Update:
In her Fox News interview with Donald Rumsfeld, Greta van Susteren gives the former secretary of defense a chance to redeem himself after his comments that he “understands” and “sympathizes with” Hamid Karzai’s siding with the likes of Syria and Venezuela in support of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Van Susteren does so by saying that Karzai’s siding with Moscow is “a real sort of poke in the eye of President Obama and I guess the United States, in many ways, the men and women who served there, lost their lives there….”
Rumsfeld — the man whose callous reply to a soldier’s plea during the Iraq war for better protection against roadside bombs was, “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” — said, “No, I think it’s not a poke in the eye to them, quite the contrary,” and went on to further defend Karzai and trash the United States government.
Watch the whole interview here
Original Post:
The cases of backstabbing, of biting the hand that feeds him and his nation, by Afghan President Hamid Karzai are legion.
His “conciliatory” policy toward the Taliban who have killed more than 2,000 of our troops is disgusting.
His actions and statements trashing the United States and allies are too numerous to list.
His refusal to sign a Bilateral Security Agreement that would provide for a residual presence of U.S. troops to train and mentor Afghan troops and to hunt down Al Qaeda after the final withdrawal is contentious.
More recently, he once again dumbfounded, snubbed and betrayed his allies by joining Syria and Venezuela in supporting Russia’s actions in Crimea.
Referring to this latest episode, Fox News writes:
The Afghanistan statement, though, was yet another indication of how far the Karzai administration has drifted away from the U.S. as the Afghanistan war — or the United States’ involvement in it — draws to a close, despite Washington’s past support for his presidency. Karzai, in backing Moscow, was also aligning with actors who, under the Soviet Union, prosecuted a prior decade-long war in his country. The U.S. backed Afghan groups fighting against the Soviet-led forces in that war.
Karzai may now be seeking to court Russia, for its aid and general support, as American forces withdraw from the country.
U.S. Rear Adm. John Kirby somewhat circumspectly told reporters at the Pentagon that Karzai’s comments were “clearly not helpful.”
In October 2011, Reuters quoted Afghan President Hamid Karzai saying: “God forbid, if ever there is a war between Pakistan and America, Afghanistan will side with Pakistan.”
Maj. Gen. Peter Fuller, the then No. 2 general in charge of training Afghan troops and police, wasn’t quite as “circumspect” as Admiral Kirby. In an interview with POLITICO at the time, Kirby said that Afghan leaders were ungrateful for U.S. assistance and “isolated from reality.” He called Karzai’s comments “erratic,” adding, “Why don’t you just poke me in the eye with a needle! You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m sorry, we just gave you $11.6 billion and now you’re telling me, I don’t really care?”
The general added:
You can teach a man how to fish, or you can give them a fish… We’re giving them fish while they’re learning, and they want more fish! (They say,) `I like swordfish, how come you’re giving me cod?’ Guess what? Cod’s on the menu today.
A few weeks later, Maj. Gen. Fuller was relieved of command.
About a year ago, Karzai was at it again. He slandered and accused our troops and our country of colluding with the Taliban “to sow fears in order to prolong the presence of international troops in Afghanistan.”
U.S. Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, the American commander in Afghanistan at the time, called Karzai’s accusation ”categorically false” and added:
We have fought too hard over the past 12 years. We have shed too much blood over the past 12 years. We have done too much to help the Afghan Security Forces grow over the last 12 years to ever think that violence or instability would be to our advantage.
It is one thing to have a foreign ingrate such as Karzai malign our country, our leaders and our troops. But to have one of our own — a former defense secretary who himself totally mangled another war at the cost of the lives more than 4,000 Americans — “understand” and “sympathize” with Karzai’s support of Russia’s annexation of Crimea is just beyond the pale.
Adding insult to injury, Donald Rumsfeld — the man who screwed up the hunt for Osama Bin Laden — has the temerity to say that “a trained ape” could have done a better job of negotiating the status of forces agreement with Karzai and goes on to defend Karzai against the “trashing” that man has allegedly been subjected to by President Obama and members of his administration.
Perhaps Rumsfeld has forgotten the aforementioned treachery by the Karzai government.
Perhaps he has forgotten how many of our troops have been mowed down by the same Afghan military and security forces who we are helping, training, fighting alongside in dastardly “green-on-blue” or “insider” attacks.
Pethaps Rumsfeld doesn’t remember the despicable crimes committed against young boys by wealthy and prominent Afghans and by “members of Afghanistan’s security forces, who receive training and weapons from the U.S.-led coalition.” Crimes that were said to be “on the rise in post-Taliban Afghanistan.”
Perhaps Rumsfeld needs to be reminded of the fact that despite our more-than-12-year presence, atrocities against women in Afghanistan have continued, sometimes committed “directly under the noses” of the Afghan government and the international community.
Perhaps Rumsfeld was not aware that at least 22 Afghan children died — froze to death — in wretched refugee camps near Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, in the winter of 2012, in the shadow of Karzai’s and his cronies’ opulent mansions and edifices.
The French Solidarités International, a French group that has had a limited program of emergency food aid and sanitation in the camps, surveyed mortality rates at the time and came to the harrowing conclusion that, among children under 5, the camps’ death rate is 144 per 1,000 children. The New York times asked at the time:
After 10 years of a large international presence, comprising about 2,000 aid groups, at least $3.5 billion of humanitarian aid and $58 billion of development assistance, how could children be dying of something as predictable — and manageable — as the cold?
Perhaps Rumsfeld should ask Karzai, the man he feels is being unfairly trashed by our government, why last year, Afghanistan tied with Somalia and North Korea as countries with the highest perceived levels of corruption among 177 countries.
Or why land used for opium cultivation in Afghanistan “hit a historic high in 2013 of 516,000 acres – a 36 percent increase from 2012.”
Or where the more than $100 billion earmarked for Afghan reconstruction have gone.
Or where Karzai’s thanks are for the more than $700 billion the United States has spent on fighting his wars and for the more than 2,000 American men and women who died on his soil.
Lead Photo: Defense.gov
