Who's in charge?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.guardian.c...fghanistan-conference

/// UK troops could be in Afghanistan for 15 years, says Hamid Karzai ///

Here we have Afghanistan's President telling us that British troops could be in Afghanistan for 15years.

Yet our own Prime Minister would not be drawn on a timetable, and said instead that "British withdrawal depended on conditions in the country".

How is it that President Hamid Karza can foresee how long our troops could remain in his country, yet our own PM cannot it seems, see any further than the end of his nose?

[daftgrandad]

No change there then !

[another-view]

Presumably because the president of Afghanistan will know more about his own country than someone the other side of the world.

o_O

[bibblebub]

He said COULD not WOULD.

[anotheoldgit]

As I have already said.

[rov1200]

I can never understand why The Afghans can't control the country themselves. They have now more than 250,000 Afghan troops and armed to the teeth. How many militant Taliban objectors out there? Surely a fraction of this. Could it be that the tribes lean towards the Taliban, give them food and assistance, hide them from NATO soldiers and then the freedom to cause us trouble. We are not just fighting the Taliban but the Afghanistan nation.

[youngmafbog]

It's probably what he would like rather than what he will get.

Troop numbers mean very little if there is no experience behind it as Saddam found out when his conscripts all started running.

[123everton]

We defeated Germany more than 60 years ago and we're still there.
You don't build nations overnight, you will need at least 2 generations of school leavers to have a chance of stability.