The Hamid Karzai Timetable

So even Karzai doesn’t believe in the Karzai government.

And how is this going to be paid for?

Karzai also said it will be at least 15 years before his government can bankroll a security force strong enough to protect the country from the threat of insurgency.

You forgot to add the rest of Karzai’s comment:

“As fast as the U.S. sends us money, is as fast as we can put it into bank accounts in Switzerland,” Karzai noted. “I only expect to be around here another year or two, anyway. Then it’ll be, ‘Try and find Hamid.’”

By the way, since when does Hamid Karzai get to determine when the U.S. exits Afghanistan?

An Afghani friend of mine who was back in Afghanistan this past summer described Karzai as “Nothing more than the Mayor of Kabul.”

He’s the president of the country but he can’t really leave Kabul because he can’t even trust his own government forces not to plug him.

He might as well be under house arrest.

Karzai also doesn’t want to peruse the Taliban and seeks to negotiate a peaceful solution:
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged the United States to back talks with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, saying there was an “urgent need” for a negotiated approach to the conflict.
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The purpose of such talks would be to let the Taliban know that Afghanistan is their country, that they will not be persecuted and to ensure that they are not allied with Al-Qaeda, he said.
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…what’s our goal again?

hmm…so guess I got to keep that “Mission Accomplished” sign in storage a little longer.

It’s not an assessment really; it’s a 15-year plan.

The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com

There are more government contractors in Afghanistan than Troops. And they are costing us a bundle of money and are causing other problems because they tend to shoot a lot of crap up and are not really accountable to anyone.
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I have yet to see any mainstream news outlet address this. Yet when we talk about providing jobs and health care to American citizens one of the most important issues raised seem to be, how much will it cost to provide Americans with the 2 things that can allow them to be productive contributing citizens again.
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So again I ask, how is it going to cost to stay in Afghanistan for 1-15 more years? Its not a trick question.
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http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16230

…how is it going to cost to stay in Afghanistan for 1-15 more years?
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Infrastructure alone in Afghanistan may cost us $4 billion:
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(T)he U.S. military is spending billions of dollars on construction projects to ensure (Afghanistan’s) infrastructure can support American and coalition personnel in 2010 and years beyond.
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The military has already spent roughly $2.7 billion on construction over the past three fiscal years. Now, if its request is approved as part of the fiscal 2010 defense appropriations bill, it would spend another $1.3 billion on more than 100 projects at 40 sites across the country, according to a Senate report on the legislation.
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On a related note, the new US Embassy in Pak will cost about $736 million:
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The White House has asked Congress for – and seems likely to receive – $736 million to build a new US embassy in Islamabad, along with permanent housing for US government civilians and new office space in the Pakistani capital.
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The scale of the projects rivals the giant US Embassy in Baghdad, which was completed last year after construction delays at a cost of $740 million.
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$5 billion in Af/Pak infrastructure, no big deal. At least it’s not being spent on domestic projects- that would be socialism.

Okay, then…Time’s up, time to come home. We’re out of money and willingness to be there.

In time, Afghanistan will stabilize in its own way. If someone wants a pipeline run through there, let them pay for security.

In 1953, the first year of his presidency, Dwight Eisenhower gave a speech in which he said the following:
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Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. … The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
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No recent president — nor anyone seriously aspiring to be president — would make such a statement, and not only because of its argument that defense spending is a necessary evil at best and certainly not something to be celebrated. Today, Eisenhower’s perspective would be simply incomprehensible. The schools and power plants, the hospitals and concrete pavement, the bushels of wheat and new homes — it would not be quite accurate to say we consider putting them aside in order to pay for wars and the preparations for wars. That we will debate the cost of domestic initiatives is a given. But saying we have to sacrifice them in order to pay for the military would imply that the military is something that we actually have to pay for. And that isn’t part of the conversation.
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http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_spending_wars

Of course it’s going to take Karzai, his brother, and all his cronies 15 years. They obviously figure that’s how long they can sucker us into this deal and they can keep plundering our reserves for themselves. Palininatowel has it right…

I’ve seen the five year timeline (with implication of lots of luck!) stressed in media reports today, but what Karzai said was actually more complicated, as copied below from presser transcript. He first addressed issue of financing troops – who’s gonna pay – and then addressed actual implementation of Afghan forces. As I understand it he said two years in those areas where Afghan forces would be able to take the lead, and five years for entire country. So this isn’t as inconsistent with gradual drawdown of US troops as reports have suggested. Helpful if Michael Scherer could comment.
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QOUTE by Karzai:
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For a number of years, maybe for another 15 to 20 years, Afghanistan would not be able to sustain a force of that nature and capability with its own resources. We hope that the international community, in particular the United States as our first ally, would help Afghanistan reach the ability in terms of its economic ability as well as eventually to sustain the force that would serve Afghanistan with the right numbers and the right equipment.
So Afghanistan is looking forward to taking over the responsibility in terms of paying for its forces and delivering to its forces out of its own resources, but that will not be for another 15 years. That doesn’t mean that we will not be taking responsibilities financially — (inaudible). We will keep on adding to it, as we are already doing now.
With regard to the parts of the country where the Afghan forces will be taking the lead responsibility, there our timetable is much shorter. We are working hard, as we have now taken the responsibilities for Kabul, to provide the security in such a critical area of the country in another two years, and hopefully, with maximum effort, to add on the whole of the country to have this and be able to be operations and provide security to the whole of Afghanistan in five years’ time.
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END QUOTE

That is far too unwieldy. Someone needs to suggest breaking it up into three five-year plans.

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/the-gas-must-flow/