Now Hamid Karzai wants to be our friend.

Even after insulting the United States at every opportunity, year after year, the Afghan president now says he wants to maintain a "strategic partnership" with Washington after American and NATO troops are supposed to leave in 2014.

So he said during a meeting of 2,000 Afghan tribal elders last weekend. He laid down a few conditions but also managed to admit his true motivation.

"We will need international aid." Of course! Ninety percent of the government's budget is derived from foreign aid. And, certainly, an equal amount of Karzai's personal fortune is taken from the same source.

Why should Washington listen? After all, Karzai's treacherous behavior has even begun to crack the stolid discipline of the American military. So far, two generals have lost their jobs because of intemperate remarks -- the very sorts of comments they are trained not to offer from the first days at their military academies.

That hasn't happen during eight years of war in Iraq -- not even once. So what's the explanation? The Afghan war is not only the longest but probably the most frustrating conflict this country has ever faced.

This month, Maj. Gen. Peter Fuller, deputy commander of the program to train Afghan soldiers, lashed out at Karzai, who had recently said he would side with Pakistan if the U.S. ever went to war with that country.

All Fuller said was what most everyone was thinking: "We just gave you $11.6 billion, and now you're telling me: 'I don't really care'? Why don't you just poke me in the eye with a needle!" Last year, Gen. Stanley McChrystal lost his job after making critical comments about the Obama administration and its conduct of the war.

Considering what has happened since the Fuller contretemps, the episode is just one in a melange of incidents that show how far awry this war has gone. Just one example: An Afghan soldier opened fire on an Australian troops who were training him -- an attack strikingly similar to one that killed three Western trainers just last month.

When I was working in Iraq during the dark days of that war, American officers told me they knew all would be lost if Iraqi soldiers ever began turning their rifles on Americans. That hasn't happened. But now, no one can even count the dozens of times Afghan soldiers have opened fire on American and NATO troops.

So it goes. Ten years into this war, nothing changes, nothing improves. It's no wonder military officers are losing patience.

Maintaining military discipline "over a 10-year period has really tested" American officers, particularly when they are defending "a leader who routinely insults their efforts," a former senior American military officer told me. He served in Afghanistan for several years but declined to be named.

"That's starting to wear our troops down."

The Vietnam War dragged on for more than eight years. And as has often been noted, Vietnam and Afghanistan share striking similarities. But American forces in Vietnam were not fighting on behalf of a government that openly, publicly loathed and disdained the United States -- showing detestable ingratitude at every turn.

After 12 Americans died in a suicide bombing in Kabul last month, Karzai said: "The enemies of Afghanistan carried out a dastardly and cowardly attack that caused sorrow for some Afghan families." No mention of the dead Americans. None.

Karl Eikenberry was an American military commander in Afghanistan during the war's early years. Then he was appointed ambassador. Last June, shortly before he left office, he gave a speech at Herat University the day after Karzai had said NATO forces were in his country "for their own purposes, for their own goals, and they're using our soil for that." He had also classified foreign forces as "occupiers."

Eikenberry let him have it.

"When Americans, who are serving in your country at great cost -- in terms of life and treasure -- hear themselves compared with occupiers, are told that they are only here to advance their own interest and likened to the brutal enemies of the Afghan people," the ambassador said, "my people, in turn, are filled with confusion and grow weary of our effort here."

General Fuller had it right. Why are we fighting for people who disdain us -- and tell the entire world how dastardly they think we are? After a decade, after more than 1,700 American soldiers have died and nearly $2 trillion has been wasted, it's time to let Karzai and his ungrateful minions fend for themselves.

 

 

 

Copyright 2011, Tribune Media Services, Inc.