Christina Lamb: Karzai’s Paranoid World
[Christina Lamb is Washington bureau chief of the London Sunday Times and has been covering Afghanistan and Pakistan for 22 years. She has been named Britain's foreign correspondent of the year five times. Her books include Sewing Circles of Herat: A Personal Voyage through Afghanistan (Harper Collins).]
When Hamid Karzai is re-inaugurated as president today after one of the world’s dodgiest elections, everyone from Washington to Whitehall will be watching for some sign that he will clean up his act. If he doesn’t, many—including U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry—believe it will be well nigh impossible to defeat the Taliban, however many troops President Obama might ultimately decide to send.
Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown has described the Karzai government as a “byword for corruption” and warned he will “forfeit” international support if he doesn’t improve. The Obama administration has given the same message and suggested a list of clean names they would like to see in the cabinet.
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But while the international community increasingly sees Karzai as the problem, the Afghan president says he believes he is doing nothing different than he has since they put him there in December 2001 and it is they who are trying to undermine him...
...I’ve known Karzai since 1987, when for two years I lived a few blocks away from him in Peshawar. In those days, he was unknown, the spokesman for the Afghan National Liberation Front, which was the smallest of the seven resistance groups fighting the Russians.
Hardly any journalists went to visit him back then, so he was delighted to talk, particularly as he had gone to school in the old Indian hill-station of Simla and was a real Anglophile. He loved Cadburys chocolate, Somerset Maugham stories, and English movies. He dressed in a battered leather jacket and jeans and had a big belly laugh.
He was also an extremely proud member of the Popalzai tribe, one of the Durrani tribes of Kandahar descended from Afghanistan’s first king. His house was always crowded with tribal elders for whom he was expected to provide vast cauldrons of rice and mutton, as well as lodging and money to get them home again. I was fascinated by their stories, most of which involved feuds and revenge and an honor code that meant protecting guests even if they had committed a crime.
Karzai’s dream was to be a diplomat or maybe foreign minister. He lived in awe of his father, chief of the Popalzai tribe, and it was because of him the tribesmen came to visit.
The only time Karzai went inside Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, I accompanied him. We traveled around Kandahar on motorbikes with a group called the Mullahs Front (who went on to be the Taliban), lived on dry bread and okra, taking part in an ill-advised attack on Kandahar Airport...
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When Hamid Karzai is re-inaugurated as president today after one of the world’s dodgiest elections, everyone from Washington to Whitehall will be watching for some sign that he will clean up his act. If he doesn’t, many—including U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry—believe it will be well nigh impossible to defeat the Taliban, however many troops President Obama might ultimately decide to send.
Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown has described the Karzai government as a “byword for corruption” and warned he will “forfeit” international support if he doesn’t improve. The Obama administration has given the same message and suggested a list of clean names they would like to see in the cabinet.
Click here to find out more!
But while the international community increasingly sees Karzai as the problem, the Afghan president says he believes he is doing nothing different than he has since they put him there in December 2001 and it is they who are trying to undermine him...
...I’ve known Karzai since 1987, when for two years I lived a few blocks away from him in Peshawar. In those days, he was unknown, the spokesman for the Afghan National Liberation Front, which was the smallest of the seven resistance groups fighting the Russians.
Hardly any journalists went to visit him back then, so he was delighted to talk, particularly as he had gone to school in the old Indian hill-station of Simla and was a real Anglophile. He loved Cadburys chocolate, Somerset Maugham stories, and English movies. He dressed in a battered leather jacket and jeans and had a big belly laugh.
He was also an extremely proud member of the Popalzai tribe, one of the Durrani tribes of Kandahar descended from Afghanistan’s first king. His house was always crowded with tribal elders for whom he was expected to provide vast cauldrons of rice and mutton, as well as lodging and money to get them home again. I was fascinated by their stories, most of which involved feuds and revenge and an honor code that meant protecting guests even if they had committed a crime.
Karzai’s dream was to be a diplomat or maybe foreign minister. He lived in awe of his father, chief of the Popalzai tribe, and it was because of him the tribesmen came to visit.
The only time Karzai went inside Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, I accompanied him. We traveled around Kandahar on motorbikes with a group called the Mullahs Front (who went on to be the Taliban), lived on dry bread and okra, taking part in an ill-advised attack on Kandahar Airport...