Karzai's Brother, Drug-Dealer and CIA Informant, Assassinated

U.S. counterterrorism officials say the half-brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was assassinated today by a friend and body guard, will be a loss to intelligence officials in the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Ahmed Wali Karzai was shot in his own home by an assassin at close range by Sardar Mohammed. The Taliban is said to be behind the hit. The gunman was cut down immediately by other armed body guards for Karzai.

Ahmed Wali Karzai was a known drug kingpin in Kandahar, dealing mostly in locally grown and processed heroin, but he was also on the CIA payroll.

‎"He was a necessary evil. Many will be glad to see him gone, but security in Kandahar may also take a nose dive," a senior U.S. counterterrorism official told The Baz File.

President Hamid Karzai, at a press conference with visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy did not seem to be surprised by the news of his half-brother's death.

"This is the life of all Afghan people," Karzai said.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke by phone to President Karzai today to extend her "deepest condolences to him and to his family."

"The United States condemns this murder in the strongest terms. For too long, the people of Afghanistan have suffered under the threat of violence, intolerance, and extremism," Clinton said.

It harkened back to the assassination earlier this year of the governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, Salman Taseer, who was whacked by one of his machine-gun wielding bodyguards in Islamabad. The turncoat assassin was miffed that Taseer defended a Christian woman sentenced to death.

‎"​You can't hire good help these days, as Karzai's brother and Pakistan's Punjab governor can attest to," the counterterrorism source quipped.

Quran Burning Highlights American Extremism

As we have seen from the majority of the mainstream media coverage and commentary, the controversial burning of the Quran by a fundamentalist preacher reminded the world that in America we have the right to hate, but to what advantage does one gain by being hateful?

The Rev. Terry Jones, the leader of the World Dove Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla.,  burned a Quran as part of a videotaped mock trial of Islam on March 20, triggering for the past three days deadly protests and widespread condemnation of the act.

The highly respected U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petreaeus called the burning of the Quran "hateful, extremely disrespectful and enormously intolerant."

The Quran-burning was part of an elaborate stunt trial in which the Islamic holy book was put on trial by the members of Jones' fringe fundamentalist Christian sect. It was meant to anger Islam, and with the help of Islamic fundmentalists, like the Taliban, Jones succeeded.

“It was intended to stir the pot; if you don’t shake the boat, everyone will stay in their complacency,” Jones said in an interview with The New York Times.

Jones has received death threats and his enemies are said to have have put a million-dollar bounty on his life. “I don’t right now feel personally afraid,” Jones told the newspaper. “But we are armed.”

Many people also blame Afghan President Hamid Karzai for fanning the flames by calling attention to it in remarks a few days later, apparently inciting a riot that led thousands of protesters Friday to overrun a United Nations compound in northern Afghanistan, killing at least 12 people.

Congress is pondering whether it can take action that would punish Jones, but in reality there is not much that can be done, short of abolishing the first amendment to the constitution.  It was a truly strange happening for someone who purports to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, especially during Lent.