 |
Underground Politics
Your world-your voice
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
greeneyedgurl
Joined: 18 Mar 2009
Posts: 497
Location: Dayton,Ohio
|
 Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 4:48 pm Post subject: Lawmakers: Afghan leader threatens to join Taliban |
 |
|
| Quote: |
By AMIR SHAH and CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writers Amir Shah And Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press Writers – 3 mins ago
KABUL – Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened over the weekend to quit the political process and join the Taliban if he continued to come under outside pressure to reform, several members of parliament said Monday.
Karzai made the unusual statement at a closed-door meeting Saturday with selected lawmakers — just days after kicking up a diplomatic controversy with remarks alleging foreigners were behind fraud in last year's disputed elections.
Lawmakers dismissed the latest comment as hyperbole, but it will add to the impression the president — who relies on tens of thousands of U.S. and NATO forces to fight the insurgency and prop up his government — is growing increasingly erratic and unable to exert authority without attacking his foreign backers.
"He said that 'if I come under foreign pressure, I might join the Taliban'," said Farooq Marenai, who represents the eastern province of Nangarhar.
"He said rebelling would change to resistance," Marenai said — apparently suggesting that the militant movement would then be redefined as one of resistance against a foreign occupation rather than a rebellion against an elected government.
Marenai said Karzai appeared nervous and repeatedly demanded to know why parliament last week had rejected legal reforms that would have strengthened the president's authority over the country's electoral institutions.
Two other lawmakers said Karzai twice raised the threat to join the insurgency.
The lawmakers, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of political repercussions, said Karzai also dismissed concerns over possible damage his comments had caused to relations with the United States. He told them he had already explained himself in a telephone conversation Saturday with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that came after the White House described his comments last week as troubling.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said reports Karzai threatened to abandon the political process and join the Taliban insurgency if he continued to receive pressure from Western backers to reform his government are troubling.
"On behalf of the American people, we're frustrated with the remarks," Gibbs told reporters.
The lawmakers said they felt Karzai was pandering to hard-line or pro-Taliban members of parliament and had no real intention of joining the insurgency.
Nor does the Afghan leader appear concerned that the U.S. might abandon him, having said numerous times that the U.S. would not leave Afghanistan because it perceives a presence here to be in its national interest.
Karzai spokesman Waheed Omar's phone was turned off and another number for him rang unanswered Monday. Deputy spokesman Hamed Elmi's phone rang unanswered.
The comments come against the background of continuing insurgent violence as the U.S. moves to boost troop levels in a push against Taliban strongholds in the south.
NATO forces said they killed 10 militants in a joint U.S.-Afghan raid on a compound in Nangarhar province's Khogyani district near the Pakistani border early Monday, while gunmen seriously wounded an Afghan provincial councilwoman in a drive-by shooting in the country's increasingly violent north.
NATO also confirmed that international troops were responsible for the deaths of five civilians, including three women, on Feb. 12 in Gardez, south of Kabul.
A NATO statement said a joint international-Afghan patrol fired on two men mistakenly believed to be insurgents. It said the three women were "accidentally killed as a result of the joint force firing at the men."
International force officials will discuss the results of the investigation with family of those killed, apologize and provide compensation, he said.
The two men killed in the Gardez raid had been long-serving government loyalists and opponents of al-Qaida and the Taliban, one serving as provincial district attorney and the other as police chief in Paktia's Zurmat district.
Their brother, who also lost his wife and a sister, said he learned of the investigation result from the Internet, but had yet to receive formal notice.
Mohammad Sabar said the family's only demand was that the informant who passed on the faulty information about militant activity be tried and publicly executed.
"Please, please, please, our desire, our demand is that this spy be executed in front of the people to ensure that such bad things don't happen again," Sabar said.
In the latest of a series of targeted assassination attempts blamed on militants, Baghlan provincial council member Nida Khyani was struck by gunfire in the leg and abdomen in Pul-e Khumri, capital of the northern province, said Salim Rasouli, head of the provincial health department. Khyani's bodyguard was also slightly injured.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shooting, although suspicion immediately fell on Taliban fighters who often target people working with the Afghan government and their Western backers.
One month ago, a member of the Afghan national parliament escaped injury when her convoy was attacked by Taliban insurgents in eastern Afghanistan. Female government officials regularly report receiving threats to their safety. Some women leaders, including a prominent policewoman, have been assassinated.
The Taliban rigidly oppose education for girls and women's participation in public affairs, citing their narrow interpretation of conservative Islam and tribal traditions. Militants, who are strongest in the south and east, carry out beatings and other punishments for perceived women's crimes from immodesty to leaving home unaccompanied by a male relative.
Also Monday, the organizer of a national reconciliation conference — known as a jirga — scheduled for early May said it would not include insurgent groups such as the Taliban. There has also been indications it would include discussion of the withdrawal of 120,000 foreign troops in the country.
Ghulam Farooq Wardak, the minister of education who is organizing the conference, said it will focus on outlining ways to reach peace with the insurgents and the framework for possible discussions.
Out of the jirga will come the "powerful voice of the Afghan people," Wardak said. "By fighting, you cannot restore security. The only way to bring peace is through negotiation."
|
_________________
 |
|
| Back to top |
|
Heads_On_Pikes
Joined: 16 Jul 2008
Posts: 1738
|
| Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 9:15 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Karzai has been hitting the Opium pipe a little too often.
_________________
I guess I owe it all to Pamela Brown
All of my good times - all my roamin' around
One of these days I might be in your town
And I guess I owe it all to Pamela Brown
Seen the lights of cities and been inside their doors
Sailed to foreign countries and walked upon their shores
I guess the guy she married was the best part of my luck
She dug him cause he drove a pick-up truck |
|
| Back to top |
|
greeneyedgurl
Joined: 18 Mar 2009
Posts: 497
Location: Dayton,Ohio
|
| Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 11:18 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Heads_On_Pikes wrote: |
| Karzai has been hitting the Opium pipe a little too often. |
I would have to agree after reading this...
_________________
|
|
| Back to top |
|
Heads_On_Pikes
Joined: 16 Jul 2008
Posts: 1738
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 4:27 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Hmmmm....
Ex-U.N. envoy: Karzai may have drug problem
Peter Galbraith questions Afghan leader's mental stability
NEW YORK - A former U.N envoy to Afghanistan on Tuesday questioned the "mental stability" of Hamid Karzai and suggested the Afghan president may be using drugs.
In an interview on MSNBC's "The Daily Rundown," Peter Galbraith described Karzai as "off-balance" and "emotional." Galbraith also called for President Barack Obama to vastly limit Karzai’s power to appoint officials within the war-torn country until he proves himself a reliable partner to the U.S.
"He’s prone to tirades. He can be very emotional, act impulsively. In fact, some of the palace insiders say that he has a certain fondness for some of Afghanistan’s most profitable exports," said Galbraith, in an apparent reference to opium or heroin.
When asked whether he meant Karzai has a substance abuse problem, Galbraith responded: "There are reports to that effect. But whatever the cause is, the reality is that he is — he can be very emotional."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36196464
_________________
I guess I owe it all to Pamela Brown
All of my good times - all my roamin' around
One of these days I might be in your town
And I guess I owe it all to Pamela Brown
Seen the lights of cities and been inside their doors
Sailed to foreign countries and walked upon their shores
I guess the guy she married was the best part of my luck
She dug him cause he drove a pick-up truck |
|
| Back to top |
|
Calmnotes
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Posts: 5489
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 5:21 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Heads_On_Pikes wrote: |
Hmmmm....
Ex-U.N. envoy: Karzai may have drug problem
Peter Galbraith questions Afghan leader's mental stability
NEW YORK - A former U.N envoy to Afghanistan on Tuesday questioned the "mental stability" of Hamid Karzai and suggested the Afghan president may be using drugs.
In an interview on MSNBC's "The Daily Rundown," Peter Galbraith described Karzai as "off-balance" and "emotional." Galbraith also called for President Barack Obama to vastly limit Karzai’s power to appoint officials within the war-torn country until he proves himself a reliable partner to the U.S.
"He’s prone to tirades. He can be very emotional, act impulsively. In fact, some of the palace insiders say that he has a certain fondness for some of Afghanistan’s most profitable exports," said Galbraith, in an apparent reference to opium or heroin.
When asked whether he meant Karzai has a substance abuse problem, Galbraith responded: "There are reports to that effect. But whatever the cause is, the reality is that he is — he can be very emotional."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36196464 |
Indeed, they all have drug and sex problems over there from years of the Soviet presence for manipulation. But the emotional and hopefully what will eventually become sensible impulsivity in that having become public somehow, will bring a sense of normalcy to what has been happening to them for so many years. Especially the reality for the genocide of their own Kurdish Muslim people! |
|
| Back to top |
|
eagle_eye
Joined: 28 Aug 2008
Posts: 7
Location: Ky
|
| Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 1:02 am Post subject: |
|
|
Easy to see Obama has pissed off another of our allies.
Great. |
|
| Back to top |
|
esoterica
Joined: 11 Jun 2010
Posts: 2739
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 12:25 pm Post subject: |
|
|
esoterica agrees with the Taliban on women. Women have only four places to be in life.
1. In the bedroom when esoterica wants her there.
2. In the kitcken when esoterica wants something to eat.
3. Nursing children.
4. In church looking after moral development. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You cannot download files in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
|
Home
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Calendar
Register
Profile
Log in
