Posted on 11/11/2004 12:50:39 PM PST by neverdem
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 11 - The head of NATO said today that there was a critical "perception gap" between Europe and the United States on the subject of global terror and that Europeans must move closer to the American view of the seriousness of the threat.
"Your country focused very much on the fight against terror while in Europe we focused to a lesser extent on the consequences for the world," Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO's secretary general, said in an interview. "We looked at it from different angles, and that for me is one of the reasons you saw such frictions in the trans-Atlantic relationship."
As a result, he said, Europe was lagging behind the United States in merging external and internal security to combat terrorism, and Europe had to catch up.
"If the gap is to be bridged, it has to be done from the European side and not from the United States," he said, adding that the conflict in Iraq, the issue that helped divide the alliance, now provided an opportunity for uniting it.
"Where allies very much agree and must agree is the fact that whatever ways they have looked at the war in Iraq and the run-up to it and the split we saw, we cannot afford to see Iraq go up in flames," he said. "It is everyone's obligation that we get Iraq right."
Mr. de Hoop Scheffer is a former Dutch foreign minister who backed the Bush administration on the war in Iraq without alienating other European leaders and became NATO's head on Jan. 1. He said that a meeting he had with President Bush in Washington Wednesday should be taken as a sign that trans-Atlantic frictions had eased.
"It's not as if I came here with doubt and my meeting with the President washed it all away,'' he said. "I have never doubted that commitment, but whatever way you look at it, the fact that the secretary general of NATO is the first foreign visitor that President Bush has met since the election is a clear sign sign of the full commitment of this administration and of this president to the trans-Atlantic alliance."
NATO has been asked by the Iraqi government to train its security forces, and Mr. de Hoop Scheffer said that 10 of the 19 member states were contributing to that training, both within Iraq and in places outside Iraq, the preference of France, Germany and Spain - like Jordan and European military schools. He said he hoped to have the program fully operational by the end of the year.
The experience of Iraq had taught him two lessons as a European and an Atlanticist, he said.
"The first is that if Europe sees its integration process as one directed against the United States, it will not work because the result will be a split in Europe, and that is an ambition that no European should have,'' he said.
"The second is that if you want to have a trans-Atlantic dialogue between grownups, I know that any president and any American administration is willing to listen to the European voice as long as it is one European voice. If it is five different voices, they will not take the trouble to listen and they will wonder what is Europe."
NATO has 9,000 troops and a broadening reconstruction campaign under way in Afghanistan, but Mr. de Hoop Scheffer said his greatest concern there now - one he planned to raise in a meeting with Secretary General Kofi Annan today - was the explosion in the heroin trade and its threat to the country's political future and to NATO's work there.
"Poppy fields are growing in large parts of the country, certain warlords are financed from the revenues of the crop and the economy of Afghanistan is dominated by the illegal profits of this growth," he said.
While the mission was one for the international community and not for NATO, he said, it could end up undermining his organization's effort to secure and stabilize the country.
"My point,'' he said, "is that if the international community doesn't take this problem head on, then what are we doing there?"
Nice to see that NATO is in reasonable hands, at the very least.
As soon as "Europe" comes to realize that they are NOT a superpower, and with their socialist bent can never become one, they may be able to take their rightful place in the world order.
Wake up call
This guy gets it ~ Bump!
Notice the euro with some spine and making these statements is Dutch.
wow, someone over there actually GETS it.
"Your country focused very much on the fight against terror while in Europe we focused to a lesser extent on the consequences for the world," Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO's secretary general, said in an interview. "We looked at it from different angles, and that for me is one of the reasons you saw such frictions in the trans-Atlantic relationship."
Translation: "We Euros thought you cowboys were stirring things up and if we ignored terrorism and denounced you, the terrorists would naturally leave us alone. They didn't. So please save us again, America!"
With the wake-up calls they've been receiving, I'm not too surprised. Good news, whatever the reason.
"If the gap is to be bridged, it has to be done from the European side and not from the United States," he said, adding that the conflict in Iraq, the issue that helped divide the alliance, now provided an opportunity for uniting it."
---
Nice to see at least a hint that the Euro Military GETS IT!
Whew! Europe can't be happy to hear that which makes me happy. LOL
The Dutch are currently under attack, however, I don't see France or Germany speaking up about it.
Yeah, something tells me the Dutch now get it. And it helps that they hold the EU rotating presidency.
Hopefully the rest of the NATO decision makers will not have a "French moment" and torpedo this thinking.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.