Once a star, Afghan president now on the defensive

This is from AFP via Yahoo.

This is interesting in that Karzai has not changed very much. All that has changed is US and western perception of him. The one respect in which Karzai has changed is in his criticism of US and NATO policy particularly of bombing that produces many civilian casualties. He has become more critical of the policy of those who had earlier promoted him as a star. There will be attempts to launch a new star but so far we do not know who exactly this new star will be. Earlier it seemed that Zalmay Khalilzad would be the new star but there is no mention of him since Obama took over the presidency.


Once a star, Afghan president now on the defensive

by Jim Mannion
Jim Mannion Sun Feb 15, 10:37 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Once the toast of Washington, Afghan President Hamid Karzai now finds himself on the defensive, dogged by charges of government corruption and questions about whether he still has friends in the White House.
With problems mounting in Afghanistan, officials, commentators and, most importantly, US President Barack Obama are taking a sharper look at the man who has been the public face of the faltering Afghan project seven years on.
"They've got elections coming up, but effectively, the national government seems very detached from what's going on in the surrounding community," Obama said this week in a comment that has set the tone for the new US skepticism.
Karzai responded in kind in an interview with CNN to air Sunday, saying he was "surprised to hear that statement."
"Perhaps it's because the administration has not yet put itself together. Perhaps they have not been given the information yet. And I hope as they settle down, as they learn more, we will see better judgment," he said.
The pre-recorded interview was to air after US envoy Richard Holbrooke held talks in Kabul with Karzai, who vowed to send a delegation to Washington headed by Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta to take part in a major US review of the "war on terror."
It's not just Obama, though, who is pointing fingers at Karzai's tenure.
A US intelligence assessment delivered this week by retired admiral Dennis Blair, the new director of national intelligence, warned that Karzai's government was losing legitimacy because of endemic corruption and an inability to deliver basic services.
"Corruption has exceeded culturally tolerable levels and is eroding the legitimacy of the government," Blair's report said.
"The Afghan drug trade is a major source of revenue for corrupt officials, the Taliban and other insurgent groups operating in the country and is one of the greatest long-term challenges facing Afghanistan."
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently warned: "If we set ourselves the objective of creating some sort of a Central Asian Valhalla over there, we will lose, because nobody in the world has that much time, patience or money, to be honest."
To all of this, Karzai, who is running for re-election this year, pointed to the schools and roads and healthcare services introduced in Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest country.
"The engagement with the Afghan population is so wide and so widely spread that we've never had in our history," he told CNN.
Asked about allegations that his brother was involved in drug trafficking, Karzai said he had asked US authorities for evidence but it was never forthcoming.
Instead, he suggested that the rumors about his brother were floated in response to disputes with the Americans over aerial spraying of poppy fields and his strong public denunciation of civilian casualties in US air strikes.
"My conclusion is, yes, this was part of a political pressure tactic, unfortunately," Karzai said.
He said there was corruption in Afghanistan as in any developing country, exacerbated by a flood of aid money in a country devastated by years of war.
"Corruption is there, and it's in different levels -- there's petty corruption, there's corruption in contracting," he said. "Part of it is our problem, part of it is the problem of the international community and the way they make contracts."
In the interview, Karzai signaled other potential differences with Washington as it increases the size of its forces in Afghanistan,
The additional forces should focus on stopping the infiltration of Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters across the country's porous borders, especially from Pakistan, rather than in Afghan communities, he said.
"Definitely the war on terrorism is not in the Afghan villages. It never was," he said.
Karzai said he could work "very positively" with Obama.
"But... people in our part of the world, they also have sensitivities, we also have morality. Some of us stand on a very high platform of morality in this part of the world," he said.
"When I complain about civilian casualties, it's because I expect that our American friends, who I'm sure are standing on a very high platform of morality, will understand it's a human concern and it has to be responded to by our friends in the United States."
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