Gates says two-tiered NATO puts alliance at risk

[Joanne98]

Source: Reuters

MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday the NATO alliance was at risk if it became split between members willing and unwilling to fight as he appealed to Europeans to support the war in Afghanistan.

While admitting U.S. policy mistakes -- and his own role in one of them -- Gates urged the allies to come together in the fight against Islamist militants in Afghanistan and said the credibility of NATO itself was at stake.

"We must not -- we cannot -- become a two-tiered alliance of those who are willing to fight and those who are not," he told a gathering of security and military experts in Munich. "Such a development, with all its implications for collective security, would effectively destroy the alliance."

His speech was the latest move in a campaign he has undertaken -- sometimes quietly, sometimes through blunt public statements -- to persuade NATO allies to supply more troops and resources for the mission.



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL1027452420080210

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Gates is not getting any more help from NATO! If he really really wants help from NATO or ANYBODY for that matter. He needs to send somebody over to the WH to arrest that little monster in the Oval Office. Everybody should have known YEARS ago that the BRAT would take down the country. BRATS have consequences!

[Kolesar]

1. No mention by Reuters of how the US has destablized Turkey & hence weakened NATO

Would not expect Gates to offer up that information, and the reporter did not ask!

[davidinalameda]

2. how has the US destablized Turkey

I thought the recent showing of power by the more conservative Muslim voters in that country did that

the country's leadership is moving away from the strict secularism of the past

[Kolesar]

4. The Kurds in Iraq want to reunite with the Kurds in Turkey

Move the border to the north.

[davidinalameda]

6. but the Bushies have supported the Turkish government on this

haven't they?

they've supported Turkish incursions into Iraq to go after the Kurdish separatists

[AlertLurker]

8. The issue is made a little more complex by...

...the facts that a) Turkey has long claimed that the land occupied by the Kurds is actually Turkish, rather than Kurdish, b) there is a heck of a lot of oil in "Kurdistan," and c) the USA does not want to enable Turkey while destabilizising Iraq, but must act as an Turkish ally (need the supply line and military bases) at the same time as they must safeguard control of Iraq's oil resources...

[no_hypocrisy]

3. So if the majority of NATO nations vote against more involvement in

Afghanistan, how would that split the organization? This country would not be able to access NATO funds, equipment, the military of other countries and would always have the option of "going it alone" in the unilateral tradition we've somehow adopted since 2001.

[Joanne98]

5. It wouldn't split NATO! It would just be a rejection of US bullying.

What politician is his/her right mind, would help Bush now when he's a lameduck? They're just going to wait for a new president.

[leftchick]

7. Europeans see what America cannot

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/12744

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.

[daleo]

9. Excellent post

NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Afghanistan is a long way from the Atlantic Ocean.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

12. A 1/4 of a million troops short.

That's coming just a hair short!

[bemildred]

10. Did he stamp his foot and frown?

What does he think he is going to do if they continue to ignore these tantrums?

[provis99]

11. does Gates have a single clue how NATO works?

Its a DEFENSIVE alliance; it isn't obligated to do jack shit in Afghanistan to fight Bush's wars of aggression. I'm more surprised the more outspoken members like France don't simply tell Gates to fuck off.