re: #268 sattv4u2

Oy!
Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday accused the Taliban and the U.S. of working in concert to convince Afghans that violence will worsen if most foreign troops leave

[Link: hosted.ap.org…]

Yeah, that’s making the rounds this morning. He has made some unhelpful statements in the past but I’m a bit wary of the translation and context of his statement on this one.

“The explosions in Kabul and Khost yesterday showed that they are at the service of America and at the service of this phrase: 2014. They are trying to frighten us into thinking that if the foreigners are not in Afghanistan, we would be facing these sorts of incidents,” he said during a nationally televised speech about the state of Afghan women.

He’s not completely wrong. Although I think the Taliban is more interested in creating chaos (they’ll kill pretty much anybody they can get their hands on) it’s not unreasonable that part of the Taliban goal is to keep the US in Afghanistan so they can have the bonus of killing Americans instead of just their fellow Muslims.