Richard Engel just said a rapid Afghan US troop withdrawal would require Karzai leaving with them

[NNN0LHI]

Karzai government must really be loved over there.

Don

[FarCenter]

1. Karzai, our stooge, would be dead within hours of our leaving

[Pirate Smile]

3. It is so weird because if he is our stooge, we hate him and he hates us so ... makes for an odd

relationship. We would have been happy for him to lose the last "election" but he stole it. Karzai is just another millstone that the Bush Administration left for the Obama Administration. Ugh.

[gratuitous]

7. It is rather odd

And yet, we in the United States make this same foreign policy blunder over and over again. We install or prop up someone to be the boss somewhere, and we never quite learn why this doesn't make the boss the most beloved man in the country. Then, when the inevitable happens, and our man in Kabul (or Tehran, or Cairo, or Tripoli, or wherever) is exiled or executed or otherwise disposed of, we have no credibility with the people. And son-of-a-gun if they aren't terribly anxious to make sure we're pleased with their replacement for our puppet, the ingrates.

But you all don't mind another few thousand dead soldiers, and tens of thousands of dead foreigners, if it means a fatter bottom line for Halliburton or KKR next quarter, do you?

[happyslug]

5. No he will not, he will beat the last US troops out by Days if not Weeks

n/t

[TwilightGardener]

2. That's fine, make some room for him on the jet and get the eff out of dodge.

[MilesColtrane]

4. Our Man in Armani is afraid of his beloved citizens?

How can it be?

[spanone]

6. leave now..... bring him back to run the republican party.

[TheKentuckian]

8. They got jump seats or failing that, clear him and his out a corner.