Joel Rubin, director of policy and government affairs for Ploughshares Fund, talks with Current TV’s John Fugelsang about Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s bumpy first trip to Afghanistan. Ahead of talks with Hagel, President Hamid Karzai accused the United States of collaborating with the Taliban and also claimed Americans want to stay in Afghanistan.
Rubin says Karzai’s motive for these statements is to show his country he is in charge, adding that Karzai will use “any maneuver, any angle to try to exclaim to his people that he is in charge and trying to get a good deal. And to … put the foreigner, the United States, on the back heel to show that he really is in charge is a maneuver where he can hopefully, from his perspective, gain some authority.”
