MARJAH, Afghanistan – Under the protection of heavy security provided by hundreds Afghan soldiers and U.S. Marines, President Hamid Karzai arrived into the former Taliban strong hold of Marjah Sunday urging local villagers to trust his government and promising that it will provide more security and a better life than the Taliban.<\/p>\n
Despite being in power since 2001, this was Karzai\u2019s first trip ever to the city of roughly 85,000 Afghans.<\/p>\n
In February, more than 10,000 U.S Marines and Afghan soldiers battled insurgents \u2013 ultimately forcing the Taliban to flee the city.<\/p>\n
Sunday, however, it was President Karzai, who was sparring with local critics who complained about the corrupt and often ineffective Afghan government.<\/p>\n
“Today, I’m here to listen to you and hear your problems,” Karzai, holding a pen and notepad, told the crowd.<\/p>\n
At times the two hour long town hall gathering, which according to Western officials included several local Taliban supporters, was tense. With villagers accusing the Karzai and his government of failing to deliver on pasted promises. Others complained that U.S. and coalitions forces killed innocent civilians during the assault, illegally entered Afghan homes and destroyed a local school.<\/p>\n
By the end of the meeting, most of the skeptical local villagers seemed cautiously receptive to Karzia\u2019s message. At one point, 300 men scream out in unison\u00a0 \u201cwe supported Karzai.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people promised to be together with us.\u201d Karzai later told reporters. \u201cWe should work and deliver. And if we don\u2019t, then we don\u2019t deserve to call ourselves the government of Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s event marked a rare trip outside the Afghan capital of Kabul for Karzai \u2013 who is often mocked for being the \u201cMayor of Kabul.\u201d<\/p>\n
In recent months, U.S and Western officials, including Gen. Stanley McChrystal who travelled with Karzai to Marjah, have been publicly and privately urging the Afghan leader to assume more responsibility in the governing of the war torn country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are trying to help Afghanistan shape their own country.\u201d Said McChrystal, \u201cand I think we saw part of that today.\u201d<\/p>\n
With long list of promises now made, the challenge for Karzai and the international community will be delivering on them. A monumental task that over the past 8 years has really been accomplished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MARJAH, Afghanistan – Under the protection of heavy security provided by hundreds Afghan soldiers and U.S. Marines, President Hamid Karzai arrived into the former Taliban strong hold of Marjah Sunday urging local villagers to trust his government and promising that it will provide more security and a better life than the Taliban. Despite being in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4603,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-402857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4603"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}