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That is something with which I have been engaged with the international community very seriously almost on a daily basis. Now when an engineer from America is killed on an Afghan road, reconstructing one of our roads or building a new road. Or when a soldier from Canada is killed in our country, or when an engineer from Germany or Turkey or India is killed, we should immediately think, who did that? Are these Afghans that are killing engineers that are building schools for us, that built clinics for us, that build hospitals for us? If Afghans are doing this, then how come Afghans are also asking at the same time for more schools, for more hospitals, for more reconstruction? Then how come they are not satisfied with what we have done so far? Why do they keep asking for more? You cannot be asking for something, yet destroying that thing. So there must be somebody else. If it is not Afghans then who is it? It must be a force from outside. Who is that force from outside? What is the cause of those from outside to come in and kill us and try to prevent our reconstruction? That sort of focus I want. There are two things. Or perhaps both elements. We must sort out what part of this problem is Afghan. And then that is our responsibility to handle. Be it corruption, be it lack of capacity, or be it some Afghan elements that would not like us to make progress or have foreign friends. But the bigger part, the more serious part, is the foreign element of instability in Afghanistan. Of blasts of explosions, of killings of engineers, of our clergy and our students. That is the part that I want the international community to focus upon more heavily. So that we will reach a solution eventually.
We may make mistakes along the way, in certain decisions, that every government makes. But our effort is to try to put the country together in this journey. To have the whole country together in this journey. My first job is the unity of Afghanistan. My first job is to carry this country along every part of it, every segment of it.
TIME: The way you describe those who are attacking the engineers, it indicates that it could be either external elements or it could indicate a division within Afghan society itself, about what the future of the country should be. Karzai: No, it isn't. Within Afghanistan it is very clear as to what the Afghan people want this country to be. Eight and a half million Afghans participated in the elections. That's very clear. That's almost half of Afghanistan's population. We have a parliament. The whole country got together to have a constitution. The whole country cried for more international forces four days ago to go to the whole country in order to have more security. People from the districts come to us and say, "Well, Mr. President, police police police, strong institutions, better roads, better education, better health services, better economy." Our vision is clear. Our vision is for a democratic, prosperous Afghanistan, keeping and moving along with the values and history and traditions that we have. Now this vision has enemies, the enemies are those who are extremists, religious extremists, trained outside, equipped outside, motivated outside. Call it al-Qaeda, call it terrorism, call it Taliban or a combination of all of them. Those are the forces that are hurting America, or who are hurting us in Afghanistan. Those are the forces that will hurt you in any other part of the world. And that is what we should be fighting together. And that is where all the allies should join hands and fight. So the allies should not be playing politics among themselves. That's where things go wrong. If we are all allies, then we must follow the vision thoroughly without trying to have little things in-between for ourselves.