Former Army Colonel: Taliban Is Using Koran Burnings As ‘Leverage’
On Monday, retired Army Col. David Lamm told Starting Point host Soledad O’Brien that the Taliban may be using the recent Koran burning in Afghanistan — a burning that the U.S. maintains was accidental and for which President Barack Obama has formally apologized — to its advantage.
“Well, it tells you that the rest of the Muslim world looks at this as an accident, as it was, a regrettable accident,” said Lamm. “But it also tells you that the Taliban, although it may think it’s an accident, that is not what they’re going to tell the Afghan people. And they are going to be in the business of winning the hearts and minds of Afghan people, using this incident strategically to gain some leverage….”
Later, he told O’Brien that Afghan President Hamid Karzai‘s influence on the country’s population is “marginal.” And, furthermore, “any apology like [Obama’s] at this point on the ground in Afghanistan, particularly in the Pashtun south, is seen as number one, not as an apology but it is seen as, quite frankly, an admission of guilt and in any case a sign of weakness.”
Have a look, courtesy CNN’s Starting Point:
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