http://sify.com/news/karzai-threatens-to-join-taliban-news-international-kegmOcbfiid.html

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has reportedly threatened to join the Taliban if he continues to come under 'outside pressure' to reform, a media report said Tuesday.

Karzai made the unusual comments at a closed-door meeting Saturday with select lawmakers, just days after kicking up a diplomatic row with remarks alleging foreigners were behind the fraud in the 2009 disputed elections, the China Daily website reported.

'He (Karzai) said that 'if I come under foreign pressure, I might join the Taliban',' said Farooq Marenai, who represents the eastern province of Nangarhar.

Marenai said Karzai appeared nervous and repeatedly demanded to know why parliament last week rejected legal reforms that would have strengthened the president's authority over the country's electoral institutions.

Two other lawmakers said Karzai twice raised the threat to join the insurgency.

The lawmakers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Karzai dismissed concerns over possible damage his comments had caused to relations with the US.

The Taliban has become increasingly aggressive in Afghanistan amid reports that the US was preparing to pull out after a Pakistan-brokered deal with the 'good Taliban'.

Quote:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's spokesman denied reports that the leader threatened to join the Taliban insurgency if he were pressured further by foreign backers, Times Now TV reported April 8.

http://www.stratfor.com/sitrep/20100408_afghanistan_karzai_spokesman_denies_taliban_comment

Sounds like a remark made out of frustration. Karzai is the US's puppet president. He's come under increasing international scruitiny (read US) to reform Afghanistan's corrupt electoral process.

Karzai would be subsumed by the Taliban - his power would not last long if he defected. The Taliban are - again - the number one power in Afghanistan. The US generals are now conceeding their ineffectiveness against the Taliban's growing power.

It's now eight years of US occupation, and things are returning to pre-2001 - same-same but different. The urban elite have a different agenda to the rural sector. The warlords have never reached a stable consensus. The Taliban appear united.

I believe the US will slowly come around to dealing with the Taliban. If the Taliban can show that they aren't a real threat to the oil and gas flows, I'm sure the US would be prepared to do business with them.

After all, they're prepared to deal with the warlords who produce the world's greatest supply of illegal opium. Why not deal with a slightly modified and renewed Taliban?

It will come to this, I think.

This just goes to show: all these people  and all these 'as if' countries should be either re-colonised and be given the full course on how to be a fully fledged, proper country or be cut off from access to civilisation if they don't want to be re-colonised.
But it is untenable to treat primitives 'as if' they weren't.

To 're'-colonise a territory requires it to have been effectively colonised a first time, which Afghanistan has not. I would remind everyone that the Afghan tribes have, in the longer term, won every war fought against foreign invaders, and the present one is heading in the same direction.

Re-colonise them or bar them from access to civilisation if they don't want to be potty trained. But treating primitives 'as if' they were not primitives is stupid. There are far too many two bit 'as if' countries and iIt's no good pretending they are not.

When you speak to military personnel about the nature of the Afghani, you get a vivid picture of a focussed, resolute, utterly fearless warrior who will fight with every fibre of his being to defend a mud hut.

But leaving them to their own devices was exactly what the west did after the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan... Which didn't work out too well.

Paella wrote on Apr 9^th, 2010 at 11:14pm:

To 're'-colonise a territory requires it to have been effectively colonised a first time, which Afghanistan has not. I would remind everyone that the Afghan tribes have, in the longer term, won every war fought against foreign invaders, and the present one is heading in the same direction.

That is not true

The Medes conquered Afghanistan and ruled it from 728 BC to 550 BC.
Achaemenids had them from 550 BC to 330 BC.
Seleucid Empire ruled over them from 312 BC to 260 BC
Then they were occupied by Mauryan and Greco-Bactrian till Indo-Greeks steadily declined at about 10 AD.
Then in 642 AD, Arabs had conquered most of Persia and then invaded Afghanistan.
By 1219, they had fallen to the Mongols, led by Genghis Khan.
Then Timur (Tamerlane), incorporated what is today Afghanistan into his own vast Timurid Empire.
Then British had them for short while, then Russians, then foreign invaders from Pakistan (Taliban), and now they are under foreigners again.

So the whole history of Afghanistan is the history of its occupation  8-)

Thanks Tallow. It's good to put it into a bit of perspective. We obviously need to acknowledge their resolute opposition to foreign invasion, no matter how long it has been around. But soon they are going to be in a position of fighting a government elected by the Afghan people with no foreign involvement. Cries of 'foreign puupet' are sounding more and more hollow. They will no longer be fighting foreigners, but democracy. There is a limit to how much history can tell us about that.

Yes - a very important issue, thanks, Tallowood.

freediver wrote on Apr 10^th, 2010 at 12:51pm:

Thanks Tallow. It's good to put it into a bit of perspective. We obviously need to acknowledge their resolute opposition to foreign invasion, no matter how long it has been around. But soon they are going to be in a position of fighting a government elected by the Afghan people with no foreign involvement. Cries of 'foreign puupet' are sounding more and more hollow. They will no longer be fighting foreigners, but democracy. There is a limit to how much history can tell us about that.

They must be incorrigible pains in the arse if everyone over the centuries thought it necessary to go and kill them.  Historic inevitability, that's what it looks like to me.