Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai
...One of the more egregious mistakes of the post 9-11 era...
says the US military presence in the country on the pretext of fighting terrorism has caused "immense suffering" to the civilians and the country's infrastructure."US military activity in Afghanistan in the name of fighting the Taliban
...mindless ferocity in a turban...was causing immense suffering to the Afghan civilians and Afghan people. Children were getting hurt, women were getting hurt, families were getting hurt, homes were bombed, villages were bombed," Karzai said in an exclusive interview with Press TV on Sunday.
"US [presence] in Afghanistan was not for peace and also probably not for improved relations between us and Pakistain," he added.
The former Afghan president also touched on the issue of intra-Afghan talks and their failure to bring peace to the country, saying he gave his full backing to the US initiative but such a process failed to yield the desired results and that "the prolongation of the talks has caused even more suffering, more conflicts."
Pointing to a call by Afghanistan's Caped President Ashraf Ghani
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money...
to form a united and national front against the Taliban, Karzai expressed his opposition to conflict and urged both sides to stop fighting.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Karzai defended calling the Taliban "brothers" despite the group never welcoming his peace proposal.
"I would be calling specially and in particular on the Taliban to stop attacking their own country, their own villages, their own homes. I would be strongly calling on the Taliban to stop this war of foreign interests in Afghanistan," Karzai underlined.
He warned that attacks by the Taliban serve the interests of foreign powers and could lead to internal uprising against the bad boy group itself.
"If they don't stop and continue to attack Afghan homes and villages and attack Afghan dignity, there would be an uprising against them as it has already happened. And I as a citizen of Afghanistan will be with that uprising and in support of that uprising."