Afghan President Karzai: I will not let congressman into Afghanistan - Polidicks

[QUOTE]If Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-California, an influential member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is looking for a country to visit as a member of a congressional delegation, he can cross Afghanistan off his list. Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Rohrabacher have been at loggerheads over the congressman's push for a more decentralized Afghan government. Asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer about the disagreement, Karzai said he is against letting Rohrabacher into the country. [B]"Until he changes his tongue, until he shows respect to the Afghan people, to our way of life and to our constitution ... No foreigner has a place asking another people, another country to change their constitution. Have we ever asked the United States to change its constitution?"[/B] Karzai said in an exclusive interview that aired Monday on "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer." Last month, Rohrabacher was asked by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not to travel on to Afghanistan with a congressional delegation that he was part of as it visited the region, after Karzai said the congressman was not welcome. Both Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Rohrabacher it was not a good idea to travel to Afghanistan based on their own conversations with Karzai. Rohrabacher agreed, and did not travel on with the delegation from its previous stop in Dubai. [B]As chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee, Rohrabacher said his past scrutiny of the Afghan government and examination of how U.S. funds are spent in the war-torn nation likely played a role in Karzai's displeasure.[/B] Coming on the heels of revelations of U.S. soldiers burning Qurans, and the alleged killing of Afghan civilians at the hands of a U.S. soldier, Clinton told Rohrabacher the timing of the visit was not right "She felt that another mini-crisis might erupt," Rohrabacher told Blitzer last month, "because Karzai hated me so much that he would create a crisis, and she just thought it would be disruptive to our ability to get her job done." [B]Rohrabacher went on to call the mercurial Afghan leader a "corrupt prima donna" in the same interview.[/B] In the interview that aired Monday, Karzai said he is firm on his position on Rohrabacher not because the congressman is "dangerous," but as a "matter of principle." "Freedom of speech is good, we respect that, but the freedom of speech with regard to other countries is another issue," Karzai told Blitzer. Rohrabacher later released a statement through his office saying [B]he would not "apologize to Karzai or any other corrupt leader.[/B] "Afghanistan is failing because Karzai and his corrupt clique are incompetent leaders, not because the U.S. hasn't pumped enough money or blood to help the brave people of Afghanistan ... Right now, I'm more concerned with getting American troops out of that country so they won't continue to needlessly die than I am getting myself into Afghanistan to meet with officials like Karzai," Rohrabacher said in the statement.[/QUOTE] Source: [url]http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/21/karzai-i-will-not-let-congressman-into-afghanistan/?hpt=hp_t2[/url] Karzai has a point - no country's government should be telling another how to run their constitution. And Rohrabacher just sounds like an ass.

I find it funny how the USA thinks they're the head of the world and all Countries must bow down before it. Good job Karzai

[QUOTE=fruxodaily;36050011]I find it funny how the USA thinks they're the head of the world and all Countries must bow down before it. Good job Karzai[/QUOTE] America's mentality: We put you on top in your country, so bow and pay tribute to us in return. If you won't, we'll call you corrupt (irony)

[QUOTE=fruxodaily;36050011]I find it funny how the USA thinks they're the head of the world and all Countries must bow down before it. Good job Karzai[/QUOTE] To be honest even though our stupid privatized recovery efforts aimed at Afghanistan didn't help the situation, the Taliban's history of massacres and oppressing women wasn't really doing anything good for the country either. It's a grey area

[QUOTE=fruxodaily;36050011]I find it funny how the USA thinks they're the head of the world Good job Karzai[/QUOTE] uhh we are

WikiLeaks cables portray Hamid Karzai as corrupt and erratic [quote] [B]Omar Zakhilwal, the much respected finance minister, told the Americans Karzai was "an extremely weak man who did not listen to facts but was instead easily swayed by anyone who came to report even the most bizarre stories or plots against him". He said an "inner circle" of top ministers had developed a system to work together to influence Karzai when he started "going astray on such matters".[/B] Overall, "Karzai is at the centre of the governance challenge", says a briefing paper written by the embassy for Robert Gates, the US secretary of defence, in late 2008. "He has failed to overcome his fundamental leadership deficiencies in decisiveness and in confidence to delegate authority to competent subordinates. The result: a cycle of overwork/fatigue/indecision on the part of Karzai, and gridlock and a sense of drift among senior officials on nearly all critical policy decisions." International statesmen who meet Karzai occasionally have also expressed concerns.Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan, said in a meeting with General David Petraeus last year: "Karzai is weak, but it's better to keep him on." In a conversation with John McCain in 2008, David Cameron said that "each year he had the sense Karzai's sphere of influence was shrinking". Relations between Karzai and the British have long been strained. The cables identify the problem as a fundamental disagreement between the two sides about how best to pacify Helmand. [B]For Karzai the solution was to "bring the tribes to our side" by appointing a corrupt but powerful tribal bigwig as governor. The UK, on the other hand, believed clean and effective local government was the answer.[/B] He said Canada would demand that the "international community ... stand up for the silent majority or be blamed for letting Karzai and his family establish across the country the system of patronage and control that exists in Kandahar". [B]But perhaps the most damning accounts of Karzai's style of governing are from the president's close colleagues. In 2009 Umar Daudzai, Karzai's chief of staff, told the Americans he was "ashamed" of an incident in which Karzai pardoned five border policemen who had been caught transporting 124kg of heroin in an official vehicle. The episode sent relations between Karzai and Washington into one of its periodic lows, with many assuming that Karzai had freed the men because their extended family had contributed to his re-election campaign. Speaking generally about the release of drug traffickers, Mohammad Daud, deputy minister of interior with responsibility for tackling illegal drugs, is quoted in a cable as telling assistant US ambassador Anthony Wayne that he had learned "some members of the president's family had been receiving money from those seeking the pardon and release of convicted traffickers".[/B] Daud described their release as a "big psychological blow" to him and the country's counter-narcotics police force.Masoon Stanekzai, a senior government official charged with disarming militias and "reintegrating" Taliban insurgents, is reported to have feared for his own life after defying Karzai's many demands to remove two provincial election candidates from Helmand from a blacklist so they could stand. Both were known drug traffickers and members of illegal militias. Stanekzai told the embassy that he received threats and menacing visits to his office from the men, who on one occasion brought along a 54-man militia that Stanekzai was supposed to have disbanded. The highly respected minister said the president himself was involved in the threats. The cable says: "Karzai himself has made no overt threats but he [Stanekzai] believes the president is behind a litany of visits Stanekzai has had by known warlords – including the two narcotics traffickers – accompanied by their private militias in the past two weeks." [B]The incident was "an example of Karzai meddling in the elections by using intimidation to protect known thugs".[/B] [/quote] edit: link [url]http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/02/wikileaks-cables-hamid-karzai-erratic[/url] Corrupt karzai is corrupt :v:

Yeah, don't go around praising Karzai just yet. He's not any better than the congressmen at all.

Go away USA!

[QUOTE=C47;36051314]WikiLeaks cables portray Hamid Karzai as corrupt and erratic edit: link [url]http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/02/wikileaks-cables-hamid-karzai-erratic[/url] Corrupt karzai is corrupt :v:[/QUOTE] After reading this, Karzai should be impeached.

[quote=Article]"Afghanistan is failing because Karzai and his corrupt clique are incompetent leaders, not because the U.S. hasn't pumped enough money or blood to help the brave people of Afghanistan ... Right now, I'm more concerned with getting American troops out of that country so they won't continue to needlessly die than I am getting myself into Afghanistan to meet with officials like Karzai," Rohrabacher said in the statement.[/quote] I'm actually glad the congressman actually [b]bluntly[/b] made this point as well. Although I guess Karzai seems to be better to work with than, say, Pakistan.

Karzai is a corrupt cunt, but strong-arming him like that, and him bowing to it, would be severely detrimental to the Afghan government's image amongst it's people.

[QUOTE=Sgt Doom;36052684]Karzai is a corrupt cunt, but strong-arming him like that, and him bowing to it, would be severely detrimental to the Afghan government's image amongst it's people.[/QUOTE] Pretty sure the Afghan peoples 1# complaint is the corrupt local governments. So big brother USA comes in and gives them money, guess what.. no more complaints!

Ugh why can't the USA just fuck off and let countries run themselves?

[QUOTE=mchapra;36053509]Ugh why can't the USA just fuck off and let countries ruin themselves?[/QUOTE] Fixed

[QUOTE=King Tiger;36053551]Fixed[/QUOTE] I don't think so. Karzai may be corrupt and shit, but it's still not US business on how his country should be run.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;36049839]And Rohrabacher just sounds like an ass.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE] As chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee, Rohrabacher said his past scrutiny of the Afghan government and examination of how U.S. funds are spent in the war-torn nation likely played a role in Karzai's displeasure.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE] "Afghanistan is failing because Karzai and his corrupt clique are incompetent leaders, not because the U.S. hasn't pumped enough money or blood to help the brave people of Afghanistan ... Right now, I'm more concerned with getting American troops out of that country so they won't continue to needlessly die than I am getting myself into Afghanistan to meet with officials like Karzai," Rohrabacher said in the statement.[/QUOTE] Meanwhile, Karzai [QUOTE] "Freedom of speech is good, we respect that, but the freedom of speech with regard to other countries is another issue," Karzai told Blitzer. [/QUOTE] I think you got your asses mixed up.

This whole case is kind of gray, Karzai is corrupt as fuck, but Rohrabacher has no right to tell other countries how to manage themselves.

Considering that we're giving them literal asstons of money and infrastructure, we kind of do have a say in how that is used.

[QUOTE=LtKyle2;36055353]This whole case is kind of gray, Karzai is corrupt as fuck, but Rohrabacher has no right to tell other countries how to manage themselves.[/QUOTE] Agreed. For the record, I never praised Karzai as the shining example of a perfect statesmen, only that he was correct at this specific topic and Rohrabacher was an ass for his response. [editline]22nd May 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Groat;36060967]Considering that we're giving them literal asstons of money and infrastructure, we kind of do have a say in how that is used.[/QUOTE] Does your boss tell you what to spend your money on?

even tough karzai is a corrupt monkey, usa should stop spreading their neo liberalism

[QUOTE=Ringo_Satu;36053998]I don't think so. Karzai may be corrupt and shit, but it's still not US business on how his country should be run.[/QUOTE] It is. Every country is. They are either or their side or not. Thats the thing about being a super power country, you cant leave the world unchecked, gotta have em military bases all around and puppet governments to feed the resources to the mother land xD I think the only exception is Switzerland - some say its truely neutral.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;36060983]Does your boss tell you what to spend your money on?[/QUOTE] Except you've earned your pay at a job, this is [b]tax payer money[/b] being thrown at Karzai's government and he spits in our face.

[QUOTE=zombieslaya;36061934]Except you've earned your pay at a job, this is [b]tax payer money[/b] being thrown at Karzai's government and he spits in our face.[/QUOTE] Okay, then. Does the government tell you how to spend welfare money?

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;36062012]Okay, then. Does the government tell you how to spend welfare money?[/QUOTE] To a degree, yes. They don't have direct control over how you spend it but it's given to you under the pretenses of assisting low income people/families with money and food stamps to pay bills and put food on the table. Quit trying to divert the argument though.

[QUOTE=zombieslaya;36061934]Except you've earned your pay at a job, this is [b]tax payer money[/b] being thrown at Karzai's government and he spits in our face.[/QUOTE] U.S. taxes are so ridiculously low though I honestly wouldn't care

And the Afghan government is getting how many millions of dollars from America?

[QUOTE=Remscar;36062210]And the Afghan government is getting how many millions of dollars from America?[/QUOTE] About $4 billion USD, and we are probably going to end up footing most of the bill if not all of it. Think of this more in venture capitalist terms, the investors (our government) are giving (investing) money to the Afghan government with the intent that it be used to build the nation up, the past track record of Karzai and his government is why they are demanding some oversight as to how the money is spent and Karzai won't allow the representative who's in charge of oversight in because of a petty insult he made in an interview.

[QUOTE=zombieslaya;36062381]About $4 billion USD, and we are probably going to end up footing most of the bill if not all of it. Think of this more in venture capitalist terms, the investors (our government) are giving (investing) money to the Afghan government with the intent that it be used to build the nation up, the past track record of Karzai and his government is why they are demanding some oversight as to how the money is spent and Karzai won't allow the representative who's in charge of oversight in because of a petty insult he made in an interview.[/QUOTE] Except, Afghanistan doesn't pay back interest.

please let them in so they won't be here anymore

One Congressman from the House of Represenatives does not represent the entire nation. The only shit they represent is the tiny little district they were elected to represent.