|
UK seeking dictator rule in Afghanistan
British envoy to Kabul suggests that the best solution for Afghanistan would be to install an "acceptable dictator" in the country. A coded French diplomatic cable leaked to France's weekly Le Canard Enchaine, quotes the British Ambassador in Afghanistan Sherard Cowper-Coles as predicting that the NATO-led military campaign against the Taliban will fail. The best solution for the country, the ambassador said, would be installing an "acceptable dictator," according to the newspaper. The weekly also published excerpts of the purported cable, including a passage that quoted the ambassador as criticizing both US presidential candidates over pledges to send more US troops to Afghanistan. "It is the American presidential candidates who must be dissuaded from getting further bogged down in Afghanistan," the newspaper quoted the envoy. "The current situation is bad, the security situation is getting worse, so is corruption, and the Government has lost all trust," he emphasized. "The presence of the coalition, in particular its military presence, is part of the problem, not part of its solution," Coles noticed, adding, "Foreign forces are the lifeline of a regime that would rapidly collapse without them. As such, they slow down and complicate a possible emergence from the crisis."
On Saturday, Britain's Foreign Office said that Cowper-Coles had held a meeting with a French counterpart but insisted that the reported comments did not reflect the government's views. Posted by: Fred 2008-10-05 |
|
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=251870 |