Did a Karzai-Obama Rift Mar the President’s visit to Afghanistan? [View all]

[unhappycamper]

http://www.juancole.com/2014/05/karzai-presidents-afghanistan.html

Did a Karzai-Obama Rift Mar the President’s visit to Afghanistan?
By Juan Cole | May. 27, 2014

President Obama made a surprise trip to Afghanistan on Monday, for Memorial Day. But while the main impetus for his trip was to honor US troops for their service there, he appears to have also tried to arrange a meeting with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai. He issued an invitation for Karzai to join him at Bagram Air Base, but Karzai declined. I haven’t been able to find any sources I trust that confirm that Karzai was offended by being summoned to Bagram.

Obama wanted to meet with Karzai because the latter refuses to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement, which would lend a legal framework to the presence of a small contingent of US troops after Dec. 31. Without the BSA, US troops engaged in fighting with the Taliban could be charged with war crimes, since the UN Security Council will cease issuing permissions for international use of force in Afghanistan.

Presidential candidate and Karzai’s likely successor, Abdallah Abdallah, has said that he will sign the BSA the minute he is sworn in.

Tolo news in Afghanistan in Dari Persian noted: “Prior to this, the US foreign secretary and the security national advisor of Obama had come to Afghanistan and held talks about the security pact. However, the talks did not apparently have the desirable results.” (h/t BBC Monitoring)


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(animated gif here. Vietnam fades to Afghanistan fades to Vietnam.....)

We have lost over 2320 military personnel and 52 weeks times $2 billion a week times 52 weeks times 13 years. Declare Victory and leave.