NATO solves Iraq? Afghanistan suggests not

In Iraqi eyes, NATO is a puppet organization of the United States

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5069264/

NATO solves Iraq? Afghanistan suggests not
Alliance struggling to handle much smaller missionops in Afghanistan.In spite of nine months in command there, NATO forces still have failed to deploy any of their forces outside of Kabul, with the exception of a 500-strong German “provincial reconstruction team” that set up shop last winter in the relatively quiet northwestern town of Kunduz.

By Michael Moran Columnist MSNBC


May 27, 2004 Largely lost amid the sound and the fury of Iraq — both the actual war there and the domestic battle over how best to achieve something approaching victory — are the warning flares shooting skyward above the first target of American regime change in this century: Afghanistan.

In the past week, several authoritative voices warned that the security situation in the one-time Islamic state and al-Qaida base is deteriorating. Most seriously, there are real signs that NATO, which President George W. Bush apparently hopes will take the handoff from America in Iraq sometime soon, is stumbling even to support a relatively small operation of 6,000 troops in Afghanistan.

“The Europeans in NATO, with the exception of the British, simply are not up to such missions anymore,” says Dan Goure, a military analyst with close ties to the Bush administration now with Washington-based Lexington Institute. “They have a total of 2.6 million people under arms, and yet they would be incapable of deploying a force large enough to handle Libya, let alone Iraq.”<snip>

NATO’s Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, has expressed frustration about the alliance’s inability to supply a small number of helicopters and medical units to Afghanistan in spite of the fact that the request was made months ago. He told member states’ ambassadors that the mission was in danger of failure because of member nations’ failure to deliver resources and vowed to tackle the gap between alliance promises and performance at the upcoming NATO summit in Istanbul at the end of June.<snip>

“The Europeans in NATO, with the exception of the British, simply are not up to such missions anymore.”

Everybody knows that *&co have brilliant planners, so the Afghan mess must be the Europeans' fault.