Monday, August 27, 2012

No Tali-‘ban’?

G8 moves from comedy to ludicrous

In their meeting last month, the G8 leaders issued a straightforward ‘warning’ to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, asking him to produce a detailed plan on how he’ll be handling the country’s security and reducing the prevailing corruption. The group asked Karzai to “combat corruption, address illicit drug production and trafficking, improve human rights, improve provision of basic services and governance and make concrete progress towards reinforcing the formal justice system.” That’s fine enough. Then came the comedy. They also imposed a ‘five years’ timeline for the results.

And what if Karzai fails to achieve the targets within the timeline? Well, the G8 kind of skipped that point.

Previously, such demands by G-8 were viewed as a brash display of arrogance. With the current ‘five years’ timeline, they’re viewed as being over-the-top ludicrous. It is amusing that countries like US and UK made such a demand in spite of being actively present in the war-torn nation.