LOL...30 soldiers and a million bucks is all Canada can spare. Talk about a poor country!
Some of the committee members criticized U.S. allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Europe for not adequately sharing the burden of contributing troops or financial resources to help with Afghanistan's stability and reconstruction.
With the United States contributing 14,000 troops, compared to a total of 2,000 from all other countries, and half of the $4 billion that has been used for reconstruction since September 2001, committee Chairman Henry Hyde (Republican from Illinois) said, the challenges threatening Afghanistan's success are not because the United States is not doing enough but, rather, because "not enough is being done."
"Congress is sick and tired at the lack of burden sharing in Afghanistan," said Representative Tom Lantos (Democrat from California). "Now that NATO has accepted full responsibility for security in Afghanistan, both the troop contribution and the financial contribution of both NATO members and other wealthy and developed countries ... is embarrassingly insufficient," he said.
Lantos contrasted the 241 troops contributed by Norway, a country with less than 5 million people, with the 180 troops from Spain and 151 troops from Turkey, with 40 million and 65 million populations, respectively.
"Norway, Spain and Turkey are all members of NATO," said Lantos. "Spain and Turkey have large military forces. Yet their willingness to assume the responsibility that they have accepted by being members of NATO is not reflected in troop strength."