"VTR" <Vtar@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:bMSdnV2uR901eCzanZ2dnUVZ_rjinZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Europeans see what America cannot
> By ERIC MARGOLIS, TORONTO SUN
>
> At this week's NATO conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, an angry U.S.
> Secretary of Defence Robert
> Gates accused some Europeans of not being prepared to "fight and die" in
> Afghanistan in the
> battle against the Taliban.
>
> The undiplomatic Gates is quite right. Most Europeans regard the Afghan
> conflict as a. wrong
> and immoral; b. America's war; c. all about oil; or d. probably lost.
>
> To many Europeans, the NATO alliance was created to deter the real
threat
> of Soviet aggression,
> not to supply foot soldiers for George Bush's wars in the Muslim world.
>
> While Gates and the Harper government were pleading for more troops, the
> commander of the
> 40,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. Dan McNeill, landed a
> bombshell. If proper U.S.
> military counter-insurgency doctrine were followed, McNeill admitted,
the
> U.S. and NATO would
> need 400,000 troops to defeat Pashtun tribal resistance in Afghanistan.
>
> When the Soviets occupied Afghanistan, they deployed 160,000 troops and
> about 200,000 Afghan
> Communist troops -- yet failed to crush the mostly Pashtun resistance.
> Now, the U.S. and NATO
> are trying the same mission with only 66,000 troops, backed by local
> mercenaries grandly styled
> the Afghan National Army.
>
> Canada's calls for 1,000 more NATO troops, and the U.S. decision to send
> 3,200 marines, will
> not alter the course of this war, which is turning increasingly against
> the western occupiers.
> In fact, the war is spreading into neighbouring Pakistan, a nation of
165
> million, stretching
> U.S. and NATO forces ever thinner.
>
> A primary reason for Gates' recent call for U.S. troops to begin
attacking
> pro-Taliban Pashtun
> tribesmen inside Pakistan is due to their growing attacks on allied
supply
> lines to Afghanistan.
>
> As this column has re****ted, over 70% of U.S./NATO supplies come in by
> truck through Pakistan's
> tribal belt known as FATA, including all of their oil and gas. Attacks
by
> pro-Taliban tribesmen
> against these vulnerable supply lines are jeopardizing western military
> operations inside
> Afghanistan.
>
> HUNTERS NOW HUNTED
>
> The hunters are becoming the hunted. Cutting off invaders' supply lines
is
> a time-honoured
> Pashtun military tactic. They used it against Alexander the Great, the
> British, and Soviets,
> and are at it again.
>
> What angry Sec. Gates fails to see is that by pu****ng NATO into a
distant
> Asian war without
> political purpose or seeming end, he is endangering the very alliance
that
> is the bedrock of
> U.S. power in Europe.
>
> Europeans increasingly ask why they need the U.S.-dominated military
> alliance, a Cold War
> relic, in which they continue to play foot soldiers to America's atomic
> knights, to paraphrase
> the late German statesman, Franz Josef Strauss.
>
> Why does the rich, powerful European Union even need NATO any more? The
> Soviet threat is gone
> -- at least for now. Nuclear-armed France and Britain are quite capable
of
> defending Europe
> against outside threats. Why can't the new European Defence Force take
> over NATO's role of
> defending Europe and protecting EU interests?
>
> In short, most Europeans see no benefit in playing junior members in an
> alliance whose historic
> time has passed and that serves primarily as an instrument of U.S.
power.
> Wa****ngton's sharpest
> geopolitical thinker, Zbigniew Brzezinski, calls NATO a "stepping stone"
> the U.S. uses to
> project power into Europe.
>
> By pu****ng NATO towards a bridge too far, the Bush administration may
end
> up fatally
> undermining the alliance and encouraging anti-American forces in Europe.
>
> In fact, it's becoming evident that the cash-strapped U.S. needs the EU
> more than the EU needs
> the U.S.
>
> CONSCRIPTION
>
> Final point. If impassioned claims by U.S. and Canadian politicians that
> the little Afghanistan
> war must by won at all costs, then why don't they stop orating, impose
> conscription, and send
> 400,000 soldiers, including their own sons, to fight in Afghanistan?
>
> Of course they won't. They prefer to waste their own soldiers, and grind
> up Afghanistan, rather
> than admit this war against 40 million Pashtun tribesmen was a terrible
> mistake that will only
> get worse.
>
>
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Margolis_Eric/2008/02/10/4838323-sun.php
it's true. europe doesn't really need nato anymore.
as for conscription, any attempt to do that would bring down the canadian
government within a day.
i don't imagine it would be terribly popular in the usa either.
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