Our Man In Kabul Posted by Michael Cohen

Remember last month when Hamid Karzai came to Washington last month and Administration officials got in line to tell him what a great job he's doing and reassure him that America has his back . . . so how's that working out:

Afghan observers and Western officials are interpreting the forced resignations of Afghanistan’s two top security officials as another worrying sign of President Hamid Karzai’s increasingly impulsive decision making and deepening isolation from his backers, both within Afghanistan and abroad.

The two men who resigned over the weekend, Interior Minister Hanif Atmar and the intelligence director, Amrullah Saleh, had strong relationships with American and British officials and were seen as being among the most competent of his cabinet members.

. . . Their ready dismissals have left the sense that, in trying to ensure his own survival, Mr. Karzai will not hesitate to make decisions counter to the interests of his staunchest Western allies or the Afghan government as a whole, or even to make decisions that seem counter to his own long-term interests.

. . . To some, the forced departure of the two men is a troubling indication of the president’s mounting insecurity and his fear that even those closest to him are not looking out for him.

Well this is good - Macbeth is running Afghanistan. And apparently there is more good news:

At a peace convention, or jirga, last week, Mr. Karzai got an endorsement of his long-held plan to release Taliban prisoners. On Sunday, he issued a decree to release those held without enough evidence for trials, in an apparent effort to prove his bona fides to his enemies and show that he could deliver.

But such a move is highly controversial, both within the country and for the NATO coalition. Some of the Taliban held in Afghan and American detention have killed fellow Afghans; some have killed NATO troops.

Mr. Karzai appears determined to proceed anyway, without, in the view of his critics, getting anything in return. The move has heightened fears that he is grasping at straws in his effort to win political support from any quarter.

My gosh, these are giant blinking red lights that we are getting into bed with an unstable and untrustworthy political leader and yet there appears to be precious little evidence that it is having any impact on our operational decision-making in Afghanistan. If the goal in Helmand and Kandahar is to extend the legitimacy of the government in Kabul . . . well good luck with all that. This government is, seemingly on a daily basis, shedding whatever legitimacy it has left and the US seems inclined to along with it for fear of offending our man in Kabul.

Comments

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The whole basis of successful COIN (FM 3-24) is a viable central government which the US assists in subduing an insurgency against that government. It has nothing to do with helping a corrupt puppet government which is incapable of governing.

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[Don Bacon]

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a leading opponent of the war, wondered, "Is the U.S. paying for attacks on U.S. troops?”

"Our troops are dying in Afghanistan, and now it turns out we may be funding their killers," Kucinich said in a statement e-mailed to Raw Story, renewing his longstanding call for a pullout. "Our continued presence in Afghanistan is detrimental to our security."

"The American people are paying to prop up a corrupt government that may be using our money to pay private companies to drum up business by paying the insurgents to attack our troops," he said.

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The American people are paying to prop up a corrupt government that may be using our money to pay private companies to drum up business by paying the insurgents to attack our troops...