War effort hits new low; Karzai at 'end of rope'

President Hamid Karzai says he is at "the end of the rope," and a majority of Americans feel the same way. Of all the past decade's setbacks in the endeavour to form a solid alliance with Afghanistan and defeat the Taliban, the war effort has been driven to a new low by the slaughter of nine Afghan children and seven adults allegedly by a US soldier whose identity had been kept secret until late Friday.
A senior US official said the suspect is Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, 38. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the legal case that is in its early stages. The soldier was on his way Friday from a US military detention facility in Kuwait to the maximum security prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, although Karzai demanded anew that he be tried under the Afghan justice system. Karzai also is now insisting that US forces retreat from rural areas immediately and let Afghans take the lead in security next year. But the White House and the Pentagon said Friday that nothing would collapse the war plan, even after the massacre, the inadvertent Quran burnings by US soldiers and the deaths of seven American servicemen at the hands of their allies.
Polls have shown that up to 60 percent of Americans say it is time to end the war in Afghanistan. And that is not lost on the administration. "The Afghan people are tired of war," Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, just back from Afghanistan, acknowledged on Friday. "The American people share some of that tiredness after 10 years of war, as well. All of that's understandable."
But he also said he is confident that Americans realise the US needs to finish its work of stabilising Afghanistan to ensure that al Qaida cannot against use that country as a launch pad to attack the United States. His theme, patience, is likely to dominate the discourse in Washington and in allied capitals in the lead-up to a Nato summit meeting in Chicago, Illinois, in May.
President Barack Obama called Karzai on Friday seeking clarification on the demand concerning US troops in rural areas, and White House press secretary Jay Carney said the leaders agreed to keep discussing the matter, which is at the heart of the military strategy. Another pillar of the war strategy is creating meaningful peace talks with the Taliban insurgents, but that, too, suffered cracks in the aftermath of the village massacre.