AF"Lack" -- NATO's AWOL Allies in Afghanistan
Watching the President unveil his well-constructed Obama Doctrine for Afghanistan and Pakistan this morning, it is all too clear from his message that the safety of Europeans is as much on the line as the safety of Americans as events in Afghanistan unfold. But you wouldn't know it given how many NATO members are AWOL in Afghanistan. If Al Qaeda and other extremists are able to replicate the Afghanistan sanctuaries of pre-2001, I dare so (and so just did President Obama) no European capital would be immune from renewed plotting and planning by Osama Bin Laden and his extremist allies.
Shortly, President Obama will follow up on his initiative with a trip to Europe to attend ceremonies commemorating the 60th anniversary of NATO, which will be hosted jointly by France and Germany. In a gesture designed to rebuild trans- Atlantic ties, President Nicholas Sarkozy will lead France back into full NATO membership. That is all well for the good, and as a strong proponent of a redesigned and revitalized NATO, I believe that France's reintegration into NATO's command structure is a good step in the right direction.
But NATO's collective operational strategy in Afghanistan is a big black mark on its record.
If one hung around NATO's Brussels headquarters very long, one would not have to dig very deep to discover why NATO is in such disarray over Afghanistan . Based on the number of "red cards," conditions, and caveats that NATO members have placed in the way of developing a unified, cohesive strategy to reverse a losing struggle against extremists in Afghanistan, Europeans must have unilaterally decided that the threat from Al Qaeda mysteriously evaporated and Afghanistan is a quagmire that is a bridge too far.
On the eve of the NATO Summit, Americans have good reasons to be disappointed by the indifference many European leaders have displayed to the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. Undoubtedly, this is one of the legacies of Euro-resentment generated against the Bush administration's follies in Iraq. But there is a new U.S. president, and a new more determined and cohesive Taliban about to unleash a new Spring offensive against NATO forces in Afghanistan. And Al Qaeda, by just about any respected intelligence operative, is regrouping and reeneergizing its command and control structure vital to global operational planning.
Most NATO members, particuarly the Germans, seem content to rest on their 20th century laurels, rather than adapt to 21st century realities. However, with all the hoopla attendant with the festivities, NATO's future and it ability to prove its utility as an alliance is fundamentally linked to the fight against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
There are 26 members in NATO, but the brunt of the effort in Afghanistan is being borne principally by the United States, Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and Denmark. That leaves, by my count, more or less 21 NATO members happily enjoying the benefits of NATO membership without shouldering the front line burden in Afghanistan. And most of those 21 good NATO friends are fair weather spectators, if that.
Ironically, the two major NATO nations hosting the 60th anniversary Summit -- German and France -- are the very two NATO members most responsible for undermining NATO's ability to reverse the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.
The Germans have stayed conveniently on the sidelines in a perpetual "Ocktoberfest" mode in northern Afghanistan -- a region as far away from the fighting as they can get deploying their right to flag a "national exception" -- self-imposed restrictions on the conditions of their deployment. Every intelligence report on the subject indicates that Al Qaeda operatives make no distinction between a New York or a Berlin, just because Germany is pretending it is not in the fight in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda.
I single Germany out in particular because of all the European beneficiaries of NATO's longevity, Germans owe more to NATO than any other nation. Germany's charade toward Al Qaeda in Afghanistan is no longer defensible and the Germans deserve to called out, and Americans have good reason to be more than annoyed at Berlin as the President unveils a well-constructed and integrated approach to the "AFPAK" crisis that commits more American treasure and blood to the fight.
Perhaps Chancellor Angela Merkel will muster the necessary political courage in the days ahead to meet President Obama's challenge and get out of the foxhole once and for all and rejoin NATO on the frontlines in Afghanistan. If Germany leads, the other 20 sideliners may follow. If she has to go in front of the German people and make the case once and for all, I'll help her write her script. In the name of our troops in Afghanistan, I'll do whatever it takes to get the Germans to meet our president halfway. The Americans deserve a tangible sign of support from Germany.
The Germans are not the only rubberneckers. Despite the warming of relations with Washington, the French, too, have red-carded the use of NATO surveillance aircraft needed to better target Al Qaeda. Why? They refuse to permit NATO to spend the money necessary to deploy the aircraft to Afghanistan. That has hampered NATO's mission, as well. Mon Dieu. Even if Paris is not willing to put more ground troops into Afghanistan, at least don't make it harder for other NATO allies shouldering the fighting.
President Obama's remarks this morning highlighted how quickly and seamlessly his national security team was able to construct a commendably hard and soft power approach to the AFPAK crisis. He is fulfilling his campaign commitment to focus much needed attention on Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The "Euro"phoria over Obama's election provides good political capital for NATO's European leaders to translate renewed trans-Atlantic friendship into an appropriate, effective and constructive response to the Obama Doctrine by convincing Europeans they have as much at stake as Americans do in the future stability of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Afghanistan is not the only challenge facing NATO, but it is the most imporant, and how Europeans empirically/objectively/tangibly respond to the Obama Doctrine will have a telling impact on the future of trans-Atlantic relations.
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Germany and Japan suffered horribly in WWII and came out of it with strongly pacifist sentiments. If we whit their appetites for war, we may find their interests differ from our own. Their opposition may turn less than polite, they may plot for the day when they replace the United States as the primary military power.
Much cunning is extended in practical warfare. When the Soviets put down the Prague Spring, they brought in some special forces with a claim of airplane trouble and a forced landing that allowed them to secure the airport by the capital.. Before the United States invaded Iraq, there were negotiations with the Iraqi military to get out of the way. What we should have learned policing the Mexican border, at Pearl Harbor, and on 9/11 is that the United States does not know everything about our enemies before hand. Personal initiative still matters in war.
Our heavy military spending and ships at sea do not make us safe. We should be more careful before we try to resume the aggressive character of pacifistic nations. The world we make has more menace than what a criminal gang in the wildest mountains of central Asia could ever do.
"Afghanistan is not the only challenge facing NATO, but it is the most important, and how Europeans empirically/objectively/tangibly respond to the Obama Doctrine will have a telling impact on the future of trans-Atlantic relations."
It is very telling on the quality of the people and their countries
Pretending for the moment that suppressing terrorism IS the actual strategy (the TAPI project has more to do with things than this Ginsberg twit would have you believe), and that the Taliban WERE the proven culprits behind 9/11 (accusations to date have been all heat, and no light), actual American tactics work AGAINST this strategy. American militarism amounts to scratching at the poison ivy of terrorism; it feels good on a gut level, and stops the itching - for awhile. But your children will one day suffer the consequences of your decision to lob bombs in the general direction of your hidden enemies, as the disease deepens and spreads to the radicalized families of civilian casualties.
To those who question the chutzpah of your European allies: two kids contract poison ivy. Both are told not to scratch. One does; one doesn't. Which one is smarter? More importantly: which one is braver?
The whole point of terrorism is to provoke over-reaction. Europe posesses the intelligence to realize this, and the courage to restrain themselves. Idiotic cowards like Ginsberg - and whoever's in charge of current US foreign policy - don't.
It's time for AMERICA to grow a set, and muster the courage not to scratch.
Perhaps the Germans and French understand the delicate nature of Pakistan's government right now, and don't want to destabilize a country with nukes.
Perhaps Germany is upset that the War Criminals of the Bush admin. are free? It was an American Judge who sentenced many German officials (rightly so) to hang for their Crimes Against Humanity, including torture, and what Judge Jackson called "the ultimate War Crime": unprovoked, aggressive, pre-emptive war against another sovereign nation. Bush and co. committed both these Crimes.
It also might have to do with the fact that on the FBIs "most wanted list," Usama bin Laden is charged with terrorist crimes, but not with 9/11, for lack of evidence. Maybe they, like many Americans, want a new, truly indepedent, thorough investigation into 9/11. Maybe they found the fact that not only did the Bush admin. not want an investigation into 9/11, but actually fought against having one, a little suspicious. Maybe they also wonder how and why radar "inserts" got onto FAA monitors as well as the radar screens of Pilots engaged in War Game exercises that were going on, and why they weren't removed from both sets of monitors the second the FAA told NORAD "we have a real Emergency?" The FAA reported up to 11 possible hi-jackings on that day, because of these fake"inserts." Maybe they wonder what Sibel Edmonds knows about 9/11 that she's been gagged by the State Secrets Privilege?
Ginsberg is great at straining gnats while letting elephants pass.
Perhaps he should educate himself about the history of failed imperial conquests of Afghanistan by reading or listening to Robert Fisk:
"Robert Fisk, you basically argue that the Americans and the allies can't win in Afghanistan. Why not?
FISK: Well for a number of reasons. The first one is the same old story. It's not our land, it's not our country. The Persians didn't manage to occupy Afghanistan, the Greeks didn't manage to, the British didn't manage to in 1842, the British didn't manage to at the Battle of Maiwand in the 1880s, the Russians didn't manage to in 1979 and 1980, right through to 1990, and now we think we can do it."
The more you write, Ginsberg, the more your rhetoric sounds reminiscent of the fanatical Bush doctrine geared toward verbally abusing those who failed to blindly conspire with the "coaltion of the willing".
You can't expect Europe to blindly commit military presence to a prospect toward nation building without legitimate evidence to indicate that such an interventionist policy will pay off in the long run, and, for the time being, the fact that Obama has yet to authorize reductions in the use of aerial drones as a means of "targeted assassination" and other recfkless tactics conducive to untold amounts of collateral damage, the skkepticism of the European Union seems all the more defensible.
And cut the garbage about Germany "owing" us with a strong military presence, as once again, your argument rings all too familiar in the wake of Republicans deriding France's unwillingness to support the Iraqi War as constituting a proverbial "stab in the back" after we supposedly "rescued" them during the Second World War. Even if such circumstances did entail a "debt" of sorts, that should not translate into blind commitments without the benefit of discretion.
Time for America to quit Europe, pull all bases out and let our so-called allies "grow a spine" (and a pair) and finally learn to defend themselves. No more American blood and treasure- we gave the Europeans the lives of 120,000 young Americans in WWI, and about 300,000 in WWII, both conflicts of European making and none of our (US) business. We were fools- never again.
Wars should be short and decisive. We should not linger to provoke nationalistic hatreds and train opposing patriots how to hurt us. As said in chess, the threat is stronger than its execution. Our power demands regard. Commiting it ties us down. The frequency that the United States has bombed wedding parties, killing women and children, is implicit in our having bombed our allies, as when we killed the four Canadians. There are once peacable people in Afghanistan and Iraq who will never forgive us.
US business was closely connected to the Nazis. IBM and Ford particularly admired Hitler.
Just as Bush and his supporters were delusional about most aspects of their policies so are many of the Centrist Democrats. There is not a good War bad War scenario. There is only a bad War worse War reality. The whole of the War in Afghanistan is a farce. Invading and occupying a nation to get one criminal and his associates is stupid at best. The fact that at bin Laden’s imminent capture we pulled back to attack Iraq shows that Afghanistan was merely a side show and pretense for Bush’s ambitions in Iraq. There is no substantive policy to continue.
The continuance of these policies is stupid and delusional at best and criminal at worst. The political expediency of 2002 for support of these policies is gone. Democrats do not have to prove their cajones by continuing the failed policies of Bush or committing War crimes. The original justifiable actions can be accomplished using special opps forces targeting only those culpable. Had this been the policy in 2002 we would have long since been victorious.
We rightly criticized Bush over these policies and we are now obligated to continue these criticisms. Since most of us supported Obama we have a greater duty to voice our objections. We are not Republicans marching lockstep and mindless. We must take responsibility rather than adopt the cowardly Republican stance of denial. Thus I must strongly rebuke Obama and his advisors for taking this course and these actions.
First of all, NATO should have been disbanded when the Warsaw Pact was disbanded.
Centrally, the origin of Muslim attacks on Europe lie with the disastrous US Mideast policy and its lopsided support of Israel. Of course, over the decades, some Muslim fundamentalists have expended their ideological sights, and some of them, imitating Israel's attempt to recreate an extinct Judean state, now yearn for a new Caliphate. Both are death-worship --trying to resurrect something history has passed by.
Both ventures will fail.
The Europeans are smart in trying to disengage from the Afghan adventure. They and we are not doing especially well nation-building in the Balkans: Afghanistan might as well be on Mars.
The fact that NATO officials would rather be employed than not is easy to understand, but it's obvious that they want to just keep collecting salaries for their pointless continued existence -- but not to the point of actually incurring expenses and casualties.
Exactly.
Ginsberg argues that a lack of European commitment to our "nation building" endeavor in Afghanistan will invariably subject them to an increase in terrorist attacks, when, in realitty, the truth is probably the other way around.
Our leaders have failed to appropriately respond to an international threat from within Afghanistan and Pakistan, and have failed to learn from past failure and from history.
Small, scattered, and isolated cells of criminals plotted and perpetrated the international crimes of 9/11, Madrid, and numerous others. Some of these criminals have been hiding in the rugged terrain of Afghanistan and Pakistan and may be plotting more crimes. The local authorities have totally failed to police them.
Our response has been to launch a mechanized military assault on the people of these two countries. This is a predictable and continuing failure, only engendering more criminal behavior among the people we attack, and further threatening fragile local governments.
The response should have never been by mechanized military assault.
This situation requires precise surgical responses by small, mobile, highly trained, well equipped Special Forces teams supported by all of the intelligence capability of the free world; and political and economic support of local governments (under threat from the same criminals).
Can we not accept and profit from the reservations of so much of the world over our inappropriate tactics, and obvious lack of strategy? Would we not have more support from the international community if we changed and responded appropriately?
Call them terrorists (tending to stimulate a military War on Terror), call them criminals (instead stimulating a tactical police response), but either way, deal with them with precision, with a scalpel, not a broadsword.
[fine, removed the scolding. However, the rest of the article is important]
Mr. Ginsberg... please take my feedback as the sole voice of a German citizen, a moderate conservative, with lots of friends in the US, who has visited the US around a dozen times, someone who is very grateful about the US's role in the German reunification. In other words, you can consider me by design someone about as structurally sympethatic to the US as there can be.
However, your article leaves me deeply enraged, due to the intellectual dishonesty behind it as much as a seemingly total lack of self-awareness about the disasterous role the US has played in the middle east particularly in the last years.
1) The current legal foundation of the mission is UNSC resolution 1510, and the executing body is the ISAF. However, the ISAF is _not_ "the NATO", it is rather that the ISAF is using NATO's organizational structures to carry out its mission. "The NATO" is not at war in Afghanistan, as much as you're trying to make it sound like it. The ISAF, consisting of several nations who are committing troops to "assist the Government of Afghanistan and the International Community in maintaining security within its area of operation" (http://www.nato.int/issues/afghanistan/040628-factsheet.htm)
There is one more reason why it will be doubly difficult to convince German citizens to chip in with American military efforts again: America has totally ruined its moral standing in the world. The war based on purposeful lies and deception, breaking international law. The government-induced use of torture. The open scorn for international treaties, ignored whenever the American government felt like it. And the near-dictatorship consistent lawbreaking even WITHIN America (see Habeas Corpus) over the last 6 years before Obama. For European citizens, Bush America was rightly seen as a rogue state, led by war criminals. You don't associate yourself with that more than absolutely necessary. And while I recognize that Obama has taken first steps to remedy the situation, it will take alot of time to repair this.
You want efforts to improve the situation in the middle east? Great! Let's talk about what's necessary. A resolution in the Israel-Palestine question. A peace treaty with Syria. A new approach with Iran. But a new military offensive in the Afghanistan/Pakistan area? Color me skeptical. And good luck trying to convince European citizens (and Germans in particular) to lend a hand to THAT. You'll have to offer more compelling reasons than the eternal Al-Qaida boogeyman and the "utility" of the NATO for America. Sorry.
Based on this setup, Germany agreed to send troops to offer security and protection to areas assigned to it, ratified by the German Bundestag. This always was the mission, and this remains the mission. Protection. It did NOT authorize offensive missions in the areas close to Pakistan, and it never will. German troops have offered assistance for other ISAF troops in self-defense in the past, but you will NOT get Germany to wage America's war. Don't pretend it's Germany's. Or the NATO's. It's YOURS.
2) What astonishes me is the callous and totally unreflected way you're extending demands to other NATO members. NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Other than the closely defined ISAF mission, it has NO BUSINESS in Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan. NONE. Simply because you Americans, for years literally drunk with power and self-righteousness, have managed to royally screw up the middle east with a slew of disastrous policies, you now expect to use the northatlantic defensive treaty to clean up the mess which YOU caused? And you don't even have the decency to feel at least a little bit ashamed about that?
Read your own words: "Prove its utility". Almost Freudian. The NATO as mere tool for American interests. I still have Rumsfeld's words in my ear: America will forge quick coalitions as it sees fit for its plans. America does not need advice or consensus-building, it will go alone if it has to.
Mentar -
Get a grip, will you?
You make your own fundamental mistake and then write paragraphs with faulty reasoning.
It is critical for any foreigner to understand that the Middle East debacle of the last 6 years was not approved or sanctioned by the majority of the American people. We were lied to and manipulated, even worse than you were. We had no say in anything the Bush Administration did and were treated with scorn ans as traitors if we spoke out against this, for years. Excellent outlets like HuffPo did not exist back then, The existing media gave us no voice and ignored us. Many of us also believe that Ms. Merkel is same-same George Bush in her neo-con beliefs.
The election of Barack Obama was OUR rejection of Bush / Cheney middle east madness, torture, economic destruction, disrespect, etc.
Though we still have our problems and worthless big-mouth righties, it's a new day with a new leader in the USA, and you are behind the times. The civilized world needs to work together, and the Afghan/Pakistan threat is real for ALL of Europe, not just the United States.
President Obama deserves respect and thoughtful attention without the taint of George Bush. He has already done a lot to unwind the shameful past Administration's sins. It is your Leader, Merkel, I do not trust now.
And what of what I wrote was supposedly "faulty"? Maybe you could point that out? What of what I wrote was a "fundamental mistake"? You listed NOTHING.
I like Obama. I was hoping for Obama to win, and thank god America showed some reason again - the same people who REELECTED Bush when it was easy to see for every sentient being what was happening. If I were an American, I'd be REALLY careful before I went out to lecture others about policies.
But it's a fact that he's continuing exactly the same the Pakistan approach that Bush started. And I don't see that another "Afghanistan surge" is going to be the solution.
Finally, Merkel a "neocon"? You have no clue what you're talking about.
Ginsberg, you're way off. I'm Canadian, and I'm aware of the strong position Canada has taken on the
Afghanistan situation, and the deaths and casualties Canada has suffered, ever since the misbegotten
Bush administration abandoned Afghanistan to pursue its illegitimate goals in Iraq,
Afghanistan was a profound failure of the Bush administration. Had the U.S. led its staunch NATO allies in the pursuit of Bin Laden and the Taliban in the snows of Tora Bora three months after the invasion -- instead of launching its criminal war against Iraq -- Afghanistan could have been an enormous success five years ago.
Thank God the Bush years are over. It's going to take Herculean efforts and the support and goodwill of the American people -- in the face of Bush/Republican obstructionism -- to clean up the mess he's left.
Mr Ginsberg demonstrates a rare ability to spout nonsense from bygone eras. From his views on the patently fabricated so-called 'War on Terror' to his deadpan whitewashing of recent IDF atrocites in Gaza, he can always be relied upon to recite military-industrial-media complex talking points on cue. Thank god no trees were cut to print this sorry outburst.
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