Karzai tries to ease mistrust
Polished politicians both, Presidents Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai spoke directly to one another’s constituencies at a White House appearance, hoping to ease mistrust straining their war alliance.
Mr Karzai arrived in Washington after a series of spats with US officials, which saw him pilloried in the media and Congress as either a bumbling incompetent or a kind of political gangster unworthy of support. His four-day visit was elaborately scripted, with Mr Karzai offered the full pomp of a White House visit on Wednesday, in an apparent bid to build his standing among US voters and to show that Mr Obama’s Afghan troop stra-tegy was on track.
Both Mr Obama and Mr Karzai appeared to appreciate the political strains weighing the other down, in apparent recognition that their fates are intertwined.
In the ornate East Room of the White House, they spoke with unusual candour about two critical issues: Afghan civilians killed in US action, and perceived Afghan ingratitude for US sacrifices.
At one dramatic moment of a press conference, Mr Karzai looked Mr Obama in the eye, describing how he visited a wounded US veteran of the Afghan war who is now a multiple amputee. “It was a very difficult moment for me, Mr President... It was heart-rendering,” Mr Karzai said. Mr Karzai apparently had his eye on more than Mr Obama. His emotional story also seemed calculated to show the American public, weary of an apparently endless, and increasingly bloody war, that he was grateful for its support.
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