Leave Taliban alone, Afghan president tells West

[FarCenter]

Jason Burke The Observer, Sunday April 27 2008

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has called on British and American troops to stop arresting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, saying that their operations undermined his government's authority and were counter-productive. The stinging attack, made in an interview with the New York Times published yesterday, is the latest in a series of rows between Western governments with troops in Afghanistan and the elected leader of the country. Western diplomats expressed surprise at the Afghan leader's criticism and the Foreign Office played down the row yesterday. 'We fully support the Afghan government and continue to work with it, President Karzai and the international community in the interests of the Afghan people and the long-term peace and stability of Afghanistan,' said a spokesman.

Karzai is facing re-election next year and may be hoping to bolster flagging support with a populist stance. However, in recent months relations have deteriorated seriously, with Western officials openly doubting the ability of the Afghan president, who was heavily backed by the US and the UK in 2001 after the fall of the Taliban regime, to manage rampant corruption and combat drug trafficking in the war-wracked southwest Asian state.

Karzai said he wanted American forces to stop arresting suspected Taliban members and their supporters, saying that fear of arrest and their past mistreatment were discouraging them from coming forward to lay down their arms. 'It has to happen,' he said. 'We have to make sure that when a Talib comes to Afghanistan ... he is safe from arrest by the coalition.'

...

With casualties and costs mounting and little obvious progress, Western governments are looking increasingly for an exit from Afghanistan, where 94 British servicemen have been killed since 2001. 'Nato now wants a way out which is not failure,' said Mike Williams, of London's Royal United Services Institute. 'They need to redefine the situation which will allow them to leave without failing.' A key problem for policymakers is 'battle fatigue' among Western populations. 'We are going to get bored of the war long before the Taliban are,' said one Nato official.

The rest is at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/27/afghanistan.usa

[Middle finga]

1. Karzai my friend I hate to tell you but you are just a puppet

just like your buddy Maliki in Iraq. You are just a puppet of the American Empire and if you want to stay alive you don't make demands of your overlords you follow orders only.

[acmavm]

2. Karzai is pushing his luck. He's gonna be taken to the woodshed one of

these days. He got his six square blocks of Kabul by sucking up to neocon ass and they're not gonna like it if he whips the justification for the war in Afganistan out from under them.

[LiberalFighter]

3. If you allow troops to occupy your country with arrest powers?

Don't these countries believe in sovereignty powers?

[Adsos Letter]

4. Interesting...

~snip~ "They need to redefine the situation which will allow them to leave without failing." ~snip~

When they don't attain a solution, they simply rewrite the problem...interesting...

[Muttocracy]

5. kick for the forgotten war nt