[Al Jizz] Hamid Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a
Pashtunface on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
, the Afghan president, has said history will judge his track record in office as his country prepares for foreign troop withdrawal in 2014.
"My place in history will be judged by Afghan history; by what I have done and it will be judged better after 2014 when I am no longer the president," Karzai told Al Jizz in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.
"Let's leave it to then, and I hope it will be good."
Karzai, who is barred by the Afghan constitution from seeking a third term in next year's elections, listed several achievements, including making Afghanistan "home for all Afghans once again".
He said all Afghans who had been "fighting one another and running away from each other" were now living side by side.
A democratic government has been put in place as well as freedom of the press, freedom of speech and education, Karzai said.