Present at the Creation

The Weekly Standard ^ | 12/20/2004 | Stephen F. Hayes

[RepCath]

Kabul, Afghanistan NINETY MINUTES before he was inaugurated as the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai emerged from a private meeting at his presidential palace with Vice President Dick Cheney to address reporters. "Presidential palace" is what the Afghans call it, anyway. It's a generous description. Many of the buildings in the heavily fortified compound are at least partially collapsed. Windows of the edifice that served as the backdrop for the brief press conference bear the scars of the fighting that was routine in modern Afghanistan.

Those battles have subsided in recent months. "Jihad fatigue" was the explanation from one burly State Department security contractor, a former Special Forces soldier with nearly two years in Kabul. His colleague, a more recent arrival, told me he is astonished at the improvements in the security situation in the two months since he came to Afghanistan.

[RepCath]

Karzai: Whatever we have achieved in Afghanistan--the peace, the election, the reconstruction, the life that the Afghans are living today in peace, the children going to school, the businesses, the fact that Afghanistan is again a respected member of the international community--is from the help that the United States of America gave us. Without that help Afghanistan would be in the hands of terrorists--destroyed, poverty-stricken, and without its children going to school or getting an education. We are very, very grateful, to put it in the simple words that we know, to the people of the United States of America for bringing us this day. Sadly, most Americans never heard these words.

[Search4Truth]

Talk is cheap. Will we soon be seeing a memorial erected in Afghanistan to honor the men who fought and died for their freedom?

http://www.fallenheroesmemorial.com

[LtKerst]

When are the Afghan People going to start taking care of their own country??? 3 years now??? we have been babysitting these Candy-asses!