Karzai Pushes Partnership With U.S. as Afghan Elders Convene - nytimes

KABUL, Afghanistan — “It’s O.K. that they are strong and rich and powerful, but we are lions. Weak and old and sick, a lion is still a lion, in the forest everyone avoids a lion even if it is old and sick and weak. A lion doesn’t like it if a stranger comes to his house, he doesn’t want his children taken by foreigners during the night, the lion doesn’t want parallel government structures.” - Karzai Pushes Partnership With U.S. as Afghan Elders Convene