Posted on 09/12/2006 2:47:45 PM PDT by knighthawk
SOME of the US's closest NATO allies have abandoned Washington on the key battleground ofthe war on terror - the bloody struggle against Islamic militants for control of southern Afghanistan. Five years after the world stood "shoulder to shoulder" with the US in the aftermath of 9/11, The Times has learned that many of the countries that pledged support then have now ignored an urgent request for more help in fighting a resurgent Taliban and its al-Qa'ida allies.
Turkey, Germany, Spain and Italy have effectively ruled out sending more troops. France has not committed itself either way, but military sources in Kabul said there were no expectations that the French would contribute to a new battle group, especially now they were providing a substantial force in Lebanon.
They have rejected an appeal from General James Jones, the American Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, for 2500 more troops to fight alongside American, British, Canadian and Dutch soldiers. The 26-nation alliance has not volunteered a single extra combat soldier.
Britain, which has 5400 troops in Afghanistan, has told its NATO partners they must do more if the line is to be held against the resurgent Taliban. The conflict has cost the lives of 33 British troops since June.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
Ping
Ok enough games. Start Operation Koranimal Cullback.
Canada has not.
The aussie MSM is as bad as ours. What a BS article with BS premises. Needs a barf alert.
I don't believe this to be true. NATO forces have been kicking ass and killing Taliban with great gusto.
NATO Article 5
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security .
What the US should do now is pull 7,000 troops out of Iraq and put them in Afghanistan.
When the RATS bash the move, Come back with, I thought you wanted troops out of Iraq. We redeploy to Afghanistan which you claim is the central front on the war on terror and that isn't good enough either?
Just where do you want us to redeploy since Okinawa is a bit far?
Do it in October.
Check out all of the operations elswhere in the world they are participating...
http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/operations/current_ops_e.asp
"...More than 2,800 Canadian soldiers, sailors and Air Force personnel are deployed overseas on operational missions. On any given day, about 8,000 Canadian Forces members - one third of our deployable force - are preparing for, engaged in or returning from an overseas mission. Since 1947, the CF has completed 72 international operations. That figure does not include current operations, or the many CF operations carried out in Canada..."
Still plenty of US troops to pull out of Germany, Italy, and the Balkans.
Invocation in context
New missions : The invocation of Article 5 has, in the intervening period, been fundamental to retooling the Alliance to equip it with the capabilities to take on operations such as ISAF (© ISAF ) Sebestyén L. v. Gorka analyses the significance of the invocation of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty five years on.
On 11 September 2001, the international terrorist organisation known as al Qaida achieved something that the Soviet Union never attempted. It killed large numbers of Americans, together with many non-Americans, on US soil. The carnage and death toll inflicted on that day were greater than that inflicted 60 years earlier during the attack on Pearl Harbor, the event that brought the United States into the Second World War. And its impact on both the wider security environment and NATO can hardly be over-estimated.
The very next day, the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s highest decision-making body, decided that: “If it were determined that this attack was directed from abroad against the United States” then it would be regarded as an action covered by Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, the most important clause of the Alliance’s founding charter. After briefings by US officials to NATO member states on 2 October, the condition relating to externality of attack was deemed to have been satisfied. In this way, NATO’s so-called “commitment clause” came fully into effect.
The irony of NATO’s decision was immediately obvious. The Berlin Wall had been breached almost 12 years earlier on 9 November 1989 (11/9) and NATO had won the Cold War without needing to invoke Article 5, the political and military “heart” of its founding charter, or even firing a single shot in anger. Moreover, although the clause was clearly envisaged by the Washington Treaty’s signatories as a mechanism by which the United States would come to the assistance of its European Allies, it was the European Allies who were offering Washington their support.
New missions : The invocation of Article 5 has, in the intervening period, been fundamental to retooling the Alliance to equip it with the capabilities to take on operations such as ISAF Given the enormity of the events of 9/11, it is no exaggeration to say that they brought NATO’s post-Cold War adaptation to an abrupt end. If, therefore, the period between the 11/9 fall of the Berlin Wall and the 9/11 terrorist attacks forms a distinct second phase of the Alliance’s history after four decades of Cold War, then the symbolic significance of the invocation of Article 5 heralded the beginning of a third post-post Cold War phase, the ramifications of which are still emerging five years on.
Though clearly the invocation of Article 5 was a historical milestone, some analysts have sought to downplay its significance and even the importance of Article 5 itself. Citing the careful wording of the original text, they argue that the commitment clause has minimal real value and was little more than a smoke screen.
On the one hand, Article 5 stipulates that an attack on one shall be deemed equivalent to an attack on all, that Allies are obliged to respond, and that military force is an option. On the other hand, it also states that any given Ally “will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith… such action as it deems necessary”. However, to understand the force and significance of the clause and the Alliance itself, the motivations of the original framers must also be taken into account.
snipped.....remainder here:
http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2006/issue2/english/art1.html
Let me get this straight? All of NATO can't scrape-up a single infantry brigade??? Time to fold-up shop in Brussels.
LoL but that is not what they would do. They would immediately claim that this shows that the war in Iraq is NOT part of the WoT and that Bush's failed policy finally has led to the adoption of Party of Treason strategy and tactics. They would cheer the news while claiming it as their own.
Yep... I just got back from around CFB Comox a few weeks back, so I got the lowdown from some friends in DNDCA...
Some NATO countries. Several have contributed troops, but only a few, such as Britain and Canada, have sent forces capable of and with the intention of doing the heavy lifting - i.e., counterinsurgency and heavy combat - in South and East Afghanistan. More of these are needed.
Other NATO members have provided garrisons for Kabul, civic action units, training units and the like.
This has been known for a long time. Which is why these people are not treated with much respect anywhere.
Canada has very few troops to begin with. Their military has something like 1/4 the manpower per unit population the US does.
They do get around, but there are few to go around.
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