U.S. ambassador warns Karzai over criticism of West (Reuters)

KABUL (Reuters) – The U.S. ambassador to Kabul has issued a thinly veiled warning to Afghan President Hamid Karzai that harsh criticisms of the West could jeopardize the troops and funding critical to the Afghan government's survival.

Ambassador Karl Eikenberry said he found comments from "some" Afghan leaders "hurtful and inappropriate," according to a transcript of a speech released late on Sunday.

Although he did not mention Karzai by name, the speech appeared to be a direct response to a string of verbal broadsides against Western troops serving in Afghanistan and the diplomatic and aid programs that accompany them.

In one recent fiery speech Karzai warned that foreign soldiers risked being seen as occupiers because of civilian casualties they caused. Last week he said the West was polluting the country with weapons containing toxic chemicals.

Eikenberry said those comments left him ashamed and speechless in front of the relatives of U.S. war dead.

"When I hear some of your leaders call us occupiers, I cannot look at these mourning parents, spouses, and children in the eye and give them a comforting reply," Eikenberry told an audience of students and academics at Herat University in western Afghanistan.

"When we hear ourselves being called occupiers and worse, our pride is offended and we begin to lose our inspiration to carry on," he added, in a personal addendum to a speech on education and transition.

CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM?

But Karzai's spokesman said some of the president's comments had been misunderstood and warned against "over-reacting" to constructive criticism, saying that Afghan people standing up for their own interests should not be dubbed offensive.

Karzai's spokesman said that in his controversial speech on civilian casualties the president was only warning western allies that their image in his country was at risk, and that details may have been lost in a bad translation.

"The president has never termed international forces as occupying forces ... He has said if the bombardment of civilian homes and civilians continue, there is a risk that (this view of western troops as occupiers) could become part of public opinion in Afghanistan," Waheed Omer said.

But Omer also warned against "over-reacting" to criticism, and added that although effective assistance was appreciated, the west had not come to Afghanistan for altruistic reasons.

"No one can deny that international community came to Afghanistan for the sake of their own interests in the first place. We as Afghans have every right ... to make sure that international community's presence also serves the interests of the people of Afghanistan," Omer said.

"I don't see why this should be termed as offending."

DRAWDOWN LOOMS

Eikenberry was speaking as U.S. President Barack Obama mulls how steep a U.S. troop withdrawal that starts in July should be.

That will coincide with the first phase of a gradual handover of security control to the Afghan police and army, who are due to take responsibility for all of Afghanistan by the end of 2014, though critics warn this date is premature.

At present NATO is rushing to expand and train up security forces that have long struggled with problems ranging from widespread illiteracy, drug abuse and corruption to a dearth of leaders and equipment and a damaging rate of attrition.

Although the training team say progress is impressive, it will still be years before they have a real hope of holding off disciplined and battle-hardened insurgents across the country.

Even when they can fight alone, the size of the security forces and Afghanistan's sickly economy means they will need help paying salaries and buying equipment for years to come.

Eikenberry warned that patience to help Afghanistan seek security would not be infinite if Afghan partners were dismissive of U.S. sacrifices of lives and money.

"At the point your leaders believe that we are doing more harm than good ... especially at a time our economy is suffering and our needs are not being met, the American people will ask for our forces to come home," Eikenberry said.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Sugita Katyal)

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U.S. Ambassador to Resign After Criticism Over Focus on Abortion, Faith

Associated Press

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WASHINGTON -- The U.S. ambassador to Malta, an important Roman Catholic supporter of President Obama, said Sunday he would resign after a State Department report criticized him for spending too much time writing and speaking about his religious beliefs. 

In letters to Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Douglas Kmiec said he would step down Aug. 15. He told The Associated Press that no one pressured him to leave.
Kmiec was a well-known conservative law professor and commentator before being taking the job in 2009. But a report this month by the State Department's inspector general rebuked Kmiec for concentrating too much on issues such as abortion and his faith, while neglecting his ambassadorial duties 

"I doubt very much whether one could ever spend too much time on this subject," Kmiec wrote Obama in his resignation letter. 

The audit was the second critical assessment of a politically appointed ambassador this year and illustrates the pitfalls that presidents can face when they appoint noncareer diplomats to ambassadorships, often as a reward for their political support. 

A February report blasted the 14-month tenure of Cynthia Stroum, a big Obama donor who became ambassador to Luxembourg. It described her service as fraught with personality conflicts, verbal abuse and questionable expenditures on travel, wine and liquor. Things were so bad in the wealthy European nation that some staff requested transfers to Iraq and Afghanistan, the report said. Stroum resigned effective Jan. 31, just days before the scathing assessment was made public. 

The audit of the U.S. Embassy in Malta said Kmiec's "outside activities have detracted from his attention to core mission goals" in the Mediterranean island nation, such as promoting maritime security and American business. It acknowledged the wide respect for Kmiec in the conservative, Roman Catholic country of Malta, but said his articles distracted him and embassy officials by forcing them to carefully review his writing. They upset administration officials in Washington, too, it noted. 

Kmiec responded by describing the criticism of his religious views was "especially odd" because his friendship with Obama began out of a common view that "too much of politics had been used to divide us, sometimes by excluding people of faith." 

Kmiec, a law professor at Pepperdine University and a lawyer in President Ronald Reagan's administration, was targeted by conservative Catholics and denied Communion by one priest for his support for Obama during the presidential campaign. 

In his letter to Clinton, Kmiec noted that he advised President George H.W. Bush in 1989 that government audits should focus on rooting out waste, fraud and abuse, and suggested that the criticism of his ambassadorship was in effect a "sting-back." He said inspectors use the audits to criticize support for Obama's policies such as his goal to promote interfaith dialogue. 

The State Department declined comment on Kmiec's announcement. 

The embassy in Malta has recently played an enhanced role as the nearest European country to Libya. More than 180 Americans were ferried to Malta when Muammar al-Qaddafi's forces violently cracked down on protesters seeking an end to his four-decade rule.

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Ambassador rebuked for faith-based writing asks to resign

A State Department report alleged that Douglas Kmiec spent too much time on faith-based writing. STORY HIGHLIGHTSThe U.S. ambassador to Malta has submitted his letter of resignation to Obama, ClintonThis follows a State Department report saying he spent too much time on faith-based writingDouglas Kmiec says that report unfairly "impugned" his reputationHe suggests it was payback for a 1989 opinion he wrote under President George H.W. Bush (CNN) -- The U.S. ambassador to Malta has submitted his resignation, just over a week after he was called out in a State Department report for allegedly devoting time to writing about religion at the expense of his official duties.

Douglas Kmiec told CNN that he notified Malta's foreign ministry on Saturday about his intention, the same day he submitted his resignation to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and three days after he tendered a similar letter to President Barack Obama.

"With my reputation impugned by the recent ... report, I can no longer be certain that I am in a position with my government to have your needs and perspectives heard in the best possible light," Kmiec said in an e-mailed statement.

The State Department had no immediate comment Saturday on the ambassador's submitted resignation, including whether or not it had been accepted.

Kmiec, the former dean of the Catholic University of America's law school, defended his actions in his official letters and statement. He was appointed in 2009 -- a year after the "Kennedy Democrat and Reagan Republican," as he'd described himself in his letter to Clinton, spearheaded Obama's outreach to Catholic voters in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Kmiec was very critical of the report, released last week from the U.S. State Department's inspector general, which criticized him for spending so much time writing and speaking about faith-related issues.

Since his appointment, the inspector general's report claimed that Kmiec has "devoted considerable time to writing articles for publication in the United States as well as in Malta," given his belief that he had a "special mandate" to promote Obama's interfaith initiatives.

"His approach has required Department principals, as well as some embassy staff, to spend an inordinate amount of time reviewing his writings, speeches and other initiatives," the report said, without citing any specific instances. "His official schedule has been uncharacteristically light for an ambassador at a post of this size."

"On average, he spends several hours of each workday in the residence, much of which appears to be devoted to his nonofficial writings," the report contends.

Kmiec told Obama, alluding to this report in his resignation letter, that he wanted to resign, given "some understanding of the difficulty and complexity of the challenges that you and Secretary Clinton each day."

Yet he remained defiant that the State Department report's conclusions were unfounded.

In his letter to Clinton, Kmiec said the report was based on "unsupported speculation that someone doing as much writing as I have done could not have also been devoted to the embassy mission."

"The contrary proof ... is the strength of our embassy," he wrote. "Our work is careful, thorough and timely, and I am fully apprised of all of it."

The ambassador claimed, in his letter to Clinton, that the inspector general report's authors had "failed to read any of my writing or see its highly positive effect on our bilateral relations." He also said the report's assertion that faith-based writings weren't relevant to his position represented a "flawed and narrow vision of our diplomatic mission."

Moreover, Kmiec suggested that the report amounted to payback from the State Department inspector general in response to a 1989 opinion he wrote -- as a top lawyer in the administration of George H.W. Bush -- restricting that office's jurisdiction.

"That opinion stung the (Office of the Inspector General) and I suspect I have just experienced a 'sting-back,' " he wrote in his letter to Clinton.

While he has worked for two Republican presidents and has made clear his anti-abortion stance differs from that of Obama, Kmiec said in his statement that he "would welcome (the president and himself) teaming up again."

Kmiec insisted that he had tendered his resignation "without pressure from either one or anyone."

"My resignation is not a product of force unless one means by force -- the force of principle," he wrote.

CNN's Dan Gilgoff contributed to this report

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U.S. Expels Ecuadorian Ambassador in Retaliation, Sources Say

FoxNews.com

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The United States has expelled Ecuador's ambassador in retaliation for kicking the U.S. envoy out of its country earlier in the week, Fox News confirms.  

Ecuadorian ambassador Luis Gallegos was summoned to the State Department on Thursday and informed of the decision. The move comes after Ecuador expelled U.S. ambassador Heather Hodges over her allegations of corruption in Ecuador, which were contained in documents released by the WikiLeaks website. 

A State Department official told Fox News the "unjustified action" left the United States with no other option than to order Gallegos to leave. 

Another official said high-level U.S.-Ecuador talks set for June will also be cancelled. 

U.S. expulsion of foreign diplomats is a harsh step generally only taken in retaliation for action against U.S. diplomats, or when a foreign diplomat is accused of abusing his or her diplomatic status in the United States.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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