Gates Calls Europe Anti-War Mood Danger to Peace

[cal04]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/world/europe/24nato.html?hp

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who has long called European contributions to NATO inadequate, said Tuesday that public and political opposition to the military had grown so great in Europe that it was directly affecting operations in Afghanistan and impeding the alliance’s broader security goals.

“The demilitarization of Europe — where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it — has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st,” he told NATO officers and officials in a speech at the National Defense University, the Defense Department-financed graduate school for military officers and diplomats.

A perception of European weakness, he warned, could provide a “temptation to miscalculation and aggression” by hostile powers.

(snip)
Mr. Gates’s blunt comments came just three days after the coalition government of the Netherlands collapsed in a dispute over keeping Dutch troops in Afghanistan. It now appears almost certain that most of the 2,000 Dutch troops there will be withdrawn this year. And polls show the Afghanistan war has grown increasingly unpopular in nearly every European country.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. In other news: Up is Down.

[leftstreet]

2. 'European weakness' my ass

They know a hell of a lot more about war than Gates does

[Blue_Tires]

3. who remembers the "Coalition of the Willing"?

lol...someone needs to dig up all those early invasion codewords and phrases...

[NoNothing]

4. Fair is fair

Dissolve NATO.

It serves no purpose any more, anyways, without the Soviet Union.

[EFerrari]

5. Why is this BushCo fixer in our government?

[DJ13]

6. Translation: Those awful Europeans arent buying our armaments in sufficient quantity

-This message brought to you by GE, Lockheed, and Boeing.

[fascisthunter]

7. he's nuts... he has just proven to me that he should be Canned

this man is not right in the head with that type of shit.

If we followed this man's logic, everybody and everything would be potentially dangerous for us, and we'd wipe out all life on the planet.

"We need war to maintain peace!" - Sir Whackjob

[mmonk]

8. Peace always endangers peace.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

[90-percent]

9. Sniveling Europeans

Don't they understand how great it is to conduct war for incoherent, stupid and vague reasons? Why aren't they sending more of their young people off to die in the name of bullshit?

-90% Jimmy

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

10. Oh man, the next thing you know Christianity might breakout.

We couldn't have that now.

[EFerrari]

11. LOL. Hey, haven't read you in while.

:hi:

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

16. Yeah, I've been fighting the local battles on the Southern Oregon Coast.

The good news is that were winning. Two tax measures aimed at the rich passed and I'm on the board for Redfish Rocks Marine Reserve the first one in Oregon. Look it up.

[Libertas1776]

12. It's not fair

Europe use to be the biggest proponents of empire bankrupting massive military endeavors into lands that hated them with a passion. Now that we join in on the fun, they go and say its passé. :sarcasm:

[malaise]

13. Fuck him

Bring the troops home
:puke:

[anonymous171]

14. All it shows is that Europe is becoming increasingly reliant on American military protection

and now has an interest in maintaining the current imperialist status quo.

[gratuitous]

15. Gates lives in the most protected shell imaginable

The presumptiveness required to lecture other countries that have seen all-out war on their soil within living memory is nothing short of breath-taking. I think Europe is pretty well aware of the dangers of providing a "temptation to miscalculation and aggression" by hostile powers. And they're still choosing to reduce their military obligations. This must be incomprehensible to a person with the bone-deep belief in the power of violence to overcome any problem, even the problem of violence.

[arcadian]

17. WAR IS PEACE - FREEDOM IS SLAVERY - IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH