The firing of a two-star general who was in charge of crucial Afghan military training programs last week for his loose-lipped comments about Afghan President Hamid Karzai was quickly overtaken by other news from the troubled region.
But the comments by Maj. Gen. Peter Fuller reflect the deep-seated beliefs of top American and Afghan officials as the U.S. enters the critical stage of preparing for a pullout from Afghanistan.
Fuller was fired after criticizing Karzai’s statement that Afghanistan would back Pakistan if Pakistan were attacked by the U.S.
“Why don’t you just poke me in the eye with a needle,” Fuller. “You’ve got to be kidding me. … I’m sorry, we just gave you $11.6 billion, and now you’re telling me, ‘I don’t really care?'”
The only thing unusual about those remarks coming from a top American military or intelligence officials is that Fuller did not ask for “on background” status from the Politico reporter.
A senior U.S. policy maker — much farther up the food chain than Fuller — told The Washington Examiner recently,
“Karzai has made it difficult to achieve U.S. policy goals in Afghanistan. It’s extremely frustrating.”
In terms of frustrating U.S. allies, Karzai’s upcoming week is no exception. He is convening a traditional Afghan meeting on Wednesday, known as a loya jirga, where he will discuss U.S. Afghan relations. In doing so, he is bypassing Afghanistan’s parliament and the other democratic institutions painstakingly installed in the country under the protection of U.S. and NATO forces, said U.S. and Afghan policy-makers.
Afghan legislators and opposition leaders say Karzai is working against his own government with the hope of retaining power outside Afghanistan’s new constitution.
“He is manipulating the system for his benefit,” said former presidential candidate Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, 51, in an interview last month with The Examiner in Kabul. Abdullah ran in 2009 as an independent candidate in the Afghan presidential election. He came in second. Many election observers said the process was tainted by widespread fraud by Karzai supporters.
“This loya jirga is his way of attempting to stay in power (beyond his two terms.) He is trying to manipulate the US and his own people,” Abdullah said.
Despite tens of billions of dollars in aide, more than 1,800 U.S. troops killed in action and thousands of injured fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, Karzai, “not only dismisses our efforts but threatens us to gain favor with Pakistan,” said a U.S. military officer who asked not to be named.
Another military officer in Afghanistan told The Examiner that many times the U.S. often gives in to Karzai’s wishes, “at the expense of our troops, military and even our national security.” He added, “The administration needs to worry more about the troops who are sacrificing their lives, instead of making excuses for Karzai, when even his own people don’t trust him. Our commanders are fighting two battles; one against the Taliban and the other against a muddled policy that Karzai uses to manipulate us.”
Civilian analysts say Karzai has become an obstruction to U.S. goals in Afghanistan.
James Carafano, a senior defense analyst with the Heritage Foundation, said Karzai’s obstructionist behavior can be tied to the Obama administration’s decision to announce a withdrawal date from Afghanistan.
“Pulling out by 2014 and failing to fully implement a robust counterinsurgency strategy pretty much guarantees the Taliban and al Qaeda are going to roll back in and things will look a lot more like they were on Sept. 10, 2001,” Carafano said. For Karzai, that made it imperative to start planning for a post-America Afghanistan in which the Taliban must be accommodated, experts said.
Meanwhile, until the U.S. completes its pull-out, soldiers in Afghanistan remain in danger but feel like their service isn’t creating a clear path to a meaningful outcome, according to several interviews with American soldiers in combat zones near the Pakistan border.
And some who have already served in harm’s way in Afghanistan say Karzai’s words and actions make their sacrifices seem futile. To them, Fuller was not impolitic, but a truth teller.
“The problem is that Karzai’s demands make it impossible for us to win or destroy the enemy,” said a U.S. soldier who lost his leg in Kandahar, Afghanistan, last year. “We couldn’t engage the enemy because the rules are so strict… Fuller was telling it like it is, since no else is.”
Sara A. Carter is The Washington Examiner’s national security correspondent. She can be reached at [email protected].
