US Senator John Kerry said, in an interview to be aired yesterday, it was “irresponsible” to send more US troops to Afghanistan at this time, amid a deepening election crisis that has placed the Kabul government’s legitimacy at stake.
The US should not proceed with a new Afghanistan strategy committing a potentially major increase in US resources, including tens of thousands more troops, without first securing a clear partner in Kabul, Kerry told CNN.
“It would be entirely irresponsible for the president of the United States to commit more troops to this country, when we don’t even have an election finished and know who the president is and what kind of government we’re working in, with,” said Kerry, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“When our own commanding general tells us that a critical component of achieving our mission here is, in fact, good governance, and we’re living with a government that we know has to change and provide it, how could the president responsibly say, ‘Oh, they asked for more, sure — here they are?’” he said.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government has been plagued by uncertainty and a legitimacy crisis after allegations of widespread fraud in the August elections whose preliminary results put him on top, and ongoing charges of corruption.
Kerry, a Democrat, was in Afghanistan ahead of an anticipated announcement on whether a run-off election would be held between Karzai and his main challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
Obama is nearing a decision on the way forward in Afghanistan, after weeks of deliberations with his top advisers, but also as public support wanes for the conflict.
The US contingent, set to reach 68,000 troops by the end of the year, is experiencing heavy casualties as it combats a Taliban that has regrouped and gained momentum.
Among those options being considered are to follow a grim assessment by the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, and adopt a counter-insurgency strategy that requires at least 40,000 more troops.
Vice President Joe Biden meanwhile is pushing for a more narrow, counterterrorism approach focused on targeting Al-Qaeda militants in Afghanistan and primarily in Pakistan using unmanned drone aircraft and Special Operations Forces.
Top Democrats in the US Congress, meanwhile, are pushing for a middle path that might see thousands of troops deployed solely to train the Afghan security forces.
Kerry stressed, as the White House has, that withdrawing from Afghanistan, which Obama has called a “war of necessity” and not a “war of choice,” is out of the question for now.
“Obviously, if you exhibit weakness or indecision, or if the United States were to suddenly pull out of here, it would be disastrous in terms of the message that it sends. Nobody is talking about that. That’s not what’s on the table here,” he said.
“What we’re trying to figure out so that we don’t repeat mistakes of the past, is not just ... endlessly asking our military to deploy and go out and fight if we aren’t certain that we’re giving them the mission that, in fact, is achievable and that the American people will in fact stay committed to it,” he said.
Even if Obama were to approve McChrystal’s favored option, most of the reinforcements would not arrive in Afghanistan until next year, Kery said.
Speaking to CBS television, Kerry said he did not see how Obama “can make a decision about the committing of our additional forces, or even the further fulfillment of our mission that’s here today, without an adequate government in place or knowledge about what that government’s going to be.”
He said it was time for Karzai to “step up” and explain how they could be a viable partner.
Excerpts of the interviews were provided by the networks and were to be aired in full yesterday on CNN’s State of the Union and CBS’s Face the Nation.
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
RSS