Angry in the Great White North

Thanks to a reader, we have the original interview from which the NDP extracted the quote that suggested that the Afghani government wants the Canadian troops who bomb villages to leave his country.

Here is the full context of the quote:

FAREED ZAKARIA, Editor, Newsweek International: Let me ask you a question about the military challenge you face with regard to the Taliban. As you said, it may be a greater military problem than a political one. There are military officials in Afghanistan and those who have been there who make the following the case: The Taliban is developing a much stronger base in Kandahar, and they—some of them say you are—seem unaware of the problem, or if you are aware it, are not energetically focused on it and that this a large part of the problem.

So if they were sitting here, what would you tell them?

PRESIDENT HAMID KARZAI: The Taliban?

ZAKARIA: No, no, the military officials—U.S. military officials. (Laughter.)

KARZAI: Okay. Okay. Okay. (Laughter.) Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. I know the problem. Perhaps the Afghans know the problem more than the international community would know the problem. It is, after all, our problem, but it is not a problem that has come to us from inside of Afghanistan. It’s a problem that has come to us from outside of Afghanistan. It actually started outside of Afghanistan with our war against the Soviets, when we became refugees in Pakistan and Iran, and when the rest of the world began to help us.

The radicalization and the arrival of radical movements, the arrival of radical elements from outside of Afghanistan began then. And when the Soviets left and when the West also left, this country of ours was left all alone to the wishes of the neighbors. And the neighbors brought in massive radical influence into Afghanistan. The result was the Taliban movement and the subsequent events that followed.

Now too the problem is external. It has an internal symptom. The symptoms are inside Afghanistan, but the roots are outside of Afghanistan. And when I was talking earlier this morning, I said it’s not so much of a military problem as it is a political problem, in the sense that we must concentrate on the sources of training and financing and equipping and motivating and all that outside of Afghanistan if we are to be able to defeat terrorism forever in the region and beyond.

Now, I have become critical of the military action, for which, of course, the military would not like my words. Bombings in Afghanistan are no solution to the Taliban. You do not destroy terrorism by bombing villages. You do not destroy terrorism by launching military operations in areas where only the symptoms are emerging. I’ve said that. And as a human being, I don’t like anybody to be killed. Two months ago I said that—there was an announcement that 500 Taliban were killed, and I said, “Well, I’m sorry.” The Taliban are also people. Maybe they don’t like us, but a lot of them are not terrorists; they don’t like me, maybe they don’t like others. They’re not terrorists, they’re just people who are misled.

Now, we should go to the handlers of them, to the source where they are trained and equipped. There is a 15-year-old boy, there is an 18-year-old boy, extremely poor, extremely desperate, extremely unaware of the rest of the world, in a Pakistani madrassa. And in that madrassa, the teacher tells him, “Go to Afghanistan. The country has become Christian. The country has become Jewish. There are Americans and all other—(inaudible word)—there in Afghanistan. Go kill them, and you will be in heaven straightaway.”

Now, does it solve the problem by killing this young, ignorant person, or by going and closing that madrassa in Pakistan? That is what I’m asking for, and that is what is not properly understood.

But does that mean Karzai wants Canadian troops to get out? Later in the same interview:

ZAKARIA: But I asked you whether American troops were still welcome in Afghanistan, and you told a story about your experience.

KARZAI: Well, that’s a very touching story. I told that story in the context of the story of morality that I related to you then. I’m not going to repeat it here now too. The audience—they will hear it from that audience.

ZAKARIA: Right.

KARZAI: It was early November or late October of 2001. I was in a mountain area of the country with a few people. One day a shepherd comes and tells me that the provincial capital has been taken by the population, and they’re looking for somebody called Karzai, and they’ve looked for him in—back in Pakistan. They want to—they want him to go there.

So we said, “That’s good news. Let’s go and find out.” We sent somebody there, and the person came back in the evening, saying, “Yes, that’s true. The provincial capital is taken.” And we moved in the next day to that place.

Within that night, the American Special Forces also arrived in the provincial capital. The next day, over—it was the month of Ramadan. The next day, over breaking of the fast, over iftaar, I was with some local elders. One of the local leaders had just lost seven of his family, children and grandchildren, to a coalition bombing that was pursuing some Taliban who had run away from their headquarters, who had gone to somebody’s house, and the planes followed them there—you have fast planes, by the way; they can chase people quickly around—and well, were followed to that man’s house. As the Taliban entered the house, the family was running out of the house, the planes came and bombed and hit the family, which lost seven of its children.

And when the Americans came, I did not know if I should introduce this gentleman to them or them to the person. But I said, “Well, let me do it.” And I told the man—I said, “Mr. So-and-So, these are American soldiers who have come here to help us.” And he said, “Well, great,” told that “just about 10 years ago, in a bombing, I lost seven people of my family, and I have three more children—grandchildren left. And if the three are also killed in a similar bombing, I wouldn’t mind, if you truly liberate my country from terrorism and the Taliban.” That was the strength of the feeling then in Afghanistan.

Today it is again the same strength of feeling. Today the Afghans say, “What is going on? How come we are still under attack? How come, with the presence of the United States and the rest of the world, there is still somebody that can come threaten our schools, kill our teachers, kill our school children, destroy mosques?”

So that question is still there, with some frustration, of course.

So, to give you a precise answer, the Afghan people want the international community in Afghanistan, but the Afghan people are frustrated that security and protection from terrorism has not been given to them yet.

Seems pretty clear to me. Like any Afghan, he does not want to see his countrymen die. But he does not blame the Coalition forces. Neither does the man who lost his family in the story Karzai relates. Karzai (and the man in the story) blame the meddlers from Pakistan and other places who are using misguided Afghans to promote their own violent agenda. He was pointing out that killing the Taliban and wiping out their villages won't solve the problem, because the problem is rooted outside of Afghanistan.

That is not to say that the hard-core Taliban must not be confronted. They are the ones who are importing the radicalism from outside Afghanistan's borders, or so Karzai argues.

Despite what the NDP quote was suggesting, it does mean that the Afghani government wants the Coalition out. Indeed he wants them to stay and to help, but he wants a more comprehensive effort to root out the terrorists who are using Afghanistan as a battleground.

Compare what Karzai actually said to the NDP spin:

Given Karzai's stern condemnation of the military operation today, it's clear that the highest levels of the Afghan government are less supportive of this unbalanced military mission than the Conservatives are letting on.

Stern condemnation? Yet another NDP lie. Another Jack Layton lie.