Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay got a rough ride in his first appearance before the Senate national security and defence committee, but the proceedings turned particularly ugly when Liberal Senator Peter Stollery hurled an insult at Karzai, Afghanistan's interim [sic -- in Oct. 2004, Karzai was elected in a U.N.-supervised vote to a full five-year term] president, who MacKay said would soon be visiting Canada."You know Karzai, he's a stooge. He was put there by Americans. Everybody knows that," Stollery said.
By golly, he's got a point. Let's see what else we know.
Karzai fled to India during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and remained until the fall of the Taliban. He took a postgraduate course in political science at Himachal University in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India from 1979 to 1983, then returned to work as a fund-raiser supporting anti-Soviet uprisings in Afghanistan during the Soviet intervention for the rest of the 1980s. After the withdrawal of Soviet forces, he served as a deputy minister in the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani.
His family owns Stollery's clothing store at the corner of Yonge Street and Bloor Street in Toronto, hence his designation in the Canadian Senate as Senator for "Bloor and Yonge".
When the Taliban emerged onto the political scene in the 1990s, Karzai was initially among their supporters. However, he later broke with the Taliban, citing distrust of their links to Pakistan. After the Taliban drove Rabbani out of Kabul in 1996, Karzai refused to serve as their U.N. ambassador. In 1997, Karzai joined many of his family members in [the] United States, from where he worked to reinstate Zahir Shah. His father was assassinated, presumably by Taliban agents, July 14, 1999, and Karzai swore revenge against the Taliban by working to help overthrow it.
Stollery has worked as a teacher and travel writer, as well as working for the family business. In addition, he worked as a cab driver in Toronto for many years.
Karzai was a candidate in the October 9, 2004 Presidential Elections. Despite a perceived lack of national support he won 21 of the 34 provinces, defeating his 22 opponents and became the first democratically elected leader of Afghanistan.
He was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons as a Liberal candidate in the 1972 election for Spadina riding in Toronto. He was re-elected in 1974, 1979 and 1980 elections. He served for a time as Chairman of the Parliamentary Caucus. . . . Stollery is currently Chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs.
From a base in Pakistan, Karzai began to organize anti-Taliban opposition. When his father was murdered in Pakistan, presumably by agents of the Taliban, Hamid Karzai, was selected to succeed his father as Khan of the half-million Popalzai. He immediately defied both the Pakistan and Taliban governments by leading a convoy of tribal mourners to carry his father's body home for burial in Kandahar, a stronghold of the Taliban. The Taliban did not dare intervene. This act of defiance made Hamid Karzai the most visible leader of resistance to the Taliban among the Pashtun people.
In 1981, Stollery was appointed to the Canadian Senate on the recommendation of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Trudeau wanted to open Stollery's Spadina riding so that Trudeau's aide James Coutts, could be elected to Parliament in a by-election. Coutts was defeated in what had been a safe Liberal seat by Dan Heap of the New Democratic Party in the subsequent by-election.
In October 2001, Karzai and three friends re-entered Afghanistan to raise a revolt. He had a single satellite phone, no sleeping bags or other supplies, little ammunition, few weapons, and no certainty of outside support, but day by day he attracted more followers. He narrowly escaped capture by the Taliban, and was even wounded by a stray American bomb, but by December, the Taliban had fled from Kandahar.
<crickets>
. . .
</crickets>
I seem to have run out of things to quote.
It's not all fun-and-games being an U.S. stooge, y'know.
On September 5, 2002, an assassination attempt was made on Hamid Karzai in Kandahar. A gunman wearing the uniform of the new Afghan National Army opened fire, wounding the Governor of Kandahar and an American Special Operations officer. The gunman, one of the President's bodyguards, and a bystander who knocked down the gunman were killed when Karzai's bodyguards returned fire. A second attempt on Karzai's life took place on September 16, 2004 when a rocket missed the helicopter he was riding to Gardez, where Karzai planned to open a school.
Of course, Stollery is a man of no small courage himself; the Senate still buzzes with the memory of his April 20, 1986 hand-to-hand battle with Sharon Carstairs for the last crabcake at the Parliamentary All-U-Can-Eat buffet. God, that was ugly.
So here we have a tale of two men. Hamid Karzai gave up a comfortable and prosperous life in America to fight for a country and people he loved and won a dubious (and dangerous) prize: the presidency of Afghanistan.
Peter Stollery gave up . . . well, nothing that I can see, with the possible exception of his eternal soul to serve as a hack for a morally-bankrupt political party.
Do us all a favor when Karzai makes his first state visit here and lock yourself in your office, Stollery. You're not fit to be in the same room as the man.
Via Nealenews