Karzai Calls for New Afghan War Strategy

War 'Not Achieving Anything But Killing Civilians'

by Jason Ditz, August 29, 2010

At a visit today with German parliament head Norbert Lammert, Afghan President Hamid Karzai called for yet another “new” Afghan War strategy, while insisting that the current strategy isn’t accomplishing its goals.

“The experience over the past eight years showed that fighting in Afghan villages has been ineffective and is not achieving anything but killing civilians” Karzai noted, adding that it was necessary to consider a “rethink.”

Of course there have been official “strategy changes” a number of times in the past eight years. Indeed, President Bush announced a strategy in 2008 and President Obama announced two new strategies in 2009 for the war. These changes have amounted, in essence, to massive escalations in funding and the number of troops on the ground.

So far the results have been a pretty precipitously steady rise in casualties and rising unpopularity of the war in Western nations. The civilian toll has also been rising, leading to criticism of the Karzai government.

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