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Europeans see what America cannot
By Eric Margolis
11/02/08 "Edmonton
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's 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 reported, 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 againstAlexander the Great, the British and Soviets, and
are at it again.
What angry Gates fails to see is that by pushing 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. Washington's
sharpest geopolitical thinker, Zbigniew Brzezinski, calls NATO a
"stepping stone" the U.S. uses to project power into Europe.
By pushing 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.
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