I'm so glad we put the "adults" in charge of the country...

[makattak]

http://blog.american.com/?p=11314

Outcry in Afghanistan at Holbrooke Comment

By Ahmad Majidyar

A recent comment by Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, that “almost every Pashtun family has someone involved with the [Taliban] movement,” has caused an outcry in Afghanistan and strained the already tense relationship between Kabul and Washington. President Hamid Karzai had sought reconciliation with the Taliban because he is a Pashtun himself, adding that Washington did not back the negotiations.

Holbrooke’s remark drew little attention in the United States, but it enraged Afghanistan, especially Pashtun leaders who interpreted the remark as a U.S. ultimatum issued at their ethnic group. According to Tolo, a private Afghan television channel, members of the lower house of Afghanistan’s National Assembly accused Holbrooke of “inflaming ethnic and language conflict among Afghan people,” while the upper house criticized the remark as “detrimental to the unity and solidarity between ethnic groups living in Afghanistan.”

In an attempt ease the tension, Holbrooke issued a clarification published on the website of the U.S. embassy in Kabul: “When I noted that almost every Pashtun family has someone involved with the movement, I was reflecting President Karzai’s comment in Istanbul that ‘those Taliban who were not part of terrorist networks or Al-Qaeda are sons of the Afghan soil.’ I was not suggesting that all Pashtuns are part of the Taliban or all Taliban are Pashtuns.”

But the clarification failed to repair the damage and instead has served as a basis for new conspiracy theories. Haji Farid, a lawmaker from Kapisa Province, described the remark as a U.S. “warning that all Pashtuns must be eliminated.” Ghulam Jilani Zawak, head of the Research and Advisory Council of Afghanistan, said Holbrooke’s remarks indicated that the United States had aimed to “massacre Pashtuns” rather than to achieve “humanitarian goals.” Commentary in Taand, a Pashtu-language daily, said that “even the Russians during their ten years of occupation did not make such a rude and brazen comment about Pashtuns.” A meeting of Afghan political analysts and experts held at the Regional Studies Centre in Kabul on Monday strongly criticized Holbrooke’s statement and demanded an apology. Political analyst Abdul Rahman Hotaki said the comment was an attack on the rights of 40 million Pashtun people living on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border.

The relationship between Holbrooke and Karzai has been troubled from the start. The frequency of Holbrooke’s meetings with Karzai’s opponents led the Afghan president to believe President Obama wanted to oust him. The danger of the latest episode, however, is that Holbrooke has angered not only the government, but ordinary Afghans as well.

Pashtuns make up perhaps 40 percent of Afghanistan’s population. While it is true that the Taliban in Afghanistan come predominantly from the Pashtun ethnic group, the majority of the Pashtuns oppose the Taliban and are on the front lines to help the Afghan government and coalition forces defeat the insurgent group. Moreover, the Pakistani Taliban includes not only Pashtuns but also Punjabis, Sindhis, Arabs, Chechens, and Uzbeks. Equating the Pashtuns with the Taliban is not only inaccurate, it also helps serve the Taliban’s propaganda and complicates Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s “population-centric” efforts to defeat the Taliban.

Ahmad Majidyar is a research assistant at the American Enterprise Institute.

Seems this is par for the course for our current administration. Appease our enemies, insult our allies.

Bravo, guys, bravo.

[Silver Bullet]

Looking at the bright side, though, we are one day closer than we were yesterday to throwing the kids out of office.   

417 days down, 1044 days to go.

[Sergeant Bob]

I can't wait to hear the cries from the Liberals declaring Holbrooke a racist for that statement!

[French G.]

Well he brought such peace to the balkans in 1995 that I was back over there in 1999 bombing the crap out of Kosovo. Kerry adviser, Hillary adviser, he just can't pick a winner.

[makattak]

http://www.tnr.com/print/article/world/the-crisis

Wow, even the New Republic is noticing the White House is packed with amateurs.

[MicroBalrog]

Mak, I don't think you want to know what the Israeli right-wing blogosphere has to say about this. :D

[Sergeant Bob]

Mak, I don't think you want to know what the Israeli right-wing blogosphere has to say about this. :D

I think he does....Oh yes, he really does....

[MechAg94]

I also heard that Clinton traveled to Russia to talk to them about Iran and they announced plans to help them build a reactor.  It seemed to be a bit of a snub.

I wonder how some of those Asian countries feel after Obama canceled his foreign trip just so he could do some cheer leading for his health care reform bill.

[roo_ster]

When it comes to foreign policy, comparing BHO to JEC does injustice to Carter.

[grampster]

The current administration is proof positive that individual votes carry great weight.  The next time one thinks or one hears that their vote is a voice crying in the wilderness, think of Barack Hussein Obama.

If everyone who didn't vote because it's only one vote, or thought McCain was an idiot, or thought to give the Republicans a message, had voted, The Chosen would be doing his business as an Acorn Organizer instead of the Numb Nuts In Chief.

[Nick1911]

The current administration is proof positive that individual votes carry great weight.  The next time one thinks or one hears that their vote is a voice crying in the wilderness, think of Barack Hussein Obama.

I respectfully disagree.

I voted in the last election.  If I had voted for someone else, or not at all, the outcome would not have been any different.

If everyone who didn't vote because it's only one vote, or thought McCain was an idiot, or thought to give the Republicans a message, had voted, The Chosen would be doing his business as an Acorn Organizer instead of the Numb Nuts In Chief.

While true on a group level, it's not true at the individual level.  If I don't have to power change other peoples minds (and votes), then I don't have power to influence the election.

[alex_trebek]

The current administration is proof positive that individual votes carry great weight.  The next time one thinks or one hears that their vote is a voice crying in the wilderness, think of Barack Hussein Obama.

If everyone who didn't vote because it's only one vote, or thought McCain was an idiot, or thought to give the Republicans a message, had voted, The Chosen would be doing his business as an Acorn Organizer instead of the Numb Nuts In Chief.

I voted simply bc I was in a swing state, and tried to "do my part." First time I ever did, and quite frankly I found it to be anti-climatic.

BHO scared the crap out of me, other people my age would only talk about how wonderful he was. This group includes people who I thought were conservative. I think they thought I was a closet racist because I was not supportive of him.

Sometimes I wonder if I was the only one who objectively listened to what he said and formed an opinion accordingly. That said, I can't really bring myself to dislike BHO because he is doing exactly what he said he would. 

I know this is now clichè, but the American people have exactly the government we collectively deserve/desire.

[grampster]

I respectfully disagree.

I voted in the last election.  If I had voted for someone else, or not at all, the outcome would not have been any different.

While true on a group level, it's not true at the individual level.  If I don't have to power change other peoples minds (and votes), then I don't have power to influence the election.

Yes, but you don't see that individuals ultimately do make up groups.  How many individual people that could have voted, pretty much understood the situation, and didn't?  How many individual people, again understanding the situation, decided to vote, but voted as a protest for candidate x or y or z, thus wasting their vote?  And again, how many individuals voted for Obama for all the wrong reasons...his race, his youth, his charisma while not bothering to listen to what he was saying.

We are blessed with a constitutional representative republic.  If we as individuals do not take personal individual responsibility to be informed, to participate, to be involved in our republic then, as we are seeing, we are losing it.  That loss didn't start a year ago.  I've been involved in government at the grassroots level; in a lake association, a statutory lake board, township elected office, several appointed township boards and appointed county boards.  I can tell you unequivically that one person CAN make a difference.  The problem is far too many of us won't make the attempt and we are seeing the result.

The small picture seems to illuminate futility.  But willingness to be involved in the small picture will ultimately affect the big picture.  It has to start again somewhere and some time.  I merely say let it be here and now.

The blood has been shed often enough to secure for us a the way of peaceful change in direction.  It will only work if each of us as individuals take individuaol responsibility to help make it happen, one vote at a time.  To do otherwise is an insult to those who lie under the grass here in America and around the globe.

[longeyes]

It is amusing to see the U.S. try to parse the tribalism of the Third World.  Is it now hearts, minds, and tribes?  Good luck.  Maybe our foreign policy wizards should apply their genius to the growing ethnic and racial divide right here in the US of A.

[Nick1911]

grampster, thanks for flushing that out for me.  I see where you're coming from.  Ultimately these huge voting blocks are composed of individuals.  As one of these said individuals, it's up to me make my one vote.  The other 300 million odd persons in the USA get to do the same.

Let me try to explain my perspective on this:

It's frustrating, as an individual - I spent some time reading about various state and national politics.  I feel like I had a pretty good idea on what the platforms had and stood for, and voted accordingly.  But, my wife's ditzy friend, who doesn't know or even care about any of that voted for Obama because, "OMG, I can say I voted for the first black president, what a historic moment!"

And, our votes effectively canceled out.  It doesn't matter if I spend every waking hour studying politics or not - it's not going to make my vote somehow worth more.  My precinct voted for Obama by about 5300 votes, which isn't a lot, really.  But, as an individual, with my vote, what would have changed if I voted for Obama?  The count would be 5301.  Thats about it.  What if I hadn't voted at all?  Nothing would have changed.

But, I vote for who I think will be the most effective leader.  But that's not enough.

Sure, I could spend every waking hour trying to educate the people who live in this city, and try to sway them towards my viewpoint.  But, any difference I could make would still be just noise compared to the shifts in opinion generated by the mass media.  What's the point? 

[Sergeant Bob]

It is amusing to see the U.S. try to parse the tribalism of the Third World.  Is it now hearts, minds, and tribes?  Good luck.  Maybe our foreign policy wizards should apply their genius to the growing ethnic and racial divide right here in the US of A.

Divide and conquer.

[sanglant]

what if 5 percent of the people that voted against obama(the only other choice) convinced 1 person each to do the same?