Well, it's about time somebody warns Karzai - Granite Grok

Well, it’s about time somebody warns Karzai

Heck, it’s about time that a high ranking US official tell this two-bit Stone Age nation head this:

101st In AfghanistanLIMA, Peru (AP) — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lashed back at Afghan President Hamid Karzai Friday, saying the Afghan leader should say thank you now and then to the allied forces who are fighting and dying there, rather than criticizing them.

Panetta was responding to Karzai’s complaints Thursday that the U.S. is failing to go after militants based in Pakistan, and instead is concentrating on the insurgents in Afghanistan.

“We have made progress in Afghanistan because there are men and women in uniform who have been willing to fight and die for Afghanistan’s sovereignty,” Panetta snapped, as he spoke with reporters traveling with him to South America. “Those lives were lost fighting the right enemy not the wrong enemy and I think it would be helpful if the president, every once in a while, expressed his thanks for the sacrifices that have been made by those who have fought and died for Afghanistan, rather than criticizing them.”

There are have a number of occasions that the Afghans, including Karzai, have criticized US / NATO (ok, let’s be real here, the brunt is being borne by the US) when thinks have not gone well – Afghans have done the double-cross, turn turncoat, and within the fog of war, innocents have suffered and died and collateral damage has occurred.  I oft think that Karzai fogets that if the US had not gone after the Taliban that had given safe quarters to Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, Karzai would not be sitting there with that peculiar hat and mantle.  Yet, he has been quick to beat up on the US and Nato, demanding apologies and money and enhancing the anti-American rhetoric that serves us poorly.

I simply ask this – why doesn’t he send his own troops into Pakistan – we’ve been training them for HOW long now with and by some of our best?  Is this a tacit pronouncement that he knows that his own people are not willing to support him, his government, or would be slaughtered if they did (or go AWOL if he ordered them to go)?  Or is he already going past that date certain and try to lay more blame on the US for actually doing such a deed all the while hoping that his words go unnoticed (sorta like a low level community organizer – wasn’t that somebody else’s MO – speak the words and have others out front on the line)?

With that thought, I’m betting that when the Obama mandated “date certain” comes due, either Karzai will be:

  • decamping Afghanistan for parts to be determined
  • permanently being encamped in his own little plot

After all, all they have to do is out-wait Obama.

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