This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/4636

Petraeus' Disagreement Is With Obama, Not Karzai

November 15, 2010

November 15, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - A recent statement by Afghan president Karzai [see, Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/13/AR2010111304001.html] "The time has come to reduce the presence of, you know, boots in Afghanistan...to reduce the intrusiveness into the daily Afghan life," has from the look of it, set off paroxysms among the Obama team with even theater commander Petraeus chiming in negatively.

The level of reaction is mystifying to anyone who has paid attention to team Obama's bumbling Afghan policy, especially his setting a date to start withdrawal and refusing to provide the number of troops which his hand chosen commander had requested as being the minimum requirement - immediately sacking his general in the wake of this unpleasantness, certainly didn't help either.

Perhaps most telling, Obama [we must assume in accord with the toothless NATO] has modified the rules of engagement [how battle will be conducted and in what manner] to place U.S. forces in a defensive posture throughout the country, rather than allow them to destroy the enemy through the aggressive use of overwhelming force. This has literally taken the rifle out of the hands of U.S. forces.

Faced with such an obvious incipient abandonment, Karzai is wisely sidling up to our opponents so that he doesn't end up [when Obama finally consummates what will assume the proportions of a rout] like former Afghan president [and Soviet collaborator] Mohammed Najibullah did when his protectors were driven out; the mujahideen merrily tortured, castrated and then hung him from piano wire at Kabul Airport.

Talk about unfriendly skies...

As if to underline the reason why Karzai is reluctant to place his tender bits in escrow with the U.S., on the 14th "Special Envoy," to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke held forth, doubling down on the certainty of early withdrawal, "The U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, says U.S. and NATO combat forces will be phased out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and the handover to Afghan security forces will begin in the middle of next year..." [source, Voice of America, http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Holbrooke-US-Combat-Troops-to-be-Phased-Out-of-Afghanistan-by-2014-107969594.html]

It stands to reason then that Karzai is acting out of a sense of self-preservation, knowing that as far as this administration is concerned the light has already gone out in his country. One might suggest that the only surprising thing about Karzai's numerous statements along these lines is why it took him so long?

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This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/4636