Monday, April 14, 2008

Bernier to Karzai - Ditch Khalid

Canada's ForAffMin Maxime Bernier may need to brush up on his diplomacy.

Speaking to reporters at Kandahar airfield, Bernier said it's time for Afghan president Hamid Karzai to ditch Kandahar governor Asadullah Khalid.

"I think (Karzai) can work with us to be sure the governor will be more powerful, the governor will do what he has to do to help us," he said. "There's a question to maybe have a new governor. They're a sovereign state, they're going to have to decide the measure the president will have to take about the future of the governor here.

"Is it the right person at the right place at the right time? President Karzai will have to answer these questions as soon as possible."

Of course there's nothing in Bernier's remarks intended to meddle with Afghan sovereignty. Yeah, right. Then again, maybe Karzai needs Bernier to tell him how to run Kandahar province, eh?

It probably won't take more than a day or two for Karzai to fire back. He got enmeshed in a pretty vicious war or words with the Brits over his appointment for governor of Helmand province. Being an Afghan, these remarks can represent a huge loss of face, especially to a national leader utterly beholden to (aka "held captive by") his nation's warlords.

3 comments:

LeDaro said...

Haper needs a new Foriegn Affairs Minister. Then again Harper needs to go too as he is screwing the country.

The Mound of Sound said...

He LD. I took the opportunity to review Harper's relationship with Khalid since accusations first emerged that he was involved in torturing detainees.

This is only speculation but I have to wonder whether Bernier's remarks were entirely coincidental to the detainee torture initiative of the Military Police Complaints Commission that Harper is now working so urgently to suppress.

Does Harper need Karzai to dump Khalid in order to dodge anticipated heat from the MPCC?

LeDaro said...

I do not think firing governor of Kandahar will minimize the heat from the MPCC.

As you have written in the earlier posts that whole Afghanistan thing is rotten from top to bottom. Bunch of warlords, including Karzai, who are enriching themselves from the money coming via NATO countries plus opium trade.

Canada or NATO for that matter can fix nothing in Afghanistan other than losing more lives. Are they establishing democracy? That will be the biggest crock in history.