170 Killed in Past week in Afghanistan as Gates Defends Karzai from Drug Charges and Cheney . . .

[unhappycamper]

170 Killed in Past week in Afghanistan as Gates Defends Karzai from Drug Charges and Cheney, Palin Laud Afghan President
Posted by Juan on April 12, 2010

170 people were killed in Afghanistan during the past week in political violence, according to an interior ministry spokesman. Radio Azadi reports in Persian that the spokesman said Monday morning that there were 117 terrorist attacks in the country in the past week, quadruple the number in the previous week.

The violence is placing in doubt supposed US achievements on the security front. Pajwhok News Agency reports that, ironically, the residents of Marjah are complaining about poor security in the aftermath of the US move into that area. They say that there is poor security, that civilians are caught in the cross-fire between US/ Afghanistan National Army troops and the Taliban, and that it is dangerous to work their fields (Marjah is a set of agricultural villages and scattered farm houses). They say that the Afghanistan police have not provided even the level of security that the Taliban once had.

Meanwhile, on the geopolitical front, Washington and Kabul are renewing their vows after a domestic tiff. A flurry of statements by high officials of the Obama administration on Sunday sought to walk back the recent tensions between Washington and President Hamid Karzai. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called charges against Karzai that he is using drugs and acting completely erratically “stupid.” The charges, apparently rumored in Kabul for some time, were made public last week by former United Nations deputy special envoy Peter Galbraith. On Fareed Zakaria’s GPS 360, Galbraith on Sunday argued that the major US counterinsurgency push in Afghanistan needed a reliable partner in Kabul, and since there is none, the US strategy should be reformulated as far less ambitious.

Meanwhile, the tensions with Karzai, who reputedly has threatened to join the Taliban and who says he could oppose the planned US invasion of Qandahar, has become a political football in the US. Liz Cheney attacked President Obama for his cold treatment of Karzai, and Sarah Palin piled on with the same criticism. Cheney just recently was lambasting trial lawyers who defended terrorists (as they must do in the US system of justice), but now she’s carrying water for someone who threatened to join the Taliban? This is beyond hypocritical or contradictory, it is Monty Python’s argument clinic. Whatever Obama says, the US right wing just says the opposite. That isn’t an argument, it is just a contradiction. And it produces contortionist political positions.


Rest of article at: http://www.juancole.com/2010/04/170-killed-in-past-week-in-afghanistan-as-gates-defends-karzai-from-drug-charges-and-cheney-palin-laud-afghan-president.html

[pinboy3niner]

1. As to rumors of Karzai's drug use...

Galbraith raised it Friday or Saturday on MSNBC. On MTP Sunday, he said he knew of no rumors about use of heroin or opium by Karzai, but use of hashish and marijuana is popular there.

Despite those reports on MSNBC's own air, I heard Willie Geist suggest on MSNBC this morning that Karzai may be using cocaine.

It looks like Geist is now in the business of starting rumors, and ignoring his own network's reporting.

[KG]

2. the US has never has a problem supporting corrupt regimes.

[unhappycamper]

3. Ahhhhh. I see the unrecers are out. n/t

[pinboy3niner]

4. I may be new here, but I cannot understand this unrec thing

I've unrec'd only in aa few cases when an OP was bogus, or when a poll was inappropriate (and mods ended up locking it). When I see unrec's for no obvious reason, it appears to be feuds/vendettas-which should have no place here. In those cases, I'm inclined to give a rec just to counter somehting that is absolutely WRONG.

[NJmaverick]

5. Point of fact 135 of those deaths were Taliban insurgents