq. Like Massood, Haq was also moderate and reasonably tolerant anti-Taliban, pro-Western leader with democratic leanings. He and Massood had been cooperating against the Taliban since 1999.
Unfortunately, Haq was captured by the Taliban in October 2001 shortly after returning to Afghanistan from Pakistan – and was executed. That left the other Pashtun moderate, Karzai, as the sole remaining viable choice.
so it would be like us having to choose successor for Obama between Biden, Schumer, Frank and Lautenberg? Me, I’m going for Lautenberg.
Hondo,
Thanks for the excellent analysis and refresher course. Who knows how different things may have turned out had Massood not been killed.
And I actually thought Karzai would work out, as well. I mean, the guy was a trigger puller with the Green Berets, right? (Helping fight for his homeland?)
Semper Fi from Oak Ridge!
Stan
Karzai sees that his retirement plan will consist of his head on a pike in Kabul.
Before Masood was blown up, didn’t he say he would rather fight for his country, than lead it? It has been awhile since I read or even cared about Afghanistan, so I could be very wrong.
Massoud, Karzai, or the handful of other puppets the US could’ve chosen wouldn’t have mattered. They would’ve all been seen as illegitimate in the eyes of the Middle East. Why the @#$% are we even negotiating with the Talibs anyway? Diplomacy won’t buy you time and Karzai knows this. Smart man he is. He’s got his future all sorted out in Saudi Arabia. The Rat, but that seems that like all the Administration cares about protecting.