Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Europeans see what America cannot

Europeans see what America cannot
By ERIC MARGOLIS, TORONTO SUN
 
 
At this week's NATO conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, an angry U.S.
Secretary of Defence Robert Gates accused some Europeans of not being
prepared to "fight and die" in Afghanistan in the battle against the
Taliban. 
The undiplomatic Gates is quite right. Most Europeans regard the Afghan
conflict as a. wrong and immoral; b. America's war; c. all about oil; or
d. probably lost. 
To many Europeans, the NATO alliance was created to deter the real threat
of Soviet aggression, not to supply foot soldiers for George Bush's wars
in the Muslim world. 
While Gates and the Harper government were pleading for more troops, the
commander of the 40,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. Dan McNeill,
landed a bombshell. If proper U.S. military counter-insurgency doctrine
were followed, McNeill admitted, the U.S. and NATO would need 400,000
troops to defeat Pashtun tribal resistance in Afghanistan. 
When the Soviets occupied Afghanistan, they deployed 160,000 troops and
about 200,000 Afghan Communist troops -- yet failed to crush the mostly
Pashtun resistance. Now, the U.S. and NATO are trying the same mission
with only 66,000 troops, backed by local mercenaries grandly styled the
Afghan National Army. 
 
Canada's calls for 1,000 more NATO troops, and the U.S. decision to send
3,200 marines, will not alter the course of this war, which is turning
increasingly against the western occupiers. In fact, the war is spreading
into neighbouring Pakistan, a nation of 165 million, stretching U.S. and
NATO forces ever thinner. 
A primary reason for Gates' recent call for U.S. troops to begin attacking
pro-Taliban Pashtun tribesmen inside Pakistan is due to their growing
attacks on allied supply lines to Afghanistan. 
As this column has reported, over 70% of U.S./NATO supplies come in by
truck through Pakistan's tribal belt known as FATA, including all of their
oil and gas. Attacks by pro-Taliban tribesmen against these vulnerable
supply lines are jeopardizing western military operations inside
Afghanistan. 
HUNTERS NOW HUNTED 
The hunters are becoming the hunted. Cutting off invaders' supply lines is
a time-honoured Pashtun military tactic. They used it against Alexander
the Great, the British, and Soviets, and are at it again. 
What angry Sec. Gates fails to see is that by pushing NATO into a distant
Asian war without political purpose or seeming end, he is endangering the
very alliance that is the bedrock of U.S. power in Europe. 
Europeans increasingly ask why they need the U.S.-dominated military
alliance, a Cold War relic, in which they continue to play foot soldiers
to America's atomic knights, to paraphrase the late German statesman,
Franz Josef Strauss. 
Why does the rich, powerful European Union even need NATO any more? The
Soviet threat is gone -- at least for now. Nuclear-armed France and
Britain are quite capable of defending Europe against outside threats. Why
can't the new European Defence Force take over NATO's role of defending
Europe and protecting EU interests? 
In short, most Europeans see no benefit in playing junior members in an
alliance whose historic time has passed and that serves primarily as an
instrument of U.S. power. Washington's sharpest geopolitical thinker,
Zbigniew Brzezinski, calls NATO a "stepping stone" the U.S. uses to
project power into Europe. 
By pushing NATO towards a bridge too far, the Bush administration may end
up fatally undermining the alliance and encouraging anti-American forces
in Europe. 
In fact, it's becoming evident that the cash-strapped U.S. needs the EU
more than the EU needs the U.S. 
CONSCRIPTION 
Final point. If impassioned claims by U.S. and Canadian politicians that
the little Afghanistan war must by won at all costs, then why don't they
stop orating, impose conscription, and send 400,000 soldiers, including
their own sons, to fight in Afghanistan? 
Of course they won't. They prefer to waste their own soldiers, and grind
up Afghanistan, rather than admit this war against 40 million Pashtun
tribesmen was a terrible mistake that will only get worse. 
-- 
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