{"id":9921,"date":"2011-06-02T08:44:46","date_gmt":"2011-06-02T16:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=9921"},"modified":"2011-06-02T08:44:46","modified_gmt":"2011-06-02T16:44:46","slug":"careless-occupiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/02\/careless-occupiers\/","title":{"rendered":"Careless Occupiers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>U.S. and NATO leadership <a href=\"http:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2011\/05\/31\/nato-spurns-karzai-call-to-stop-attacking-civilian-homes\/\">responded<\/a> to Karzai\u2019s warning to stop killing civilians by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenational.ae\/news\/worldwide\/south-asia\/karzai-warns-nato-stop-bombing-homes-or-be-branded-an-occupying-force\">essentially saying<\/a>, \u201cShut up, Hamid. Mind your own business.\u201d Robert Gates\u2019 condescending hollowness in response to Karzai\u2019s criticism of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/politics\/news\/the-kill-team-20110327\">slaughter<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/nm\/20110529\/wl_nm\/us_afghanistan_civilians\">of innocent Afghans<\/a> was truly pitiful:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cI think President Karzai is reflecting the pain and suffering that the Afghan people have had to endure,\u201d Gates told reporters in Honolulu yesterday. \u201cI think he also recognizes &#8212; and the Afghan people do &#8212; that we are their ally, we are their friend and we are trying to help them develop the capability to protect themselves.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Can\u2019t you understand Hamid? These crimes we\u2019re committing on your people are for their own good!<\/p>\n<p>Analysis of the war in Afghanistan, as with much else about America\u2019s foreign policy, is approached by the political class as if its surgery, delicately considering the policy implications. Troop reductions (how many tens of thousands, in what province), \u201cnegotiations\u201d (leverage, allies, tipping the balance), a little here, a little there, delicate snips, cautious moves, etc. Instead of treating this travesty like a trigonometry problem, the technocrats and policy wonks need to start calling it what it is: <a href=\"http:\/\/unama.unmissions.org\/Portals\/UNAMA\/Documents\/Civilian%20Protection%20Facts%20Figures%20and%20Recommendations%20August%202010.pdf\">a<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.internal-displacement.org\/8025708F004BE3B1\/(httpInfoFiles)\/8C20C57891906F4FC125786F003978FE\/$file\/Afghanistan_Overview_April2011.pdf\">humanitarian<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/unama.unmissions.org\/Portals\/UNAMA\/human%20rights\/March%20PoC%20Annual%20Report%20Final.pdf\">disaster<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>U.S. and NATO leadership responded to Karzai\u2019s warning to stop killing civilians by essentially saying, \u201cShut up, Hamid. Mind your own business.\u201d Robert Gates\u2019 condescending hollowness in response to Karzai\u2019s criticism of the slaughter of innocent Afghans was truly pitiful: \u201cI think President Karzai is reflecting the pain and suffering that the Afghan people have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-9921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9921"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9923,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9921\/revisions\/9923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9921"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}