Video- Ex-UN Envoy Peter Galbraith Questions Karzai's Mental Stability, Attributes it to Drug Abuse

Pretty incendiary words. Vid via FDL.

VIDEO: Obama makes surprise trip to Afghanistan

By GottaLaff

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There is supposed to be live feed of the president soon. I'll try to post it when it comes in.

KABUL - Getting a firsthand look at the 8-year-old war he inherited and dramatically escalated, U.S. President Barack Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Sunday, telling President Hamid Karzai and his cabinet that they must do more to rein in rampant corruption.

After a brief meeting with Karzai at the presidential palace in Kabul, Obama praised recent steps in the military campaign against insurgents, but said Afghans needed to see conditions on the ground get better.

President Obama invited Karzai to visit him in May. Spring and summer is the time of the year during which violence increases, mainly because of improved weather conditions.

A White House official said Obama also wanted to get an "on the ground update" about the war from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO commander, as well as Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador.

The ever increasing number of casualties isn't the kind of news Americans want to hear. However, the support for the efforts in Afghanistan has increased rather dramatically:

The latest Associated Press-GfK poll at the beginning of March found that 57 percent of those surveyed approved his handling of the war in Afghanistan compared to 49 percent two months earlier.

Things are going "in the right direction", per officials, according to MSNBC just now, despite the fact that the praise of Karzai as a "partner" was, well, tepid. But images of Obama "walking the carpet" with him shows confidence in the relationship.

U.S. ambassador dissents on Afghan troop increase

By GottaLaff

UPDATE: Official: Obama rejects all Afghan war options

Dissent or tactic?

The U.S. ambassador in Kabul sent two classified cables to Washington in the last week expressing deep concerns about sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan until Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government demonstrates that it is willing to tackle the corruption and mismanagement that has fueled the Taliban's rise, said senior U.S. officials. [...]

The last-minute dissent by Eikenberry, who commanded U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, has rankled his former colleagues in the Pentagon -- as well as Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, said defense officials. [...]

His position as a former commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan is likely to give added weight to his concerns. It will also likely fan growing doubts about U.S. prospects for Afghanistan among an increasingly pessimistic public.

Brother of Afghan Leader Is Said to Be on C.I.A. Payroll

By GottaLaff

Double take. Triple take:

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.

The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency and Mr. Karzai raise significant questions about America’s war strategy, which is currently under review at the White House.[...]

The C.I.A.’s practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban.

More broadly, some American officials argue that the reliance on Ahmed Wali Karzai, the most powerful figure in a large swath of southern Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgency is strongest, undermines the American push to develop an effective central government that can maintain law and order and eventually allow the United States to withdraw.

Go read the rest here. Wow. This puts an entirely new slant on things, doesn't it?

President Obama's remarks after meeting with Zardari & Karzai

Many thanks to FDL for the vid.

US will appoint Afghan 'prime minister' to bypass Hamid Karzai

By GottaLaff

Change could be, er, imposed upon Afghanistan:

The US and its European allies are ­preparing to plant a high-profile figure in the heart of the Kabul government in a direct challenge to the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, the Guardian has learned.

The creation of a new chief executive or prime ministerial role is aimed at bypassing Karzai. In a further dilution of his power, it is proposed that money be diverted from the Kabul government to the provinces. Many US and European officials have become disillusioned with the extent of the corruption and incompetence in the Karzai government, but most now believe there are no credible alternatives, and predict the Afghan president will win re-election in August. [...]

The idea of a more dependable figure working alongside Karzai is one of the proposals to emerge from the White House review, completed last week. Obama, locked away at the presidental retreat Camp David, was due to make a final decision this weekend. [...]

The proposal for an alternative chief executive, which originated with the US, is backed by Europeans. "There needs to be a deconcentration of power," said one senior European official. "We need someone next to Karzai, a sort of chief executive, who can get things done, who will be reliable for us and accountable to the Afghan people." [...]

No names have emerged for the new role but the US holds in high regard the reformist interior minister appointed in October, Mohammed Hanif Atmar.

The risk for the US is that the imposition of a technocrat alongside Karzai would be viewed as colonialism, even though that figure would be an Afghan. Karzai declared his intention last week to resist a dilution of his power. Last week he accused an unnamed foreign government of trying to weaken central government in Kabul. [...]

Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who will implement the new policy, said it would represent a "vastly restructured effort". At the weekend in Brussels, he was scathing about the Bush administration's conduct of the counter-insurgency. "The failures in the civilian side ... are so enormous we can at least hope that if we get our act together ... we can do a lot better," he said.

Risky business.

Afghan president wishes he could down U.S. planes

By GottaLaff

Things are not going well between Bush and the president of Afghanistan. According to Karzai, all he needs is some string and a rock to show Bush who's boss:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Wednesday he would bring down U.S. planes bombing villages if he could, in a sign of growing tension between Afghanistan and its Western backers as the Taliban insurgency grows in strength. [...]

In recent weeks, Karzai has repeatedly blamed the West for the worsening security in Afghanistan, saying NATO failed to target Taliban and al Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan and calling for the war to be taken out of Afghan villages.

"We have no other choice, we have no power to stop the planes, if we could, if I could ... we would stop them and bring them down," Karzai told a news conference.

He said that if he had something like the rock attached to a piece of string, known as a chelak in Dari, used to bring down kites in Afghanistan, he would use it.

"If we had a chelak, we would throw it and stop the American aircraft. We have no radar to stop them in the sky, we have no planes," he said. "I wish I could intercept the planes that are going to bomb Afghan villages, but that's not in my hands."

Not exactly a sign of a budding friendship.