How much is the United States spending in Afghanistan? It must be in millions of dollars but, however great a sum it is, it does not seem to be buying as much influence with President Karsai as Iran is getting for a much smaller contribution. At a press conference in Kabul yesterday, Karsai blithely admitted that he gets twice-yearly bags of cash of 700'000 dollars from Iran to help him run his private office. There is nothing hidden, he said,the US is doing the same thing.
It is not necessary to approve of everything the US and its allies have done and are doing in Afghanistan to think that Hamid Karsai is an unsatisfactory partner and that he enjoys teasing and infuriating Washington. His casual implication that Iran's backhanders can in any way be compared with the human and financial commitments that America has made in his country is deeply insulting.
At his press conference Karsai also reiterated his demand that all US private security contractors should quit Afghanistan by the end of this year. The use of these contractors by America is controversial but, again, Karsai had to provoke by calling them killers of children, which they are not. Mostly, they are protecting people working on US financed educational, agricultural and other development projects which will come to a standstill without their presence. Karsai should show more respect to the US even if he does not feel it.
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