Wait just a cotton-pickin’ second, here...
The Germans are pulling out because it ~isn’t~ the U.S. leading the coalition?
Obama said we are not really there so confidence will dwindle.
My guess is that the U.S. pushed for this, so the Germans want nothing to do with it if the U.S. is going to be little more than a spectator with advanced weapons.
because they see this as a waste of time and can;’t understand why the hell what we’re doing there waging war from a man who was on vacation in Brazil in Rio with his family and mother in law and her friend on our dime
Maybe they see the bigger picture of Soros , Petrobas and a deal struck with oil with our tax money
I’m just waiting for the loon left to state this was all a diversion
ARF
What 11th_VA is saying is what I'm reading here in Germany, too.
The bottom line looks to be that Italy and Norway won't do anything unless NATO has upper command of the operation, while some countries feel that NATO, because of it's action against muslims in Afghanistan, would be bad PR for the muslim rebels in Libya.
Reading between the lines, it looks like there is a push to bring Qatar and the UAE into the forefront, but the UAE is dragging its heels. Obama has said that the US is going to drop it's command role after the initial strikes to take down Libya AA capacity and no one seems to know who will fill the void.
The whole cluster...k can becomes apparent when you read that France calls the operation "Harmattan". the British call it "Ellamy" and the US call it "Odyssey Dawn".
I think that Germany is pulling ships from the Mediterranean because it now appears that NATO ships will be used to enforce a blockade of Libya. IOW mission creep.
Merkel has sufferred some very embarrasing scandals such as her heir apparent and defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (AKA zu Googleberg) having been caught out as amateurishly plagiarizing his doctor thesis and a vicious round of fingerpointing between her government and automakers after the new introduction of E10 biofuel was shown to damage or not run in some older cars.
She has a very big state election coming up Sunday and just doesn't need the risk of another display of ineptitude right now.
These are just my thoughts on the matter.
“The Germans are pulling out because it ~isn’t~ the U.S. leading the coalition?”
KUDOs to you, you spotted the golden nugget in that one. I bet the Bamster spilled his latte over that slip of the tongue. It was all an epic cover, from day one, that is, it was a US operation under the cover of NATO and Barry did not wish to have his finger prints on it. Well, in the paraphrased words of his famous republican turn coat supporter: you broke it, it is yours to fix. Of course the media will gloss over this one and blame it on someone other than Mr. Brilliance.