Friday, March 16, 2012

Re: Karzai Calls on U.S. to Pull Back in Afghanistan as Taliban Cancel Talks

We need to simply destroy everything we have built there and pull out.
The same with the rest of the Mid-East.

On Mar 15, 11:13 am, Tommy News <tommysn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Karzai Calls on U.S. to Pull Back as Taliban Cancel Talks
>
> Omar Sobhani/Reuters
> An American soldier, center, kept watch during a security transition
> ceremony from a private security company to the Afghan government at a
> power plant in Kabul on Wednesday.
>
> By ROD NORDLAND and MATTHEW ROSENBERG
> KABUL, Afghanistan — Prospects for an orderly withdrawal of NATO
> forces from Afghanistan suffered two blows on Thursday as President
> Hamid Karzai demanded that the United States confine troops to major
> bases by next year, and the Taliban announced that they were
> suspending peace talks with the Americans.
>
> Getting talks started with the Taliban has been a major goal of the
> United States and its NATO allies for the past two years, and only in
> recent months was there concrete evidence of progress.
>
> And the declaration by President Karzai, if carried out, would greatly
> accelerate the pace of transition from NATO to Afghan control, which
> previously was envisioned to be complete by 2014. Defense officials
> admitted there was a major divide between Mr. Karzai's declaration and
> the American goals of training the Afghan security forces and
> conducting counterinsurgency operations. Successful counterinsurgency
> requires close working relationships with rural Afghans to help build
> schools, roads and bring about other improvements.
>
> Asked if it was possible to take all American forces out of villages
> by 2013 and still train Afghan security forces and conduct
> counterinsurgency operations, a senior American defense official
> replied, "It's not clear that we would be able to."
>
> Mr. Karzai declaration came in reaction to widespread Afghan anger
> over the massacre by an American soldier of 16 civilians in Kandahar
> on Sunday, and the decision of the military authorities to remove the
> soldier from Afghanistan, which was reported on Wednesday.
>
> The Taliban statement, issued in English and Pashto on an insurgent
> Web site, said talks with an American representative had commenced
> over the release of some Taliban members from the Guantánamo Bay
> prison, but accused the American representative of changing the
> preconditions for the talks.
>
> The statement did not make clear what preconditions were
> objectionable, but the statement emphasized that the Taliban were only
> interested in talking with the Americans, and criticized "propaganda"
> about the talks that American officials had issued. Zabiullah Mujahid,
> a spokesman for the Taliban reached by cellphone at an undisclosed
> location, said the statement suspending the talks was genuine but
> declined to discuss it further.
>
> It was unclear if the two developments might have been related. But
> both came to light just as Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta had left
> Afghanistan after a tense two-day visit that included talks with Mr.
> Karzai, and the Afghanistan president's announcement in particular
> appeared to be a surprise. On Wednesday, President Obama said in
> Washington that the timetable for an Afghanistan withdrawal would not
> change.
>
> Defense officials traveling with Mr. Panetta in Abu Dhabi said that
> the tone of the meeting between Mr. Karzai and Mr. Panetta was more
> positive than Mr. Karzai's statement would indicate, and that he made
> no demands of the defense secretary — suggesting that the statement
> was in part aimed at a domestic audience enraged not only by the
> massacre but also by recent Koran burnings.
>
> The officials acknowledged that Mr. Karzai told Mr. Panetta during
> their meeting that American troops should be confined to major bases
> by next year, but the officials sought to publicly tamp down the
> differences and portray the two countries as working together.
> "Secretary Panetta said, 'We're on the same page here,' " the Pentagon
> press secretary, George Little, quoted Mr. Panetta as telling Mr.
> Karzai.
>
> Mr. Panetta, speaking to reporters after the meeting, said he had told
> Mr. Karzai that the military pledged a full investigation of the
> massacre and would bring the gunman to justice. He said that Mr.
> Karzai had not brought up the transfer of the suspect, an Army staff
> sergeant, to Kuwait.
>
> Although the move was likely to further anger Afghans, who had called
> for him to be tried in their country, Lieutenant Gen. Curtis M.
> Scaparrotti, the No. 2 American commander in Afghanistan, told
> reporters that the Afghans had been informed of the move ahead of
> time, and he said that "their response is that they understood."
>
> General Scaparrotti said that the American military would likely not
> make the suspect's name public until and if he was formally charged.
> He did not say when that might happen. "We are conscious of due
> process," he said.
>
> More:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/world/asia/taliban-call-off-talks-a...
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy

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