The New York Times reports that Afghan President Karzai is still against NATO night raids.  In President Karzai’s first press conference since returning from Lisbon and the NATO conference had the following to say:

“The position and stance of the Afghan government was very clear and is very clear, those night raids which cause civilian houses to be destroyed, cause civilian causalities or they are entering people’s houses without coordinating with the Afghan forces … we are against them. If we go with international forces on the night raids without enough information, that is our fault. We should not go with them. We should stop them. Because we are the owners of this soil, this country. We are very clear with the foreigners right now, in the past, we didn’t know the language of each other, but now we know what we are talking about. This is our time to prove ourselves, the responsibility for bringing peace is the responsibility of the political leaders and elders of Afghanistan.”  

But it gets better, because President Karzai also complained that NATO was not providing enough equipment for Afghan security forces and said that “if more was not provided, Afghanistan would seek it from other nations outside the NATO alliance. Without any doubt, the Afghan government is not happy with the equipment for the Afghan forces. It is not enough.”

Happy times in Kabul indeed!