Hillary Clinton Makes Surprise Visit to Afghanistan
Hillary Clinton made a surprise visit to Afghanistan today as she landed in Kabul at 4:46 p.m. local time.
She met with embassy staff before going into a meeting with U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
From Reuters:
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Afghanistan on Wednesday for her first visit as America’s top diplomat, on the eve of President Hamid Karzai’s inauguration after a fraud-tainted election.
Clinton’s visit comes at a time when President Barack Obama‘s administration is in the final stages of deciding whether to send tens of thousands of extra troops, and election fraud has battered the veteran leader Karzai’s reputation in the West.
From CNN:
Her first visit to Afghanistan as secretary of state comes as President Obama is deciding whether to send up to 40,000 more troops to the nation, as requested by McChrystal.
Clinton will attend Karzai’s Thursday inauguration to a second term, showing U.S. support for his government, after an election that was tainted by fraudulent balloting.
Karzai is under intense international pressure to clean up corruption within his government, and Clinton is expected to deliver a tough message on the need to show results.
A major factor in Obama’s decision on how many troops to send to Afghanistan centers on the Afghan government’s ability to partner with the United States to fight the Taliban.
This entry was posted on November 18, 2009 at 8:15 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
Tags: Afghan War, Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Clinton, Clinton Afghanistan, Clinton Visit, CNN, Hamid Karzai, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, Iraq War, Karl Eikenberry, Karzai, Obama, President Obama, Stanley McChrystal, Surprise Visit, Taliban, Terrorism, Terrorist
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