It’s ironic. I don’t have any confidence in Karzai and he has no confidence in us. Since the feelings are mutual, why don’t we go our separate ways. It is not possible to prop up a government that doesn’t have confidence in itself or in you. Frankly, I think running the government in Kabul has driven Karzai mad. His statements are erratic and his behavior makes little sense. He should resign and leave the country. He knows he has no legitimacy, although he blames the western powers for that instead of his own dismal performance. He doesn’t believe we’ll stay to protect him. So, in his own mind he’s a walking dead man. The Riviera is very nice this time of year. He’s should go there and relax.
As for our kids that are dying over there? Look me in the face and tell me it’s worth it when Karzai thinks its hopeless. I don’t see the point of doing the Kandahar operation. For what? For Karzai? The man is defeated.
I certainly agree that we should just leave. What Karzai does afterward is irrelevant to us. However, he is not crazy at all. Given the situation as it stands, his actions are clearly in his own best interests, and no worse for Afghan interests than ours. He is illegitimate precisely because he is propped up by the west. If another had one the elections last year, the same would be true of him.
By burnishing his anti-west credentials, he hopes to gain that elusive legitimacy. His best bet for survival in power is to cut a deal with the Taliban. A very generous deal that does not involve foreign troops. It is a lost cause, but its the only chance Karzai has.
But I agree we’ve seen this movie before and I wish we could just fast forward to the end.
P.S. if Karzai were to resign or, even worse, meet with some kind of ‘accident’ it would be a catastrophe for NATO.
I don’t think attitudes in Afghanistan are generally more favorable to the Taliban than to NATO, except among the Pashtun. And even there, there is a lot of mixed feeling. I also don’t think calling Karzai our puppet is really all that meaningful. Karzai had a chance and he blew it with a combination of inadequate international support and (much more importantly) piss-poor governance. He lost the support of too many people. It should be noted that he got the most votes in the election even after throwing out all the votes he stuffed in the ballot box. I think most Afghans wanted him to succeed but all the saw were shakedowns and corruption.
Karzai’s government is a catastrophe for NATO. His resignation would just force them to face reality.
I think Bob Hebert was reading your mind, Boo. You should read his latest column.
So, Bob Hebert is infected with American imperialist-think as well? Disappointing.
Booman, perhaps the Vietnamese did not like the Vietcong either. But it did not matter. There were more dedicated people prepared to fight for the North than for the South. Yes the South Vietnam government was corrupt and fascist. It remained so whether ruled by Diem or someone else.
And so on with Afghanistan. The Taliban are no prize for sure and everyone in Afghanistan knows that. And yet…it is crystal clear that if NATO left today, by tomorrow the pro Karzai forces would have that same sliver of land in Northern Afghanistan that they lived in before 2001.
And do you really think this is all Karzai’s fault? That if someone else had been in charge everything would be different? He was a handpicked CIA asset. Perhaps they should have chosen more wisely.
Well, I think most Afghans were happy to see the Taliban gone, just as most Iraqis were glad to be rid of Saddam. But there are and were major differences in those two situations. Even Afghans saw 9/11 and realized that we were justified in coming after the Arab militant camps at the very least. I don’t think more than a handful of Iraqis thought our invasion had an iota of legitimacy. Afghanistan was a broken country, Iraq merely a crumbling one.
So, each situation carried different challenges. Iraq was actually easier to kind of put back together. I don’t mean that we’ve restored it to the condition we found it, but it does have a government. It has courts. It has industry.
Asking someone to govern Afghanistan? Perhaps too ambitious without massive and sustained international aid. Asking warlords not to make war and to provide good governance? Not a recipe for success.
I think we should leave. But I think Karzai should leave too, because he isn’t going to last without us and he’s not helping us save face and get out.
Karzai is Pashtun. If the US and NATO left today, Karzai would be out of luck. He screwed the Northern Alliance candidate out of a fair election.
Karzai is what Ahmed Chalabi would look like if Chalabi had succeeded in becoming the leader of Iraq.
“Karzai’s government is a catastrophe for NATO.“
NATO is a catastrophe for Afghanistan.
Right. But the Taliban were a summer walk.
When did Afghanistan have governance? It’s absolutely none of our business how the place is governed. We need to fix our own drugwar problems and oil/gas dependency and leave them to their own devices. The battle against alQaida in Afghanistan was lost long ago. There is no longer any credible reason to stick around there.
is the fact that we haven’t succeeded in propping him up really his fault? Or is the mission impossible whoever the puppet is? There is no good reason that we should stay to protect him, or stay for any other reason.
our kids that are dying? Fuck no it’s not worth it. It isn’t worth it no matter who the puppet is.
I agree that the US and Karzai should go our separate ways, but not by Karzai stepping down. He belongs in Afghanistan and we don’t.
Don, once again we see eye to eye. I was listening tonight to a local talk radio station, and the topic was Afghanistan. What struck me was how prevalent the attitude is not that there is something wrong with U.S. policy and U.S. actions in Afghanistan (or Iraq, or wherever), but that there is something wrong with Afghanistan (or Iraq or wherever) because it does not respond as expected to U.S. – ummmm – “assistance”. It does not seem to occur to Americans that if they left these people alone to develop whatever system, or non-system was appropriate for their unique combination of society, culture, geography, demography, etc., it would work out better for everyone.
It does not seem to have occurred to many westerners that their model is not necessarily the only workable one, and that it is their, usually violent, interference that is preventing people in the East from developing modern systems that will work for their unique situations. Maybe, just maybe, the western nation-state model is simply not a good choice for a place like Afghanistan?
“Maybe, just maybe, the western nation-state model is simply not a good choice for a place like Afghanistan?”
I sometimes think it`s not that good a model period, if it involves foisting it onto someone else, at gunpoint.
It’s gunboat diplomacy with bigger and vastly more deadly gunboats. Satellite diplomacy.
Super nice to see you here I have been missing you for the last couple of years since things went a little haywire.
Haywire?! Can’t imagine what you’re talking about ;o)
The pleasure is all mine, Sir :o)
Nice seeing you Super
I tried to give you a ‘4’ twice but the appalling system wouldn’t allow more than one. Go figure… that’s capitalism/imperialism for you.
Exactly. It’s none of our business what Karzai does or doesn’t do. It’s our business to get the hell out. Period.
We are not done being bled. Policy makers need the cover of KIA. Lots of them. Instead of leaving before another 1000 American and God knows how many innocent Afghans die we will sacrifice all of them and the end result will be the same. We’ll be gone but the Taliban and Al Qaeda will remain. Karzai knows he is doomed hes not stupid or crazy just desperate and probably scared.
Salunga, you have simply GOT to get over that unfortunate tendency you have toward empathy. You really can’t afford to see the other guy’s point of view if you want to run an empire.
Hahahaha so pragmatic. Americans are not good at empire… they piss off the locals every time.
Just watch the soccer…you’ll be happy.
He’s again threatening the US and NATO. It worked for him before, why shouldn’t it work again? ‘If you don’t try harder for me, give me more money, send more forces, I’ll blow the whole place up.’ Maybe he’s best as just another crummy Afghan warlord, who happens to have NATO (read US, now led by Obama instead of Bush)at his disposal and mercy. His sartorial novelties have worn thin long ago.
Or maybe the U.S. just doesn’t have any business trying to force its will – and its puppets – on other countries by the use of military violence?
I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. Anyway the U.S. has for decades been an imperial power. You know that. If it stopped doing what it does, it wouldn’t be the U.S. anymore. You know how the cards are stacked. Karzai does too. And he’s playing his hand splendidly. You might just say that the U.S.A.-ians, as a D.C. foreign policy entity, are beyond clueless. The question is: Are they also nasty?
“If it stopped doing what it does, it wouldn’t be the U.S. anymore.“
Then I wish fervently for it to cease being the U.S. as soon as possible.
“I don’t have any confidence in Karzai and he has no confidence in us. Since the feelings are mutual…He should resign and leave the country.“
What a gorgeous example of American imperialist logic! Since you, an American, don’t have any confidence in the ability of Karzai, an Afghan, to adequately serve the Americans in Afghanistan, and since the Afghan Karzai does not have any confidence in the Americans in Afghanistan, Karzai, who is an Afghan, should resign and leave Afghanistan and leave you, the Americans, to take care of things there.
It is good to know that American imperialist thinking is alive and well in the American progressive community.
Yes, Karzai is an Afghan. Was he installed by the USA-ians? Who pays his bills, etc? I’m not saying any of this might be right. But why defend Karzai’s ‘Afghan-ness’? Is he so nice to ‘his people’? In fact I thought he or his family is the owner of a very successful chain of Afghan fastfood places in the USA. Wrong?
I haven’t defended anything or anyone. I was pointing out the irony of American “progressive” thinking.
NATO’s interests in Afghanistan are not at cross-purposes with what most Afghans want.
But more to the point, someone is going to kill Karzai, and probably in a grizzly way. His government will fall when we leave and he knows it. My suggestion is that he leave now to save his neck. He isn’t serving anyone’s interests right now, except the Gods of Chaos.
“NATO’s interests in Afghanistan are not at cross-purposes with what most Afghans want.“
More standard-issue imperialist-think.
You’d be more convincing to me if you articulated what you think NATO’s interests are.
Unless you think somebody’s going to attack Karzai with bears, I think you mean “grisly”. (Sorry, can’t resist. Old editors are the next worst thing to ex-smokers.)
We ought to just get out and stop with this nation-building bullshit.
The mission in Afghanistan was always incoherent. It should’ve been a mission to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Instead it turned into this political clusterfuck. I couldn’t care less who runs Afghanistan. I couldn’t care less how they govern themselves in Afghanistan. I care about getting the people who attacked us, but that doesn’t seem likely to happen, so to hell with it.
Same problem in Iraq, except for the fact that there wasn’t even the small, obvious mission of going after the people who attacked us. Rather it turned into Bush and Cheney’s desire to hit Saddam Hussein leading them to listen to Arab outsiders interested in coups from their luxury hotels in London, helped along by naive lobbying efforts in DC from buffoons who wanted us to bring jeans and laptops to their countries.
We ought to concentrate on getting ourselves off the oil. You probably could’ve bought every American a Prius for the cost of the Iraq War.
Get off the oil, and let the Europeans and the Asians deal with the Middle East if they want to.
As for Karzai, fuck him. Just get out. If Karzai manages to hold on to power, good for him. If the Taliban cuts his head off, good for them. Who cares?
Starting a war in Afghanistan was an incoherent reaction to the crimes of a handful of non-state actors. 9/11 was not an act of war by a state, but a crime committed by a group of individuals from a variety of countries. Police, not military action was the correct way to handle it.
Switching puppets mid-war creates immense problems. Remember the string of incompetents after Diem was overthrown with US CIA complicity.
Karzai is aware that the US will be moving out in 2011, right on Obama’s schedule. For survival, he has to distance himself from the US, deal directly with the various Talibans, and seek a protector outside. That protector is likely to be Pakistan (the alternatives are Russia, China, Iran, and India — so the case is pretty straightforward).
Despite outward statements and devotion of military resources, I suspect that the US knows that the US military will not create stability in Afghanistan and certainly not put Afghanistan on the path Obama outlined when he increased troop strength last fall. The main question for US policy now is how to extricate the military from Afghanistan without looking defeated. Obama does not want to be saddled with a situation like Clinton’s withdrawal from Somalia.
Pakistan is, not surprisingly, the key theater of this war. It is in Pakistan’s interest to remove foreign fighters from the Northwest Territories, no matter how much this might be framed for US consumption as removing the Taliban. Well, who exactly are those foreign fighters? The US’s primary target – al Quaeda’s central command. Kandahar is not important for defeating the Taliban. It is important for drawing the Taliban into southern Afghanistan in large enough numbers that a smaller US force can close the door in the three eastern Afghan provinces next to the Northwest Territories – Khost, Paktia, and Paktika.
Then the US can declare victory and leave. And Karzai will be left to deal with whatever consequences there might be. I don’t fault Karzai for trying to look after his own survival.
“NATO’s interests in Afghanistan are not at cross-purposes with what most Afghans want.”
“It is in Pakistan’s interest to remove foreign fighters from the Northwest Territories.”
I think that people who call themselves progressives ought to consider first and foremost what Americans want and what is in the best interest of Americans, and not speculate about what is in the best interest of Afghans and Pakistanis, for two examples, particularly when the solutions include thousands of deaths and hundreds of billions of dollars.
Don’t mistake what I wrote. I was doing analysis, not advocating. And it is not speculation when the Pakistani army is systematically moving through the Northwest Territories and routing out foreign fighter and those few Taliban organizations that are sheltering them. As for the interest of Afghans, I have no clue but they will either come to a consensus or continue the civil war after US troops leave–whenever that might be.
As for my personal opinion and advocacy, the whole idea of a military solution to terrorist attacks was a huge mistake. International law enforcement was working and could have brought results with intelligent diplomacy.
Isn’t it interesting how often the “interests” of the party that was forcibly invaded and occupied coincide perfectly with the interests of the invader and occupier? They want what we want, and we’re gonna drop bombs on them and kill them and imprison them and torture them until we get what they want for them. And this is the thinking of American “progressives“.
If you are talking about Pakistan, their interests were not served by military action in the Northwest Territories until the blowback from US drone strikes threatened the Pakistani military itself. And they are likely to limit their involvement to removing foreign fighters (to get the US out of there) and any insurgents aiming at the Pakistani military.
As above, don’t mistake my analysis for advocacy.
Wonderful comment. I was a bit concerned when Hillary Clinton told Afghan women at a meeting in DC that the US will never abandon Afghan women. We will stand by you.
It’s a mealy mouth statment, but it gives the sense that the US is staying there forever.
I am positive that the 2011 deadline will be met.
But the US will abandon Saudi women who can’t vote or drive a car (and for that matter Saudi men like the one who recently got sentenced to four months in prison and 90 lashes for kissing a woman in a mall).
Why? Because of Israeli flyover rights.
I do think that a large source of oil for Europe is more of a reason than Saudis granting Israel flyover rights. And now that the rumor or report is public, I bet that the Saudis walk this back quickly.
What European countries?
Germany and France get about five percent of their oil from Saudi Arabia, whose reserves are fading. The UK gets the bulk of its oil from the North Sea.
I stand corrected.
I can find no information about Saudi exports of oil to specific countries. But I do believe that US policy towards the Saudis is driven more by their oil exporting — to the US or to significant other countries — than it is driven by its alignment with Israel.
More or less doesn’t matter.
Regarding world politics and US foreign policy, having Saudi Arabia in the US/Israel corner is a major advantage regarding Iran and Palestine, to name two concerns.
Consider that the US buys SA with oil payments similar to its purchase of Egyptian support with outright grants. Whatever works — the US has the bucks, right?
The bucks? Not for very much longer.