Afghan President Hamid Karzai Slams U.S. Foreign Policy in Farewell Speech

You’ve got to hand it to the brain surgeons running America’s foreign policy. They possess an uncanny ability to seamlessly forge alliances, break alliances and turn former allies into existential enemies, while simultaneously demonizing regimes, making amends with demonized regimes, and then quickly forming alliances with the same bitter enemies.

Friends become enemies and enemies become friends in the blink of an eye. This is what happens when a global empire possesses no real foreign policy other than the pursuit of economic opportunities for mega corporations and the military-industrial complex. The result is perpetual war, countless dead and injured young men and women, and billions of riches for a small and ruthless cadre of oligarchs. This is American foreign policy and those are its results.

Of course, I’m not the only one to notice the repercussions of America’s for profit foreign policy. Former U.S. darling and outgoing Afghan President Hamid Karzai slammed American foreign policy in his farewell speech earlier today. Here are excerpts from New York Times’ coverage:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s departing president, Hamid Karzai, used his final speech to his cabinet and senior staff members to make a bitter swipe at the United States and some of its Western allies on Tuesday, blaming them for many of the country’s ongoing problems.

“America did not want peace for Afghanistan, because it had its own agendas and goals here,” he said. “I have always said this: that if America and Pakistan want peace, it is possible to bring peace to Afghanistan.”

“I want to thank those countries who genuinely supported us. Western countries had their personal interest, the Western countries and the United States had their own personal goal,” Mr. Karzai said.

“I believe the stability of Afghanistan is directly related to United States and Pakistan,” Mr. Karzai said. “If the United States and Pakistan want, peace can be brought to Afghanistan because it is not our war and there is no fight among the Afghans. It is not a combat among the people living in this soil. This war is for the personal interest of foreign policies and this is fight of outsiders in which Afghans are sacrificed.”

Jeremy Scahill summarized U.S. foreign policy perfectly in a Tweet earlier today in reference to the oligarchy finally getting its Syria war after multiple attempts over the past several years:

Operation Keep That War Industry Paid

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) September 23, 2014

Indeed. Eisenhower warned Americans more than half a century ago and we didn’t listen. Karzai is warning his countrymen now. Will they heed the call?

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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