Karzai cannot make such statements without coaching from on high. He is an "empty suit" in an "empty space". As an Afghan in the second article linked said, "Karzai is not the president of Afghanistan, B-52 is president."

and what pray of Pakistan's Nuclear weapons?...and for that matter how will India react? America trying to provoke a Nuclear war...the ultimate 9/11 stratergy..."acceptable losses are us"

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB227/index.htm

I'm married to an Afghan and Pakistan is behind the Taliban. Afghans everywhere are thrilled that Karzai is finally doing something about securing Afghan boarders and going after the Pakistani sponsored Taliban.

btw, an interesting audio (MP3) interview of a Russian veteran of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in which he draws parallels between his experience and the current situation.

It's about time, this idea of privileged sanctuaries (a made up idea of the commie left) is beyond absurd. Why didn't the nazis or the japs have any privileged sanctuaries in WW2? Oh, I forgot the commies were on our side then.
When we beat the Taliban in stead of sending them to gitmo we should have given every Afghan women a base ball bat and let them beat those animals to death. When we over ran Tora Bora we should have chased them all the way to the arabian sea and let the sharks eat them, sorry my bad that would have been cruelty to sharks.
"Nearly 13,000 people, including hundreds of foreign troops, have been killed in Afghanistan since 2006 when the ousted Afghan Taliban made a come back." It is past time to totally exterminate the vermin, every last one of them and send the Taliban to the dust bin of history.

I hope that CD posters read the full article above before they write, as it covers many of the bases usually left unstated (though an expansion of several points would be helpful: the Pakistani ISI as mid-wife to the Taliban, the role of Pashtuns in the Pakistani political order, the ethnic politics of Afghanistan [which is basically the Pashtuns versus everybody else], are only the more prominent points). Karzai has decided to upset the local political apple cart because his electoral survival depends upon it, and he can not afford for interminable delicate situation in Pakistan to play out, especially considering part of the ongoing "gentlemen's agreement" in regards to power in Pakistan is that the Pashtun areas (which the corporate media calls the "tribal areas") remain essentially autonomous. Waiting on Musharref or whoever succeeds him to do anything about the Taliban in the Pashtun parts of Pakistan is futile.

One often overlooked factor when people blithely bandy around a term like "Taliban" is the dynamics of inter-ethnic rivalry and loyalty within Afghanistan. The Taliban are overwhelmingly Pashtun and a large part of their support derives not from religious feelings, but due to Pashtuns' feeling of exclusion from power at the center. Pashtuns constitute roughly half the population of Afghanistan, and yet the Northern Alliance supported Karzai--who is himself Pashtun--government relies very heavily on support of warlords whose fiefdoms are based on ethnic loyalty of their respective constituency of Uzbeks, Tajiks, and others who are not Pashtun. One knowledgeable observer wrote recently about the impact of these "internal ethnic fault lines":

Since 2005, both the MoD and the Americans have securely guarded any data about the ethnic composition of the ANA (Afghan National Army), but there is evidence that a genuine ethnic balance has not yet been achieved; even more worryingly, although a point was initially made that units would be ethnically mixed, it is now obvious that they are not.

Tajiks are still overrepresented, particularly in the officer corps. According to one estimate, 70% of the battalion commanders are Tajiks. This figure is in stark contrast with the Afghan army of the pre-war period, where the overwhelming majority of field officers were Pashtuns and ethnic minorities were mainly relegated to logistics and administration.

Anyone who thinks this conflict can be resolved by more boots on the ground, air power, attacking Pakistan, or tearing of any "gentleman's agreements" (that date from 19'th century British India), and not by getting different Afghan ethnic groups to reach power sharing arrangements that take into account ethnic realities of that landmass is seriously misguided about what the nature of the problem over there is really all about.

Karzai's frustration is palpable and real and most Afghans agree with him. The effectiveness of his strategy in sending troops into Pakistan though is highly questionable and is unlikely to yield results.

The Pakistani political parties need to do more in engaging the border tribes. The Pakistani religious parties actually LOST seats to the more secular Awami party in the recent elections which shows the dwindling support for fundamentalist parties in the border region and as such allows the political parties to be more involved in holding talks with the disaffected tribal groups.

Why did George Bush give the Taliban $43 million in May, 2001??

lillulu June 16th, 2008 3:19 pm

It would be wise to read WHAT was given and not assume.

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/05/17/us.afghanistan.aid/

U.S. gives $43 million to Afghanistan
Warning that Afghanistan is "on the verge of a widespread famine," Secretary of State Colin Powell Thursday announced a $43 million package in humanitarian assistance for the Afghan people.
The package includes $28 million worth of wheat from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, $5 million in food commodities and $10 million in "livelihood and food security" programs, both from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The aid was NOT $43 million in cash to the Taliban but in humanitarian assistance for the Afghan people, this humanitarian assistance undoubtedly did help the Taliban to keep the Afghan people from rising up against them.

Also history shows it was not ALL bushes idea, see:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30166

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, who told schoolchildren Osama bin Laden was beloved by his people because of his compassionate social spending programs, was one of 13 U.S. senators to urge the Bush administration to send $30 million in taxpayer aid to his Taliban hosts in Afghanistan just five months before Sept. 11.

On May 2, 2001, 13 senators released to the press a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell calling on the administration to provide $30 million in emergency aid for Afghanistan, warning failure to act could spark a humanitarian crisis of "massive proportions." "The conditions in temporary camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan are horrendous, and people are dying daily from starvation, cold and disease," said the letter to Powell. "If we fail to act, the world may soon be witness to a humanitarian crisis of even more massive proportions. We urge your immediate attention to this matter."

Bush tossed in $13 million extra because the Taliban were supposed to be destroying the Afghan poppy fields, instead they showed a few fields on TV news being destroyed (the news ate up this farce like mad) resulting in the opium in the Taliban storehouses to increase in value 4 fold.

Don't underestimate Karzai, he is one of a very few, perhaps the only world leaders who has a cape as part of his standard uniform.

Hey I like his Chopan. Its part of the Afghan Uzbeki minority culture. Even though he is Pashtun he wears it as a show of unity of all Afghan ethnic groups.

I haven't been keeping up with this. The last time I looked, Karzai's power was reported to extend more or less to the Kabul city limits, and now he is getting ready to jump into Pakistan? When did this surge in control of the Afghan realpolitic occur? What was his company? Unocal? I forget. The religious/ethnic status quo, while I wasn't looking, has shifted toward acceptance of foreign occupation and remote control government? I get confused. The Taliban didn't come in from Talibania to terrorize the Afghans did they? I mean, a lot of them are actually Afghans themselves aren't they? I don't like them either, but they do represent a faction of Afghan opinion don't they? We Americans oppose the Taliban, but as an outside entity our opinion doesn't count. Just as the opinion of the Esquimos toward the Taliban doesn't count. The Taliban couldn't exist without the support of their countrymen, who perceive their fundamentalism as an assertion of Musim cultural identity against foreign devils. It is a little like the Repubican Guard enlisting the support of Iowans to stamp out the Libertarians. Can it possibly work? Has it ever worked?