""The explosions in Kabul and Khost yesterday showed that they are at the service of America and at the service of this phrase: 2014. They are trying to frighten us into thinking that if the foreigners are not in Afghanistan, we would be facing these sorts of incidents," he said during a nationally televised speech about the state of Afghan women." Chroncom
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"Karzai said in his speech that any foreign powers that want to keep troops in Afghanistan need to do so under conditions set forward by Afghanistan. "We will tell them where we need them, and under which conditions. They must respect our laws. They must respect the national sovereignty of our country and must respect all our customs," Karzai said. "
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It doesn't sound as though an agreement on post 2014 legal extraterritoriality (the SOFA) is any closer. That last was meant to be ironic. BHO has stated (properly I think) that there will be zero US troops in Afghanistan after 2014 without one. This would not include the people in the Defense Attache Office in the embassy. They are covered by the Vienna Convention on the status of diplomats.
The conspiratorially minded already believe that the United States' effort in Afghanistan has been motivated by a desire to possess the goods of that wretched place. Rare earths like lithium, oriental carpets, pistachios, opium, perhaps the odd Bactrian camel, a Yak or two; these are supposedly the spoils for which the US has poured out so many wasted billions of dollars and rivers of blood.
In fact, American policy has been based on the idiocy of armed nation building (COIN) as a fantasy of the foreign policy establishment.
Karzai is president of Afghanistan. His remarks foreshadow the state of Afghan life after 2014. He is "feathering his bed" for the time of our final departure. He knows that what has been wrought in Afghanistan in the last 12 years will disappear like snow in the springtime. pl
http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/Afghan-leader-alleges-US-Taliban-are-colluding-4342917.php
