Karzai condemns US for killing child
Empowering Weak & OppressedCrescent International
Muharram 24, 1435 2013-11-28
Daily News Analysis
Hamid Karzai is furious at the Americans. They have killed another innocent child and injured two women in a bombing raid in Afghanistan. Karzai has been demanding a halt to such attacks and total ban on night raids in people's homes before he signs the Bilateral Security Agreement that would allow American troops to stay in Afghanistan beyond the 2014 deadline.
Peshawar,
November 28, 2013, 18:23 EST
While the US is desperate to get a Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) signed with Afghanistan, it is not abandoning the policy of killing innocent Afghans as happened today in southern Afghanistan. American planes bombed a house killing a small child and injured two women prompting immediate condemnation from Afghan President Hamid Karzai who has been at odds with the US over the signing of the BSA. He called the attack another example of the US’ total disregard for Afghan civilian lives.
The airstrike “shows that US forces have no respect for the decisions of the Loya Jirga and life of civilians in Afghanistan,” Karzai’s spokesman Aimal Faizi said on Thursday. “If such operations continue, there will be no agreement,” he said, adding that the child killed in the bombing was two or three years old. “They give no importance to the life of civilians. They are killing civilians like flies,” Faizi stated. Karzai has dug his heels over the BSA that was approved by the Loya Jirga last week. He insists it should be left to the next president to be elected in April 2014 to sign to allow some 10,000 US troops to remain in Afghanistan beyond the 2014 deadline.
The outgoing Afghan president fears that if he were to sign the deal now, he would lose his influence in the country and the Americans would manipulate the forthcoming presidential elections to get their own puppet in power. Further, Karzai wants the US to stop the night raids into people’s homes that have infuriated so many Afghans and to stop killing civilians. He has also called for the release of all Afghans held in Guantanamo Bay.
In his speech at the Loya Jirga on Sunday, Karzai said, “If US military forces conduct military operations on Afghan homes even one more time, then there will be no BSA and we won't sign it.”
The following day (Monday), Karzai hosted Susan Rice, the blunt talking American National Security Advisor, for a “working dinner”. The meeting requested by Karzai was reported to be blunt. Hot words were exchanged between the two. The chemistry was all wrong. Given the Afghan mindset, a woman went to lecture and hector an Afghan man. Had Karzai given in to Rice’s demands, no matter how reasonable, he would have been seen by many Afghans as not being manly enough.
In any case, Rice is not very diplomatic despite serving in many diplomatic posts.
The latest American strike and killing simply reinforces Karzai’s perception that the Americans do not care. He is right on this point. He believes that if he digs in his heels, the Americans would pay more attention to him and not discard him as he fears. On this point, he is wrong.
American bloody-mindedness coupled with Karzai’s mercurial behaviour is turning the BSA into a fiasco. Perhaps, another visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry to the Arg Palace in Kabul is due to smooth the Afghan ruler’s ruffled feathers. He is beginning to see himself as a king and kingmaker of Afghanistan.
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