“A democratically elected congressman of the United States should not be talking of an ethnic divide in Afghanistan, should not be interfering in Afghanistan's internal affairs, should not be asking the Afghan people to have a federal structure as against what the Afghan constitution has asked for, should not be speaking disrespectfully about the Afghan people or the various ethnic groups in Afghanistan.”
-Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, answering CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer's question about why “democratically elected” Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) is banned from entering the country. The Surfin' Congressman responds after the jump . . .
]
“I will tell you, if I thought I was being inadvertently disrespectful to the Afghan people, I would apologize. But I obviously have a deep-felt respect for the people of Afghanistan and their courage and their principle behavior. They are tough people who are actually a model for courage in the world. So I respect them. It's Karzai I don't respect, so I don't think I owe an apology to the people of Afghanistan. And, of course, Karzai is a corrupt and incompetent leader, and I certainly owe no apology for trying to get to Afghanistan to do some investigative work.”
-Dana Rohrabacher to Blitzer. He further explained that he leads a congressional subcommittee investigating the situation in Afghanistan, and that he believes the constitution Karzai accuses him to disrespecting was written by foreigners and aimed at propping up a corrupt Karzai regime.
Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.