Sgt Bales' secret and an Afghan endgame
By M K Bhadrakumar
By M K Bhadrakumar
Despite the insistence by Washington that the Kandahar killings a week ago were a "rampage" by an "apparently deranged" or "probably deranged" American sergeant, Afghan people believe in the finding by their parliamentarians that up to 15 to 20 US troops were involved. The Afghan president Hamid Karzai also agreed the US version is "not convincing."
Even within the Afghan military establishment, the opinion publicly aired by the Afghan army chief of staff Sher Mohammad Karimi's condemnation of the US troops will prevail. Lieutenant General Karimi who visited the scene of the crime called it a pre-meditated massacre carried out by a number of US troops.
This is going to make the signing of a strategic agreement between Washington and Kabul before the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Chicago in May highly problematic. Washington expects Karzai to put his signature on
the dotted line before May and Karzai knows his political future depends on his performance.
In an extraordinary commentary last week, the influential French troubleshooter Bernard Henri-Levy threatened that the international community should never have "blindly depended upon the corrupt government of Hamid Karzai".
Echoing the views of many US commanders, he lambasted the planned 2014 pullout date as "an admission of failure and impotence", but said that prolonging the military presence beyond 2014 is also difficult "considering the human cost". So, the only course available is to "go and stay" - ie,withdraw combat troops "but leave the military bases and instructors".
Levy has the answer: "Admit that Afghanistan cannot be reduced ... to a desperate confrontation between the Taliban killers and the corrupt members of Karzai's regime ... In Kabul ... there are, then, the heirs of [late Northern Alliance commander Ahmad Shah] Massoud. And perhaps before we pull up the ladder, it would be advisable to try to turn to them, in an ultimate attempt, a last-chance operation."
Karzai is once again being threatened that his potential successor is all dressed up and waiting in the green room. The point is, through all the watershed events of the past six to eight weeks - US troops urinating on Taliban corpses, burning the Koran or massacring civilians - the constant has been the signing of a strategic pact with Kabul that ensures long-term military presence.
The US President Barack Obama repeated last Tuesday during his joint press conference with the visiting British Prime Minister David Cameron that Karzai has been left in no doubt. But post-Panjwayi, this can no longer be reduced to a battle of wits between Obama and Karzai alone.
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