West's "lack of morality when dealing with the rest of the world"

The Clinton Global Initiative conference should surpass its goal of matching last year's efforts. By early Thursday afternoon, initiative organizers said they had 114 commitments amounting to $5.7 billion. In 2005, the conference resulted in $2.5 billion in pledges.

The conference brings together government, business and nonprofit sectors in an effort to spur action on poverty, health care, global warming and religious/ethnic conflict.

On Thursday morning, Afghan President Hamid Karzai joined Jordanian Queen Rania Al-Abdullah, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu for a panel discussion on managing diversity in a globalized world. All stressed the importance of cultural exchange and education.

Karzai said the West had, at times, exhibited a "lack of morality when it applies to dealing with the rest of the world" because it often did not realize how its intervention or lack thereof would affect itself.

He noted that he had urged Western governments for years before the Sept. 11 attacks to help the people of Afghanistan. "But no attention was paid because you in the West were not hurt," Karzai said. "It was only us and that didn't matter, and that is wrong. Seriously."

[Associated Press]