Mendacity. What do you know about mendacity? I could write a book on it...Mendacity. Look at all the lies that I got to put up with. Boy, I've lived with mendacity. Now why can't you live with it? You've got to live with it. There's nothin' to live with but mendacity. Is there?

    Big Daddy—Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

 

Introduction:

 

Several months ago, I was disturbed when a Member of Congress screamed out at a joint session of Congress that the President was a “liar.” My dismay resulted from my long-standing belief that we should honor the office of the presidency. I further felt that our democracy has been enhanced by reasoned discourse and not passionate outbursts. 

 

Nevertheless, I now am not certain how to express my outrage. Specifically, how should a citizen respond to a public relations effort that is deceitful? I am referring to the news conference (May 12, 2010) between President Obama and Hamid Karzai. Both men gave blatant distortions of historical facts and attempted to masquerade the facts surrounding the status of the Afghanistan War. Sadly, someday we will leave Afghanistan with no greater long-term influence than Alexander the Great, the Romans, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. We will have achieved nothing positive after spending $ hundreds of billions and causing the deaths of untold thousands of people. Indeed, to quote Barbara Tuchman, Afghanistan is a March of Folly.

 

Main Topic

 

Yesterday, at the White House, President Obama and Hamid Karzai participated in what the New York Times described as a “highly choreographed” meeting. The meeting and public pronouncements by Obama and Karzai were hypocritical deceptive lies—mendacity!

 

1) Obama said in front of television cameras “let me begin by saying a lot of them (tensions) were simply overstated.”  Obama and Karzai pretended that despite extensive coverage of differences between our two governments for the past few months, America and Afghanistan are in fact close allies fighting

• Against terrorism.

• For democracy 

 

It is a total fabrication to believe that America and Afghanistan are indeed allies. Our involvement in Afghanistan was a direct bi-product of the 9/11 attack. Along with the rest of the world, we overthrew the Taliban regime of Afghanistan in response to the unprovoked attack on our country. 

 

Who was the “source of the tensions?” The answer is of course is the White House. To play this “cat and mouse” game with the American public about our relations with Karzai is an insult to the intelligence of the American public. 

 

America and Afghanistan have absolutely no common ground because we represent totally contradictory world views. Instead of glossing over our differences, it would be in our best interest to totally disassociate our self from this monstrous regime—a regime that relegates women to second class status and imposes the death sentence on Moslems wishing to convert to Christianity.

 

The real question is why we chose Karzai to represent us. Was there no better alternative within Afghanistan? He was a disastrous choice of “being our man in Kabul.”

 

He shares none of our values, serves as a major conduit for heinous drugs, and has not included legitimate democratic groups within Afghanistan. By entertaining Karzai at the White House, we have turned our back on our legitimate supporters in Afghanistan.

 

2) The official pronouncements at the press conference were that Karzai’s recent re-election after was “disputed.” In fact, every third-party legitimate analysis would argue that the election was a total fraud. Although countless members of our administration tried on many occasions to broker an honest outcome of Afghanistan’s elections, Karzai rebuffed such overtures. Instead, we have turned out back on legitimate Afghanistan nationalists who would like to form a government concerned with the humanitarian interests of the people.

 

3) Karzai’s close relationship with the Taliban and Iran—our adversaries—was given a new twist. We now “learn” that Karzai is helping America forge a “new understanding.” In essence, we were told that Karzai is not acting in his self interest, but in fact he is working hard in our behalf. Obama said that “he supported Mr. Karzai’s efforts to reach out to some Taliban followers “as long as they renounced their ties to Al Qaeda and extremism.” (Obama went on to say) The government could reintegrate those individuals into Afghan society.” If the Taliban is indeed capable of being rehabilitated, then why are we currently in Afghanistan? The whole premise of our invasion was to root out the Islam fundamentalists. 

 

It is a disgrace that the White House is whitewashing Karzai’s friendly overtures to Iran and the Taliban. If the American government has changed its policies toward these rogues, there should be a full public airing of its reasoning. Otherwise, Karzai is a traitor.

 

4) According to the New York Times (The New York Times supported Obama during the 2008 election) only 25% of the residents in the 120 districts that the Pentagon views as critical to Afghanistan’s future believe in the credibility of the Karzai government. Specifically, the residents of Afghanistan fully recognize that the Karzai administration has aided and abetted massive fraud. Karzai and his brother have masterminded the dissemination of the world’s largest quantity of opium. Instead of Obama confronting Karzai for his abuses, the president said “progress has been made” to halt corrupt acts. After America’s spending $ 1 trillion dollars in Afghanistan for over a decade and increasing our troop strength from 30,000 to 100,000 Obama seems clueless on “how to use the levers of American wealth, manpower, materials, and ideals.” 

 

5) Obama completely dismissed the distaste felt for Karzai by almost every senior America official. Obama did not even acknowledge our current ambassador General Karl Eikenberry, who sent a diplomatic cable denouncing Karzai as “not an adequate strategic partner.” In short, American foreign policy in Afghanistan is now being conducted by just a few operatives who for their own reasons have chosen to support an anti-Western, anti-Christian, anti-Capitalistic, and anti-Western regime.

 

Conclusion

 

America needs to rethink about our role in world affairs given our precarious finances. Specifically, we should take dramatic steps to pull back our military commitments in over 100 countries. We need to remember the warnings of Barbara Tuchman in her book March of Folly. Tuchman argued persuasively that the timetable for American support for peripheral military adventures is a short one unless the people believe it is truly in our national interests. 

Instead, we are squandering our democratic traditions, ideals, and financial solvency in parts of the world that are completely antithetical to our way of life.