Nato's new chief has called on its European members to find more troops for Afghanistan to stop the country becoming "a Grand Central Station of international terrorism". Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that he wanted a proper balance between Nato forces from North America and those from Europe to avoid the perception that the mission in Afghanistan was predominantly an American operation. His remarks, on his first day in the job, came as Nato's top commander in Afghanistan prepared to demand thousands more American troops, setting him on a collision course with the Obama administration. Experts who have worked with General Stanley McChrystal on the Afghanistan strategy review say the American commander believes that thousands more troops are needed to save the mission.
Nato's new chief has called on its European members to find more troops for Afghanistan to stop the country becoming "a Grand Central Station of international terrorism".
Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that he wanted a proper balance between Nato forces from North America and those from Europe to avoid the perception that the mission in Afghanistan was predominantly an American operation.
His remarks, on his first day in the job, came as Nato's top commander in Afghanistan prepared to demand thousands more American troops, setting him on a collision course with the Obama administration.
Experts who have worked with General Stanley McChrystal on the Afghanistan strategy review say the American commander believes that thousands more troops are needed to save the mission.
If the mission is "not admit that the USA lost a second war this decade" then he is probably correct. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Simon Scharma once said that the British empire fell when the distance between the rhetoric used to defend it back home and the policy needed to implement it on the ground became so wide that the colonial adminstrators lost their faith.
At what point will our administrators on the ground recognise that we cannot create the peace demanded by politicians with the local allies we have chosen and the tactics the military dicate ? And what might they choose to do if they did ? keep to the Fen Causeway
how many million armed pashtuns are we going to convert to the joys of democracy with the latest, greatest weapons?
the afghan peasant gets to choose, local or foreign tyrant, it's going to cost a lot of lives to try and convince the poor sod the latter is preferable.
especially as the media already has its hands full convincing the taxpayers back home that for reasons of national security, the taliban merits spending billions on trying to vaporise.
when women back home can't even get equal pay yet...
you can't bomb millions of renegade cave-dweller nomad goatherds into coca-colonisation, but plenty of folks make millions even failing, so you can't say war's any loss to them, can you?
our 'brave lads and lasses' are being thrown to wolves...
the people are seeing through the spin, more and more, a Very Good Thing. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
