The Sunday Eel Pout

In a completely obvious hat tip to The Desert Beacon, it is with reluctance and a sinister dread that I announce the need to launch the Minnesota version of The Sunday Deck Bass. The week's outrages, idiocies, and facile indignations will be compiled, and the most unworthy candidates will be awarded The Sunday Eel Pout. Your candidates are as follows:

• John McCain's advisor, Charlie Black, called Bush a "political asset" to the McCain campaign. Former Minnesota Congressman Vin Weber was slightly more honest when he said, "I don’t think it does us any good to try to pretend Bush doesn’t exist. I just don’t think that is a strategy that works. " Translation: we're stuck with him, so let's swim with this anchor or drown.
• Mitt Romney, who bowed out of the Republican race this week not because he was thoroughly rejected by his Party, or because it had already cost him $14 million of his own money, or because his designation as the last great hope for the right-wing of the GOP was the kiss of death in a general election, but rather because that by staying in the race he would only "forestall the launch of a national campaign and frankly I'd be making it easier for Senator Clinton or Obama to win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror."
• Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman, who endorsed John McCain after endorsing Rudy Giuliani earlier. Coleman, the consummate political chameleon, was voted in as part of the Bush Team. He then distanced himself from Bush before Petraeus' September report. Then he became an ardent proponent of Giuliani's war against radical Islam, embracing torture. Detecting a shift in the breeze, he backed McCain two days before the primary when polls showed McCain leading at 41%. Romney got that that 41% and won, and Coleman ended up backing the guy that got 22%. If Romney hadn't backed out, it seems certain that Coleman's dubious allegiance would have shifted to him immediately.
• Arizona Senator John McCain, who laid out his "diplomatic offensive" to get the NATO allies to expand their role in Afghanistan. This plan is exactly what the Bush Administration has been doing for the past year (at least), only now McCain will do it with "straight talk" instead. McCain brilliantly proposes to "bang heads" with our reluctant allies, who apparently simply don't understand that their militaries are at our disposal. A good shout is all that is needed to bring them 'round. I don't know why Bush never thought of this.

The winner of Minnesota's absolutely unwanted, utterly uncoveted, dismally appropriate, decidedly dubious, and completely ignominious Sunday Eel Pout is John McCain for recycling the tired arrogance of the Bush Administration towards NATO as something completely new and vaguely promising. No, you can't throw it back. It's against the law in Minnesota to throw a rough fish back in the water. You're stuck with it, like every other angler in the North Star State. Feed it to the dog, or eat it or something, but get it the hell away from me.

All of the idiots in this week's race were unquestionably deserving of the Sunday Eel Pout, but There Can Be Only One.
Well kids, the hissing of the eel pout can only mean one thing: this Sunday's Eel Pout award is over.

McCain offers "straight talk" to NATO on Afghanistan

Let's look at what McCain's "diplomatic offensive" consists of:

- "Talking with" the allies, as if that hasn't been done before. But wait, this will be "straight talk" now.

- "Straight talk" that tells the Europeans that they can't place restrictions on where or when their troops will be deployed. I guess this differs from what Rice, Gates, and Bush have told the Europeans somehow. Again, this is "straight talk", which must mean that the Bush Administration hasn't been talking straight thus far. Big change there.

- Criticising Britain for failing to curtail poppy cultivation. I guess British troops just never considered going after the poppy crops. Maybe they were too busy fighting or something. The British will certainly love hearing criticism from America when their military is stretched to the breaking point.

- Placing all of the NATO troops under American control, not just Canada and Britain. This one will be sure to win over those hesitant Europeans. Put those forces that your voters don't want to have there under the control of a foreign country, one whose brilliant plans got you into this mess.

None of this is any different from what the Bush Administration is already doing. We've already had Rice giving the allies the tough talk, we've had nasty letters sent to allies threatening to stop liking them unless they do what we want, we've had Gates insulting the allies and telling them that they are just suffering from BDS, we've had Bush blame them for the failures, and we've had an awful lot of "talking" already.

Aside from the use of the words "straight talk", as if that was some kind of talismanic mantra, McCain merely promises to continue the arrogance and "bang heads" of our allies in order to get them to follow Washington's dictates. The problem isn't that Europe doesn't understand who's boss, it's that they are sick of taking orders from us altogether. They believe the conflict is unwinnable, and have said so in public. If there is such a dire need for more troops, why doesn't America send a few thousand of the 130,000 they have in Iraq, they wonder aloud. The leaders of these countries are under strong domestic pressure to withdraw or reduce their forces, but all McCain does is brush that aside and make further demands, as if they just don't understand what he's saying or something, so now he has to use "straight talk".

Europe could very well have some "straight talk" of its own for McCain. Germany, in particular, has been pretty forthright about moving their troops to the south:

“The location we have been given is in the north and that is where we are staying and, by the way, although it might seem more peaceful at the moment, there is no knowing whether that will last,” one German source said.

Not really mincing words there at all, are they. Canada, too, has been pretty "straight" as well:

Mr. MacKay said he is in Vilnius to make it clear “in no uncertain terms” that Canada must have reinforcements of troops and equipments to continue the mission – saying that it is “not a negotiable item.” And he added that he wants a commitment before a summit of NATO national leaders in Bucharest which starts April 2.

Britain, too, has been pretty "straight" when describing their situation. They are running out of money, running out of men, and they think the conflict is unwinnable.

The Dutch, too, are tired of being preached at by the Americans.

In short, the Afghan effort is too costly, too unpopular at home, has gone on too long, and has shown too little progress for Europe to expand their troop levels or expenditures. In addition, the plan from Washington has been unrealistic and poorly conceived, so the allies will be reluctant to place their troops under the command of the American President. None of these things are likely to be solved by simply shouting at foreign leaders to step up their efforts. In fact, it's likely to undermine support for the Afghan mission further:

One Nato diplomat said: “I think Mr Gates’s intervention is more about domestic politics than anything else but sometimes I wonder whether the US realises the negative impact these spats have outside America.”

Nothing a little "straight talk" won't solve, eh?

story from The Daily Telegraph

McCain wants more EU troops for Afghanistan

By Tim Shipman, Norfolk, Virginia
Last Updated: 1:16am GMT 10/02/2008

John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for November's US presidential race, is to launch a diplomatic offensive to push France and Germany to do more to help British forces in Afghanistan.

Mr McCain has told The Sunday Telegraph that he plans to bang European heads together. "I'll go over there and sit down with them," he said, to discuss what he sees as "Nato's failure to do the heavy lifting in Afghanistan".

Details of Mr McCain's deep concern at the state of the war against the Taliban are the first disclosure of how his approach to foreign policy would affect Britain.

He is troubled that Nato allies have failed to provide sufficient troops to take on the Taliban in the south of the country. He is also concerned that some European nations do not let their troops patrol at night, or take part in offensive operations.

He said: "We just had to order 3,000 additional marines to Afghanistan because of the resurgence of the Taliban.

"Let's have some straight talk. There are some operational restrictions on some of the troops that are there. Some of the countries have not contributed what they can."

But he is also critical of "the failure to bring under control the poppy crop", an area where Britain has taken an ineffective lead. Most of the heroin that is produced goes to Europe, he said.

In a signal that he would lead an overhaul of the fight against the Taliban, Mr McCain said he wanted to see changes to the current dual command structure, which permits some Nato members to focus on nation-building exercises in Afghanistan, while Britain and Canada are fully integrated in the US military command.

"It's a command structure that's not as efficient as it could be," he said

True believer loses faith in Iraq effort

Take a look at the memo (pdf) from the link at the end of the story.
It's far more critical of the Administration than the story below lets on.

Memo Blasts State Dept. Iraq Effort

GOP Loyalist Says U.S. Brought 'Worst of America' to Iraq

By JONATHAN KARL
Feb. 8, 2008

In a confidential memo, a long-time Republican operative who has served in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad for the past year says the State Department's efforts in Iraq are so poorly managed they "would be considered willfully negligent if not criminal" if done in the private sector.

"We have brought to Iraq the worst of America -- our bureaucrats," writes Manuel Miranda in the memo, which was addressed to U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and cc'd to "ALCON" or "all concerned" at the State Department.

"You are doing a job for which you are not prepared as a bureaucracy or as leaders," Miranda writes. "The American and Iraqi people deserve better."

Asked to respond to the allegations made in Miranda's memo, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Miranda is entitled to his opinion, but "We think Ambassador Crocker and his team are doing a very good job under extremely challenging circumstances. We have great confidence in their ability to carry out their mission."

Miranda previously held senior Republican leadership positions on Capitol Hill, including counsel for then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. While on Capitol Hill, Miranda was embroiled in a controversy when he obtained a confidential memorandum written by Senate Democrats and leaked it the press. Democrats accused Miranda of hacking into their computer systems. Miranda said the Democratic staffers had left the memo on a computer server accessable to all Senate staffers.
You can read Miranda's memo HERE.

US Embassy asks Peace Corps to spy for them

This is outrageous.
It's outrageous not only to do this and get caught doing it in July, but then to promise not to do it any more and have the very same official get caught doing it again a few months later.

Peace Corps volunteers are not spies. Fulbright scholars are not spies. Turning them into spies makes their job much more difficult and even dangerous.

What do Venzeuelan and Cuban doctors have to do with "the war on terrorism"? Providing free medical care to poor people is a terrorist act? Any dirty thing the Administration wants to do is always wrapped in the "war on terror". Why is an embassy official involved in the war on terror? The answer, of course, is that he's not. He is merely using it as a pretext to make his victims compliant.

In spite of the State Department calling this an "error", and strongly stating that it wasn't the policy of the Department to recruit Peace Corps volunteers as spies, this practise continued. Doesn't that make it seem as if there are two policies? One for public consumption, and the real one that is carried out.

The further outrage is that this Embassy official never once mentioned in his "casual" recruitment pitch that these volunteers or Fulbright scholars could face 30 years in the abject conditions of Bolivia's prison system for going along with this.

Sadly, in the comments for this story, one idiot (BlackwaterJon) denounced the Fulbright scholar who came forward with this story. According to this wingnut, van Schaick should be prosecuted for treason and spend 14 years in prison. Apparently, to some, the outrage is that this scholar couldn't keep his mouth shut about this "non-policy". Mysteriously, this anonymous bozo let the three peace Corps volunteers who reported the exact thing in July off the hook for treason. Small mercies.

story from ABC News

Peace Corps, Fulbright Scholar Asked to 'Spy' on Cubans, Venezuelans

U.S. Embassy Official's 'Spy' Request Violated Long-Standing U.S. Policy

By JEAN FRIEDMAN-RUDOVSKY and BRIAN ROSS
Feb. 8, 2008

In an apparent violation of U.S. policy, Peace Corps volunteers and a Fulbright scholar were asked by a U.S. Embassy official in Bolivia "to basically spy" on Cubans and Venezuelans in the country, according to Peace Corps personnel and the Fulbright scholar involved.

"I was told to provide the names, addresses and activities of any Venezuelan or Cuban doctors or field workers I come across during my time here," Fulbright scholar John Alexander van Schaick told ABCNews.com in an interview in La Paz.

Van Schaick's account matches that of Peace Corps members and staff who claim that last July their entire group of new volunteers was instructed by the same U.S. Embassy official in Bolivia to report on Cuban and Venezuelan nationals.

The State Department says any such request was "in error" and a violation of long-standing U.S. policy which prohibits the use of Peace Corps personnel or Fulbright scholars for intelligence purposes.

"We take this very seriously and want to stress this is not in any way our policy," a senior State Department official told ABCNews.com.

The Fulbright scholar van Schaick, a 2006 Rutgers University graduate, says the request came at a mandatory orientation and security briefing meeting with Assistant Regional Security Officer Vincent Cooper at the embassy on the morning of Nov. 5, 2007.

According to van Schaick, the request for information gathering "surfaced casually" halfway through Cooper's 30-minute, one-on-one briefing, which initially dealt with helpful tips about life and security concerns in Bolivia.

"He said, 'We know the Venezuelans and Cubans are here, and we want to keep tabs on them,'" said van Schaick who recalls feeling "appalled" at the comment.

"I was in shock," van Schaick said. "My immediate thought was 'oh my God! Somebody from the U.S. Embassy just asked me to basically spy for the U.S. Embassy.'"

A similar pattern emerges in the account of the three Peace Corps volunteers and their supervisor. On July 29, 2007, just before the new volunteers were sworn in, they say embassy security officer Vincent Cooper visited the 30-person group to give a talk on safety and made his request about the Cubans and Venezuelans.

"He said it had to do with the fight against terrorism," said one, of the briefing from the embassy official. Others remember being told, "It's for your own safety."

Peace Corps Deputy Director Doreen Salazar remembers the incident vividly because she says it was the first time she had heard an embassy official make such a request to a Peace Corps group.

Salazar says she and her fellow staff found the comment so out of line that they interrupted the briefing to clarify that volunteers did not have to follow the embassy's instructions, and she later complained directly to the embassy about the incident.

"Peace Corps is an a-political institution," Salazar says. "We made it clear to the embassy that this was an inappropriate request, and they agreed."

Indeed, the State Department admits having acknowledged the infraction and assuring Salazar that it would not happen again. Yet, it was just four months later that Fulbright scholar van Schaick says he was asked by the same embassy official, Cooper, to "spy" on the Cubans and Venezuelans.

A U.S. Embassy official in La Paz, Bolivia said Cooper was referring all calls for comment to the State Department in Washington.

Van Schaick says he never considered complying with the request, fearful he would violate Bolivian espionage laws and that he would jeopardize the integrity of the Fulbright program, which yearly sends hundreds of American college graduates to countries around the world. "I am supposed to be a cultural ambassador increasing mutual understanding between us and the Bolivian people," van Schaick explains. "This flies in face of everything Fulbright stands for."

The accusations are likely to reverberate in Bolivia, especially given the already shaky relationship between the Bush administration and President Morales' two-year-old government.

"These are serious incidents that we will investigate thoroughly," says Bolivia's Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca in an interview.

"Any U.S. government use of their students or volunteers to provide intelligence represents a grave threat to Bolivia's sovereignty."

Bolivian law provides severe penalties in espionage cases. According to Article 111 of the country's penal code, "he who procures secretive documents, objects or information…concerning [Bolivia's] foreign relations in an espionage effort for other countries during times of peace, endangering the security of the State, will incur a penalty of 30 years in prison." In lay man's terms: if any U.S. citizen provides information of use in a spying effort, they would be subject to Bolivia's maximum prison sentence.

But the U.S. citizens who reported being approached in this way by the State Department official said no mention was made of any legal risks arising from complying with the request to keep tabs on foreign nationals in Bolivia.

Gates claims Europe has BDS over Afghan effort

Maybe what Europeans are 'confused' about is why America has 130,000 troops in Iraq, but wants Europe to exhaust their militaries and treasuries because Afghanistan is so utterly "critical" and "vital", but not critical enough for Bush to withdraw troops from Iraq.

They may also be 'confused' as to why Gates has presented Iraq as the Central Front in the Global War On Terror, but now says that Iraq is "a very different kind of threat" than Afghanistan. Failed state? Al-Qaeda? Puppet government backed by foreign occupation troops? Lack of a national identity that rises above tribal and ethnic identities? Regional allies worried about how the failure will affect them? Both Iraq and Afghanistan seem very similar.In both cases, Bush stumbled into complex situations with an ultra-simplistic plan: kill the bad guys and live happily ever after. Both cases involve "liberation" and promised "prosperity". Both cases involve inept, impotent, and compromised national armies that are perpetually in training. Both cases feature an utter failure in reconstruction efforts that deeply undermine the military effort. Both Iraq and Afghanistan are examples of the Administration's ridiculous portrayal of an insurgency as a conventional war scenario like WW2. Yet they are somehow "very different", and Europeans and 'confused'.

What do we keep hearing about the threat of failure in Iraq? That the terrorists will make that country a base. This is exactly the same thing we hear about the threat of failure in Afghanistan. Yet Gates is concerned that Europeans don't see Afghanistan as a very different kind of threat than Iraq.

The early rationale for Iraq was that it would be a gigantic Battle To The Death with Radical Islam, and we (including Europe) had to fight them there so that we wouldn't end up fighting them here. They will follow us home, remember? After it was clear that all of the terrorists in the world weren't flocking to Iraq in some kind of final go-for-broke conflict, Bush abandoned that reasoning and moved to the "base of terror" and "emboldening our enemies" line. This is the same line he uses on Afghanistan.

In essence, Gates is saying that the European public has BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) and doesn't support the Afghan effort because they want to make Bush look bad.

This is the neocon all-purpose tool in what passes for critical thinking: our plan is brilliant, our cause is just, victory is assured, and it is all worth it - but you just can't see that because you are blinded by your hatred of Bush.

Europe has largely bailed out of Iraq. NATO wasn't involved there. The NATO alliance has kept Europe from
bolting thus far, though that may be changing.
If Bush would pull a few thousand more troops out of Iraq to make up for Europe's reluctance, it would go a long way toward clearing up any 'confusion' in Europe. But that would make Bush appear as if NATO wasn't his own military reserve force that he can command as he wishes.

Aside from all this, it appears that the Administration has bought a clue and is finally coming to the realisation that our allies aren't pawns anymore.

Gates Says Anger Over Iraq Hurts Afghan Effort

By THOM SHANKER

Published: February 8, 2008

MUNICH — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Friday that many Europeans are confused about NATO’s security mission in Afghanistan, and that they do not support the alliance effort because they opposed the American-led invasion of Iraq.

“I worry that for many Europeans the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are confused,” Mr. Gates said as he flew here to deliver an address at an international security conference.

“I think that they combine the two,” Mr. Gates added. “Many of them, I think, have a problem with our involvement in Iraq, and project that to Afghanistan, and do not understand the very different — for them — the very different kind of threat.”

The comments were the first time Mr. Gates had explicitly linked European antipathy to American policy in Iraq with why large segments of the public here do not support the NATO security and reconstruction operation in Afghanistan.

Even more, Mr. Gates’ assessment was an unusually candid acknowledgment from a senior member of President Bush’s cabinet that the war in Iraq has exacted a direct, and significant, political cost, even among Washington’s closest allies.

Over recent weeks, Mr. Gates has made a public and private effort to persuade NATO governments to offer up more combat troops as well as military and police trainers for the Afghan mission. At the conclusion of a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers in Lithuania Friday morning, Mr. Gates expressed confidence that “a number of the allies are considering what more they might be able to do.”

Return of Iraqis has slowed, reversed

We have been treated to several stories over the past few months about how Iraqis that had fled the country were returning in large numbers now that there was so much "progress". It turned out that, in many cases, these Iraqis had simply been kicked out of Syria or Jordan as burdens on the respective State. The sad plight of millions of these homeless Iraqis was ignored as their forced return was used as a bright spot to shill for "progress". The Republican concern for Iraqi civilians is amazing when there is propaganda value, and their apathy and disdain for the Iraqis is equally amazing when the situation fails to suit their agenda.

Now we see that that great rush of Iraqis returning has sharply slowed from (putatively) 110,000 to 3000. In most cases, these people are returning to become homeless only because they ran out of money, not due to any great confidence in the "security gains" from the surge. We also see that the rosy figures from the Iraqi government are not borne out by the IRC or the UN. The figure of 110,000 in one month returning was grossly exaggerated; the real figure was 46,000 over four months.

The UNHCR now says that, on balance, more Iraqis are leaving than are returning.

Return home by Iraq's internal refugees slows-IRC

Thu Feb 7, 2008 7:25am EST

BAGHDAD, Feb 7 (Reuters) - The number of Iraqis returning to their homes from refuge elsewhere in the country has slowed markedly as fears over security remain, the latest report by the Iraqi Red Crescent (IRC) says.

Its findings echo those of a new U.N. study which said most Iraqis returning home after fleeing to Syria were doing so not because they felt Iraq was safer but because they could no longer afford to live abroad.

Violence has fallen sharply across Iraq after a series of security crackdowns last year. The Iraqi government and the U.S. military say attacks are down by 60 percent from last June.

Iraqi officials have been eager to stress that displaced families, who fled across Iraq or to other countries because of fierce clashes between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Muslims, were coming back in large numbers as security improved.

But the IRC's report for January, seen by Reuters on Thursday, said the number of internally displaced people (IDP) returning home had slowed sharply.

The number of registered IDPs fell by 110,000 in October, but dropped by fewer than 3,000 in December, it said.

Recent Turkish bombing raids on Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq, an area previously seen by Iraqis as a safe haven, had led thousands to flee their villages, compounding the refugee problem in the area, the IRC said.

It estimated there were still just over 2.175 million IDPs in Iraq, the majority suffering from disease, poverty and malnutrition and living in homes without water or electricity.

"Many IDP families do not consider returning to their original areas of residence because their homes are partly or totally destroyed or because they do not think that security is really enforced," the IRC report said.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' (UNHCR) report for February 2008 said the flow of refugees returning to Iraq from Syria had also slowed after an upsurge late last year, and said that more were leaving Iraq than coming home.

Last month the IRC reported some that 46,000 refugees had returned to Iraq from Syria between Sept. 15 and Dec. 27, a much lower figure than that given by Iraq's government which said up to 1,600 were returning daily.

The IRC also agreed with the U.N. agency's assessment that the high cost of living in Syria, rather than the improved security situation at home, was pushing many of the 2.2 million refugees living in exile to return. (Reporting by Michael Holden, editing by Tim Pearce)

760 killed in Afghanistan by winter

China and India also have suffered from hard winters recently.

story from naharnet

Cold Snap Kills 760 in Afghanistan

More than 750 people have died in the harshest winter to have hit Afghanistan in decades, the disaster authority said Saturday.

More than 500 homes, mostly traditional mud brick houses, have been destroyed and tens of thousands damaged by the heaviest snowfalls in 30 years, said Ahmad Shkeb Hamraz, an official at the National Disaster Management Authority.

Nearly half the villages in the poverty-stricken country were still cut off from major cities, he told AFP.

"According to the latest figures, about 760 people have died since the start of the winter across the country," Hamraz said.

"The figures are likely to increase as more information and data are being collected," he added.

Thousands of livestock have also died of the cold, Hamraz said, adding the western region bordering Iran was hardest hit.(AFP)

Afghan effort devolves into browbeating and bickering

Canada is now saying that it will pull out of the Afghan effort, not that it might, if more troops aren't sent there by some other country. It's a tough sell. Rice's most furious browbeating ever has yielded 140 Belgian troops (some months from now) for four whole months. The Dutch are tapped. The British military is groaning under the strain already. America has their troops bogged down in Iraq, the "Central Front" of something that nobody can recall anymore. We're now depending on the French to save the day. Yes, it's that bad.

Bush has used NATO as a de-facto military reserve, a mere extension of the U.S. military. NATO was pressed into service because the UN wouldn't go along, even though no NATO countries were threatened. The Administration has even gone as far as implying that Afghanistan is NATO's problem, and that the U.S. is just "helping out". We saw the same pattern in the push for an Iranian invasion; first the UN, then NATO, then the EU...next the Boy Scouts, perhaps.

Just as in Iraq, Bush planned only for the best-case scenario in Afghanistan. Complexities were magically transformed into childlike simplicity by the Decider. Elections would solve all problems, the warlords would give up power in awe of Bush's brilliance, and tribal, ethnic, and social conflicts would be subsumed by a national Afghan identity that has never existed, in national boundaries that were arbitrarily drawn up by the British in the late 19th century. This scheme was handed to NATO, who was assured it would succeed because the Decider decreed that it would. The allies were free to work on the margins of Bush's vision, as long as they recognised that Bush was the Boss and His Will Must Prevail.

More than six years later, Bush has steadfastly refused to admit any over-optimism or flaws in his scheme. Instead, he has blamed the allies for all failures while simultaneously crowing about the success of the Afghan mission. When the Administration admonishes the allies to send more troops to consolidate our "gains", surely the NATO countries must wonder aloud about what 'gains' this crazy delusional fool is going on about. For the average Afghan, Bush has simply replaced a corrupt, war-focused regime with another corrupt, war-focused regime. The National Shakedown remains, only the uniforms have changed. The warlords are still the power outside of Kabul, and the economy is still in ruins.

Further down is a commentary on the Afghan effort from Al-Hayat that supports much of what I have been posting about Afghanistan for several months now.

story from The Globe and Mail

Few can meet Canada's Afghan troop demand: MacKay

CAMPBELL CLARK

Globe and Mail Update

February 7, 2008 at 8:10 AM EST

VILNIUS — Canada is hoping to find a single country willing to send 1,000 troops to Kandahar, but Defence Minister Peter MacKay conceded today it might come down to cobbling together smaller contingents from several countries.
On the first day of a meeting of NATO defence ministers, Mr. MacKay noted there are a few countries that might be able to meet Canada's demand for 1,000 reinforcements – including the U.S. and Britain, which already have troops in southern Afghanistan, or possibly France – but noted that last year the Dutch had to rely on smaller deployments from several allies.
“The Dutch were able to – I don't mean to sound derogatory – cobble together a combination of countries to fit the bill,” Mr. MacKay told reporters. “Our preference would be a single commitment.”
Mr. MacKay said he is in Vilnius to make it clear “in no uncertain terms” that Canada must have reinforcements of troops and equipments to continue the mission – saying that it is “not a negotiable item.” And he added that he wants a commitment before a summit of NATO national leaders in Bucharest which starts April 2.
He also signalled that Canada wants reinforcements who will share heavy counter-insurgency operations in Kandahar province, where fighting with the Taliban has been most fierce.
“Let's be frank, that's what Canada is looking for here, is a partner in the south, to do the necessary work in Kandahar province, to secure that ground, to see that we're able to do more development work, more humanitarian work, build the infrastructure, and secure what is in my view the funnel, or the pipeline into Afghanistan, from Taliban insurgents coming in from Pakistan,” Mr. MacKay said.
The reference to the Dutch experience is a reminder, however, that countries seeking help have often needed to take it where they can. The Netherlands last fall approved of their own mission in Oruzgan, just north of Kandahar, after a tense parliamentary debate, and patching together a group of reinforcement commitments. Belgium last week announced another 140 troops would be sent there for four months.
Combining several contingents makes co-ordinating military operations more difficult, however, and a single partner would likely make it easier to make the case at home in Canada that it has found reinforcements who will share the burden of combat.
In Paris, a spokesman for French President Nicolas Sarkozy, David Martinon,said France is considering sending more troops to Afghanistan, but no decision has been made.
Canadian officials have identified France as a key hope — and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives know that politically, reinforcements from a country like France is likely to be better for their desire of having an extension approved at home than an increased contribution from the U.S. That's because it would then be seen more as an expanded multi-lateral effort, rather than Canada backing U.S. policy.
Mr. MacKay spent the morning in bilateral sessions with other countries with troops in Afghanistan's dangerous south, including Britain, Holland, and Australia, sharing information about which countries might be coaxed into doing more there.
Dutch defence minister Eimert van Middelkoop told reporters that he had warned Mr. MacKay that there is no point in approaching some NATO allies for help in the south, although he did not say which ones.
Public admonishments from allies active in southern Afghanistan that NATO's future is on the line have raised consternation from some other allies and the alliance's secretary-general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
On Wednesday, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates's warned that NATO is at risk of becoming a two-tiered alliance of those will fight and those who will not.
“I would go so far as to say that we want to avoid having a two-tier NATO,” Mr. MacKay said today. “In fact what we want to see is more of a one-for-all approach, and that includes burden-sharing in the south.”

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NATO's Afghan Quagmire

Patrick Seale Al-Hayat - 08/02/08//

NATO -- the North Atlantic Treaty Organization -- is the world's most powerful military alliance. It has two million men under its command, a thousand helicopters and countless other military resources. Yet it is facing failure, if not actual defeat, in Afghanistan. Why?
The answer is simple. The Afghan war was misconceived from the very start. It was decided in rage and haste by Washington, without proper thought or planning, in response to al-Qaida's 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States.
Instead of patiently tracking down al-Qaida's leaders by police and counter-terrorist methods, the United Sates launched an all-out war against Afghanistan with the declared goal not only of smashing Al-Qaida, but also the Taliban regime which, willingly or unwillingly, was giving it sanctuary.
The U.S. war against Afghanistan - Operation Enduring Freedom -- was launched on 7 October 2001 with a vast display of airpower: long-range bombers were used as well as carrier-based fighters and Tomahawk cruise missiles. As a result, the Afghans suffered great loss of life and much physical destruction, but the Al-Qaida leadership managed to escape, and the movement has today mushroomed into a world-wide terrorist threat, with franchises in many countries.
Instead of seeking to separate al-Qaida from its Taliban hosts - which would have been the sensible thing to do -- the U.S. war has cemented them together, with the result that, five years on, NATO is today fighting not just a small band of al-Qaida extremists, but a mass tribal movement, which enjoys strong support from its brothers across the 2,500 kilometre Afghan-Pakistan border.
Yet al-Qaida and the Taliban are very different creatures. Al-Qaida is a militant group of dedicated Islamic fighters - Arabs, Chechens, Tajiks, Turkmen, Uzbeks, Uighurs and others -- of global reach and international aims. These aims include fighting America, fighting Western and Israeli occupation of Muslim lands, and overthrowing pro-Western regimes, in particular the ruling al-Saud family in Arabia.
The Taliban, in contrast, are a local not an international movement. Their prime aim is the security of their tribal areas, free from foreign attack and intervention, on either side of the Afghan-Pakistan frontier - a frontier drawn by Britain in 1893 which the local tribes have never recognised.

Whether they are called Pashtuns on the Afghan side of the border or Pathans in Pakistan's adjacent tribal areas, they are one and the same people, dreaming of a united 'Pashtunistan.'
If one American mistake was to merge al-Qaida and the Taliban into a single enemy, another was to imagine that Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI - itself made up largely of Pathans - could be mobilized effectively against the Taliban.
The war in Afghanistan is almost certainly unwinnable. Instead of going in deeper, as the U.S. is urging, NATO should plan an exit strategy. That would be the sensible option.
All the indications are that the war is going badly. Security has steadily deteriorated since the Taliban government was overthrown in 2001. Insurgency activity has intensified every year. Suicide bombings have greatly increased and casualty rates have soared. The Taliban have re-grouped and are now vigorously on the warpath.
Kabul itself is no longer safe. On 14 January, multiple suicide attacks on the Serena Hotel killed eight people during a visit by the Norwegian Foreign Minister. On 31 January, the deputy governor of Helmand province and five others were killed in an attack on a mosque.
At the same time, U.S. blunders continue to inflict casualties on Afghan civilians and Afghan security forces. On 25 January, for example, nine Afghan police were killed in a firefight with U.S troops - an incident described by the U.S. as a 'misunderstanding.'
The United States has been urging its allies to commit more troops to the fight against the Taliban. But several NATO member countries are refusing to comply. Germany, for instance, has 3,200 men in Afghanistan, based in the relatively peaceful northern part of the country. It has rejected a U.S. appeal to redeploy them to the volatile Helmand province in the south. The Canadians would like to pull out their contingent altogether.
Several Western leaders are beginning to doubt the wisdom of the American-led war. The Afghan war has, in fact, become a subject of intense controversy inside NATO, threatening the alliance with a major split.
Strong words will be exchanged when NATO defence ministers meet this week at Vilnius in Lithuania, and it is doubtful whether a full-scale row can be avoided when NATO heads of state and government hold their summit meeting in the Romanian capital of Bucharest in early April.
Part of the trouble is that the war in Afghanistan has been portrayed -- mistakenly but repeatedly -- as a 'test case' for the alliance, a sort of make or break affair. Either NATO can prove itself by defeating the Taliban or it will be shown to be a paper tiger. This is a mistaken approach.
In the United States itself, influential voices have arisen in the Congress and among former senior officers expressing alarm at the absence of an over-arching strategy. The most telling criticism has come from a former NATO Supreme Commander, General James Jones, who in a recent report deplored the lack of a 'clear and consistent comprehensive strategy.'
Three aspects of the scene spell doom for NATO's war effort. First, instead of confronting Afghan's predatory warlords, President Hamid Karzai has brought them into his government. This is predictable behavior by a weak leader who, unsure of how long he can depend on fickle foreign backers, needs powerful local friends.
Secondly, the Afghan National Army, on which the U.S, has spent billions of dollars, suffers from mass desertions and is widely believed to be infiltrated by Taliban sympathizers.
Thirdly, the Afghan police force is thoroughly corrupt, largely because of the flourishing drug trade. In 2007, Afghanistan produced a record 8,200 tons of opium, twice as much as in 2005 -- accounting for 93 per cent of the world's heroin. Fifty percent of the crop was produced in Helmand province which, not surprisingly, is the scene of the heaviest fighting.
On 29 January, an unmanned Predator aircraft, operated by the CIA Special Activities Division, launched a missile inside Pakistan against an al-Qaida target in North Waziristan - apparently without the authorization of the Pakistan government. A senior al-Qaida commander, Abu Laith al-Libi, is believed to have been killed, together with many others.
The CIA can claim a success but, rather than isolating al-Qaida, such operations offend Pakistan and cement al-Qaida's ties with the Taliban.
America's two wars -- in Iraq and Afghanistan -- were fought against the wrong enemy, with catastrophic consequences for the countries concerned and for America itself.
Iraq had no link whatsoever with Al-Qaida, yet it was smashed. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and millions more displaced. Material damage is incalculable. Four thousand US troops have died and perhaps as many as 40,000 seriously wounded. The enormous sum of some $600 billion has been squandered -- and the absurd war goes on at a cost of $12billion a month. Rarely in modern history has there been such a criminal enterprise.
The Afghan tragedy is not yet on this scale. But the longer it continues - the more men and resources are thrown at it -- the more the United States and its allies will find themselves embroiled inextricably in an unwinnable tribal war such as defeated the British army in the 19th century.
end

Iraq occupation is exhausting the military

The military is exhausted. We don't have sufficient troops to respond to new threats or make new efforts in Afghanistan. 15-month tours are taking a toll on the military.

These aren't "lefty" bloggers saying these things, but rather Bush's own Joint Chief and Defense Department making these warnings. Do they "want to lose" as well? Are they simply "traitors" and "terrorist sympathisers"? The Republican "support the troops" mantra has been turned on its head. We are less prepared to face threats due to this occupation and it's ever-shifting justifications and mirages of "victory". Recruiting standards have been lowered. World leaders ignore the Administration or snicker behind the backs of the Decider and his minions. Our allies, no longer compliant to Bush's whims, are backing away from us.

Still, the Administration continues to believe that an insurgency in an occupied country is a conventional war that can be 'won' militarily. It continues to post-humously dub thousands of corpses as "Al-Qaeda" without any evidence. It pays and arms huge militias that have no loyalty to the Iraqi government in order to promote "stability". It orders the bombing and strafing of civilians as "pacification". It arrests and consigns to torture in Iraqi prisons hundreds of Sadrists, though they have maintained a cease-fire. And it designates the clean-up of the mess as "the UN's problem".

story from McClatchy

Planned troop withdrawals won't bring much relief to U.S. military

Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: February 06, 2008 08:03:57 PM

WASHINGTON — Top Defense Department officials testified Wednesday that the Bush administration's plan to withdraw some 20,000 U.S. troops from Iraq this summer will do little to relieve the stress on the Army and Marine Corps.
Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the military was exhausted by the repeated deployments to Iraq.
Finding a way to reduce the amount of time troops are deployed to Iraq is critical, he said. Currently, soldiers are sent to Iraq for 15-month tours, and Marines serve seven-month stints, followed by seven months at home.
"The well is deep, but it is not infinite," Mullen said. "We must get Army deployments down to 12 months as soon as possible. People are tired."
Mullen and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates appeared before the committee to discuss the administration's request for $588.3 billion in defense spending for the 2009 budget year, which begins Oct. 1.
President Bush announced last year that the U.S. would reduce the number of American troops in Iraq by five combat brigades — about 20,000 people — during the first half of this year. U.S. troop strength in Iraq has hovered above 160,000 since June, when the military completed the deployment of an additional 30,000 troops as part of the so-called surge, which was intended to restore calm to Baghdad.
But security conditions will determine whether troop strength can be further reduced, officials have warned. Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, is expected to report this spring whether there can be more troop reductions.
Mullen said he favored reducing the number of troops in Iraq "sooner rather than later" so that Iraq deployments could return to 12 months. But he said that decision hasn't been made.
Others at the Pentagon doubt that the U.S. will be able to reduce troop strength in Iraq to 100,000 for some time.
"We need some time to make an assessment" of the initial troop withdrawals, said a senior Pentagon official, who asked not to be named because he wasn't authorized to discuss the issue publicly. "We are not going to do a precipitous withdrawal again," he said, referring to past efforts to hand over security responsibility to Iraqi forces and withdraw U.S. troops.
Reducing U.S. troop strength to 10 combat brigades would hurt the United States' ability to conduct multiple operations in Iraq, said Jeffrey White, a military analyst at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a center-right policy institute.
The number of brigades could become a key issue in the presidential campaign, as that number will determine what kind of defense posture the next president can mount.
If the U.S. maintains 15 combat brigades in Iraq — the pre-surge troop presence — it won't be able to mount major military operations in places such as Iran, Afghanistan or North Korea, White said.

McClatchy Newspapers 2008

Britain says Bush didn't listen to advice

In Iraq, as in Afghanistan, Bush had the grand plan and the "allies" were just supposed to shut up and put their militaries in the Decider's hands and give Bush access to their treasuries.

Now former military man Prince Andrew has made public statements saying that Bush ignored British input regarding the Iraq war and occupation.

story from Reuters

Britain's Prince Andrew attacks Bush over Iraq

Tue Feb 5, 2008 9:48am EST

(Adds White House declining comment, paragraph 9)

By Kate Kelland

LONDON, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Britain's Prince Andrew launched a sharp attack on Tuesday on U.S. President George W. Bush for failing to listen to Britain during the conflict in Iraq.

In a newspaper interview before 10-day visit to the United States to support British business, the prince, fourth in line to the throne, said the aftermath of the Iraq war had left Britons with a "healthy scepticism" about what was said in Washington.

"If you are looking at colonialism, if you are looking at operations on an international scale, if you are looking at understanding each other's culture, understanding how to operate in a military insurgency campaign -- we have been through them all," he said. "We've won some, lost some, drawn some," he told the International Herald Tribune.

"The fact is there is quite a lot of experience over here which is valid and should be listened to."

The prince, who also has the title Duke of York, said that while Britain remained the number one ally of the United States, the post-war situation in Iraq had prompted many to wonder "why didn't anyone listen to what was said and the advice that was given".

"(There are) occasions when people in the U.K. would wish that those in responsible positions in the U.S. might listen and learn from our experiences," he said,

He added that, after all, it was the Americans who had asked for advice: "It's not as if we had been forcing that across the Atlantic."

The prince's comments were seen as a break with protocol in Britain, where tradition normally forbids members of the royal family from intervening in politics.

In Washington, a White House spokesman declined to comment on his criticism.

Prince Andrew served in the British navy for 22 years and was a helicopter pilot during the Falklands war with Argentina in 1982 in which more than 1,000 people were killed.

He described that experience as one that changed him "out of all recognition" and had given him a different view of life.

Now, as a full-time trade envoy for Britain, Andrew said he realised "the real people who are actually making the United Kingdom what it is are the people who are doing business". (Editing by Andrew Dobbie)

Iraq air campaign is backfiring on U.S.

U.S. occupation troops in Iraq are increasingly using air strikes to keep troop casualties down. However, the collateral damage is huge, both in terms of life and destruction of homes and infrastructure. Again, Bush and Petraeus are looking at short-term strategies. The "Awakening" movement is also short-term in focus. It creates huge militias with no loyalty to the Iraqi government, and only situational loyalty to the American military. In what other country would we consider the existence of huge, well-armed vigilante forces independent of the government as a sign of "stability"? In Colombia, for example, we consider the paramilitary forces as a sign of instability, and these are even nominally under the control of the government.

We have, in effect, established a warlord state in Iraq, which is a humanitarian crisis as well, and we are calling it "success" - implying it's what we planned all along.

The public, however, just wants out of Iraq. We all know it's a massive failure, and a strong majority say it wasn't worth the cost in the first place. Except for Bush's "base", the Iraq debate is over; it's a mess, it's a failure, it's time to get out.

As we see in the article below, these air strikes are creating new enemies. Instead of turning the populace agianst Al-Qaeda, we are instead showing the Iraqi people that we are willing to bomb them and strafe them as they flee, making ourselves a bigger threat to them than the "terrorists" are.

story from IPS

IRAQ: More Bombing Creates New Enemies
By Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail*

BAGHDAD, Feb 8 (IPS) - Now that the smoke has cleared and the rubble settled, residents of a group of bombed Iraqi villages see the raid as really a U.S. loss.

Many Iraqis view the attack Jan. 10 by bombers and F-16 jets on a cluster of villages in the Latifiya district south of Baghdad as overkill.

"The use of B1 bombers shows the terrible failure of the U.S. campaign in Iraq," Iraqi Major General Muhammad al-Azzawy, a military researcher in Baghdad, told IPS. "U.S. military and political tactics failed in this area, and that is why this massacre. This kind of bombing is usually used for much bigger targets than small villages full of civilians. This was savagery."

The attack on Juboor and neighbouring villages just south of Baghdad had begun a week earlier with heavy artillery and tank bombardment. The attack followed strong resistance from members of the mainly Sunni Muslim al-Juboor tribe against groups that residents described as sectarian death squads.

"On Jan. 10, huge aircraft started bombing the villages," Ahmad Alwan from a village near Juboor told IPS. "We took our families and fled. We have never seen such bombardment since the 2003 American invasion. They were bombing everything and everybody."

Residents said two B1 bombers and four F-16 fighter jets dropped at least 40,000 pounds of explosives on the villages and plantations within a span of 10 minutes.

"The al-Qaeda name is used once more to destroy another Sunni area," Akram Naji, a lawyer in Baghdad who has relatives in Juboor told IPS. "Americans are still supporting Iranian influence in Iraq by cleansing Baghdad and surroundings of Sunnis."

The cluster of Sunni villages was bombed just weeks after the U.S. military encouraged families to return to their village after heavy bombing earlier in which scores of people were killed. Many residents had fled fearing sectarian death squads, which they say were backed by the U.S.

Few people in the village now talk the language of reconciliation of U.S. President George W. Bush and of some Iraqis in the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad.

"We have no alternative but to fight this occupation and its allies," a former army officer in Baghdad speaking on condition of anonymity told IPS. "We can see clearly now that Americans came with the idea that we, Sunni Arabs, are the enemies they have in mind no matter what we do to please them. We will fight for our existence, and this massacre will not go unpunished."

"It was a miracle that I could evacuate my family at the last minute," said Omar Hussein, who fled for Dora in Baghdad from the bombarded area. "My house and farm are on the outskirts of the village. I took my family out the minute I saw the aircraft in the sky.

"Apache helicopters later fired at the trucks that were carrying the families out of the area, and killed so many civilians. They took some wounded people to their military base. I am sure hundreds of people would have been killed. It is just like the Fallujah crime."

Thousands died in prolonged attacks on Fallujah to the west of Baghdad, particularly in 2004 and 2005.

Taha Muslih al-Joboory, his wife and three sons were among those reported killed in the bombing. Juboory was an Iraqi journalist who lived all his life in the area. Many families were reported buried under the rubble of their houses.

The U.S. military said that the aircraft which bombed the area targeted "suspected militant hide-outs, storehouses and defensive positions."

"We know they will get away with their crime now, but we will teach our children that America and the whole West are our enemies, so that they take revenge for these crimes," 35-year-old Nada, a woman who has relatives in the village told IPS.

(*Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who has reported extensively from Iraq and the Middle East) (END/2008)

Allies threaten to bail on Afghan campaign

My previous post dealt with Germany's refusal to send troops into combat areas, and speculated that some NATO allies could begin to back out of the Afghan campaign altogether.

Now it appears that Canada is threatening to back out of the effort, even though Bush claims it's going so well. Girls are going to school, after all. Nearly half of the country is under the control of the Taliban, but somehow that proves that the enemy is "desperate", as it always does in Bush's world.

Wingnuts, of course, weighed in with various insults to Canada and dark imprecations of a "radical Islamic takeover" of Europe.

Rice has been largely ineffective in boosting the Afghan campaign among the NATO allies. Among the various countries in the coalition, the Afghan effort is not popular and is not seen to have been managed well. Reconstruction efforts have been abysmal, for example, with the bulk of the aid eaten up by high administrative costs, and with the misdirected focus on very large-scale and impractical programmes that are forever "in development". The campaign has also been very expensive for a number of the smaller countries, which are not able to borrow money from China as readily as the U.S. is to finance the effort. Added to that is the grossly arrogant attitude displayed by the Bush Administration towards the NATO allies on nearly every issue, and the general impression that this late push is merely a face-saving measure for Bush as his term ends. Bush has very casual about blaming the NATO allies for the failure of his overly-optimistic scheme, and very stingy with the credit for the modest positive improvements.

Just as in Iraq, Bush saw an easy path in Afghanistan after the Taliban were overthrown. Force levels were inadequate, and the strategies employed were suited for conventional warfare, not a counter-insurgency campaign. The Afghan mission was sold to NATO allies as a "peacekeeping" mission, not a combat-intensive one, and was presented as an alternative to participation in Iraq which would allow allies to remain on the Decider's "good side". Again, as in Iraq, the Afghan military was supposed to do the bulk of the dirty work, and elections were seen as some kind of magical guarantee of success, both in the field and in reconstruction.

Just as in Iraq, the Afghan military was a "no-show", and seemed to be perpetually in training. Very daunting, difficult, and dangerous assignments were given to the NATO allies, and when these did not show immediate progress or achievement, the allies were made a scapegoat and pressured to provide more troops and money.

For its part, the Bush Administration has publicly seemed to regard the NATO forces as mere extensions of the U.S. military, and has criticised certain allies for years about their failure to follow Bush's dictates. Rice's efforts, minimal as they were, have been limited to browbeating and cajoling the reluctant nations to follow the Decider's grand vision, regardless of the stresses placed on their forces with long deployments. British forces, in particular, are strained and have taken heavy losses in the past year. Retention and recruitment have become serious problems, even as they have been forced to abandon Iraq.

Canadian forces have been victims of American friendly-fire air strikes, which the Administration has more or less shrugged off. Casualties have also been high, and domestic support for the mission has declined greatly.

It is now far too late for Rice to successfully dispel the impression that the Administration believes the European and Canadian militaries to be under its command. In fact, she appears to be going even further down that dark road with the latest threatening and demanding missives to Germany. Thus far, only Belgium has made any positive response to this latest round, and those deployments are months away. Earlier promises from France, Italy, and Spain are now under re-consideration. It is unlikely that NATO will come up with another 7500 troops before Bush's term is up. Likewise, Bush is unlikely to make any sacrifices in his troop levels in Iraq in order to gain progress in Afghanistan. The Administration still believes that Iraq is the Central Front in the Global War on Terror, not Afghanistan.

Bush's bold neocon vision of American dominance over the planet is no longer supported by the rest of the planet. His strongest foreign allies have been removed from power, at least in those cases where there democratic means exist to do so. Among the monarchs and dictators who once eagerly read off Bush's script, a pronounced reluctance and even resentment has taken hold. It will be a difficult task to rebuild these alliances, and more arrogance from Rice is not likely to achieve those ends.

story from Naharnet

U.S. Intensifies Efforts to Rescue 'War on Terror' in Afghanistan

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Britain next week for high-stakes talks on Afghanistan amid U.S. fears its NATO allies could abandon a strategic cornerstone of its "war on terror."
The trip was announced after Canada warned it could withdraw its 2,500 troops there if NATO fails to send reinforcements to the battle-ravaged south, a risk that appeared higher with Germany's refusal to deploy its forces there.

Rice will leave Washington Tuesday for talks the next day with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband about Afghanistan as well as Iraq and Iran, her spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

McCormack said Afghanistan will figure high on the agenda as he conceded there is "a risk the clock could be turned back on the gains" made since the Taliban and al-Qaida were toppled after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Britain is the staunchest US ally in Afghanistan, which last year endured its bloodiest year since the ousting of the Taliban.

Rice, in particular over the last few months, has been "looking at our efforts in Afghanistan, making sure we have the right resources matched up with the right strategy," McCormack told reporters.

He masked the tension that reportedly exists behind the scenes when he did not give a direct reply to Germany's rejection of an urgent U.S. call to deploy combat troops against a resurgent Taliban in the southern Kandahar region.

"It's going to be up to the individual states to make decisions about the allocation of resources, whether to allocate resources, how they're going to participate in the mission," he said.

Nor would he comment directly on a report that U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates sent an "unusually stern" letter to Germany last month demanding combat troops, helicopters and paratroopers for Afghanistan and charging that some NATO states were not pulling their weight.

But McCormack said: "I won't make a secret of the fact that we are encouraging all of our NATO allies to do everything they can in terms of contributing resources."

Commanders in Afghanistan have been calling for around 7,500 extra troops to be deployed in southern Afghanistan. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) comprises some 42,000 troops from 39 countries.

In the last year, Britain has increased its presence in Afghanistan.
There are about 7,700 British soldiers in Afghanistan, most of whom are in the restive southern region.

Belgium announced Friday that it would send four F-16 fighter-bombers and around a hundred soldiers from September 1 in Kandahar.

From April, 20 more troops will be sent to help with security at Kabul airport, and another 20 will from October help train and mentor soldiers in the Afghan army, said the statement.

Belgium currently has 418 troops in Afghanistan.

McCormack said the challenges remained high.

"We're in a fight to help the Afghans succeed and to ensure that they are able to build on the progress that they've made over the last six years and not see any backsliding in that success," he said.

He conceded "there is always the risk that the clock could be turned back and you could lose a lot of the gains."

"The greatest threat to Afghanistan's future is abandonment by the international community," Richard Boucher, the State Department's pointman for Afghanistan, told a Senate hearing on Thursday.(AFP)


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
from The Washington Post

The U.S. plan to send an additional 3,200 Marines to troubled southern Afghanistan this spring reflects the Pentagon 's belief that if it can't bully its recalcitrant NATO allies into sending more troops to the Afghan front, perhaps it can shame them into doing so, U.S. officials said.

But the immediate reaction to the proposed deployment from NATO partners fighting alongside U.S. forces was that it was about time the United States stepped up its own effort.

After more than six years of coalition warfare in Afghanistan, NATO is a bundle of frayed nerves and tension over nearly every aspect of the conflict, including troop levels and missions, reconstruction, anti-narcotics efforts, and even counterinsurgency strategy. Stress has grown along with casualties, domestic pressures and a sense that the war is not improving, according to a wide range of senior U.S. and NATO-member officials who agreed to discuss sensitive alliance issues on the condition of anonymity.

Germany flips off Bush over Afghan role

Afghanistan was another of Bush's quick 'wins' that his optimistic view assured him would be glorious. He pressured NATO into "peacekeeping" in Afghanistan, so that they could share the credit for his bold vision.

It's turned into a nightmare for everyone involved. The Administration, of course, blames the other countries in the Coalition for this setback. They've tried numerous times to guilt-trip, cajole, browbeat, and even force NATO into sending more troops into this "can't miss" proposition. The Afghan mission is domestically unpopular for virtually all of the allies, aside from being expensive and showing no clear end in sight. Bush has threatened to stop liking these countries if they don't pour more troops, money, and materiel into Afghanistan; still they refuse.

The primary recipient of Bush's glowering frown has been Germany, who won't send troops into the south where the fighting is the hardest. Even a harshly-worded letter from Defense Secretary Gates was employed. Germany hung tough, risking even dirtier looks from the Decider.

It may seem obvious, but I am willing to point out that NATO does not really have any critical interest in making Bush look good, nor does it have any particular vested interest in allowing Bush to maintain the bulk of his troops in what is essentially a sideshow in the GWOT, Iraq. Certainly Bush has been completely insensitive to the difficult position the Afghan campaign puts the allies in domestically, as well as to the stresses the long tours have placed on the allies' forces. Britian, in particular, is struggling to maintain its force levels and is having considerable difficulty with retention. The financial costs, too, are difficult for countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark to bear for so long, and for something that does not directly threaten them. The Bush Administration does not care, however. In for a penny, in for a pound.

This constant refrain of ingratitude from Washington could very well backfire on Bush. If Bush is simply going to dismiss the allies as weak little sissies who can't get the job done, then they just might as well leave the whole steaming pile in Bush's lap and be done with it. Even if success were to appear miraculously, Bush would most likely portray it as a victory in spite of the allies, not because of them.

Bush offers neither an attractive carrot nor a formidible stick, merely an arrogant expectation that his dictates will be met promptly and with enthusiasm. With so little success to show after so many years, at least some of the NATO allies may decide to throw in the towel altogether before they suffer more serious consequences from Bush's ill-considered adventures.

story from Times Online

February 2, 2008

Berlin slaps down US demand to send troops to fight the Taleban

Michael Evans, Defence Editor

Nato’s mission in Afghanistan was rocked by another blazing row over the refusal of some coalition members to fight the Taleban in the south.

An unusually stern letter from Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, to his German counterpart about the role of Germany’s troops in Afghanistan caused anger not just in Berlin but elsewhere in the alliance.

Washington has taken the lead in putting pressure on Nato with a warning that the credibility of the alliance is at stake. But Mr Gates’s latest intervention seems likely to cause more division.

His letter to Franz Josef Jung, the German Defence Minister, went to the heart of the problem that has faced Nato since its mission expanded throughout Afghanistan, and in particular to the southern provinces where the Taleban are concentrated.

This is the question of national caveats under which countries such as Germany, whose troops are based in the north, refuse to deploy elsewhere without authorisation from their governments.

The only Nato members that have no national caveats are the ones fighting the Taleban in the southern provinces of Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan and also in eastern Afghanistan. It was one of the conditions for agreeing to serve in the south.

The countries are the US, Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and Denmark, who provide the majority of the fighting troops. Other more limited troop contributors in the south include a small but effective Estonian unit and headquarters staff from Slovakia and Romania. The Americans and Poles are also engaged in combat in eastern Afghanistan.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan the role of every other Nato country is covered by caveats that range from a ban on deploying out of area — except in the most extreme circumstances — to no night flying, largely because of lack of technical capability; no flying in poor weather; no involvement in riot control and no venturing from bases without the maximum force protection or too far from the nearest hospital.

Mr Gates’s written demands for German troops to be sent to the south provoked an instant putdown from Berlin, which reminded Washington that Germany’s remit in Afghanistan was to defend the north, and that it had 3,100 troops there.

Mr Jung made it clear yesterday that Germany had no plans to deploy troops to the south, where most of the fighting has been going on since the early summer of 2006.

German diplomatic sources said the letter from Mr Gates had been harsh, although they would not divulge the contents. Mr Jung replied in similar mode with a “direct and stern” letter to Mr Gates, according to Suddeutsche Zeitung, a German newspaper.

The whole question of burden-sharing in Afghanistan — in particular sharing the burden of combat — is due to come up at Nato’s next summit in Bucharest in April. One Nato diplomat said: “I think Mr Gates’s intervention is more about domestic politics than anything else but sometimes I wonder whether the US realises the negative impact these spats have outside America.”

The Americans are sending another 3,200 troops to Afghanistan to boost numbers because of the failure of other countries to offer more soldiers, and Mr Gates has had to justify this decision before Congress. Pentagon officials have been appearing at Senate hearings in recent days.

German defence sources said that in emergencies where help was urgently needed in the south, Germany would consider sending troops from the north but only for a brief period.

“The location we have been given is in the north and that is where we are staying and, by the way, although it might seem more peaceful at the moment, there is no knowing whether that will last,” one German source said.

Mr Gates has also raised the issue of sending troops to the south with Hervé Morin, the French Defence Minister, at a meeting in Washington. France has about 1,600 troops in Afghanistan, most of them serving in Kabul.

Germany, France, Italy and Spain — the latter two countries with troops in western Afghanistan — all agreed at the Nato summit in the Latvian capital of Riga last year to send troops to the south, but only in extremis.

Since the summit, no troops from these countries have gone to help the Nato countries in the south.

Nato commanders say the operation in Afghanistan needs another 7,500 troops. There are about 41,000 serving with Nato’s International Security Assistance Force.

Public again says Iraq "is not worth it"

Bush's neocon invasion of Iraq was supposed to be the master stroke that would secure Republican dominance for decades to come, and forever paint the Democrats as traitorous cowards that would have to acknowledge Bush's brilliance in reverential tones perpetually or risk being laughed at or possibly beaten.
This little military expedition was supposed to last for several months, not several years with no end in sight. The reasons behind it changed again and again. It was "payback" for 9/11. It was to keep Saddam from nuking us. It was to bring democracy to Iraq. Yes, the reasons changed, but somehow Iraq was always "vital" or "crucial" to something. America always seemed to do just fine for a couple centuries without obsessing over Iraq, or whatever it was called at the moment. It was no more crucial to our interests than what went on in Ghana.

Apparently everything changed after 9/11, and a country that wasn't involved with a dozen Saudis carrying out a co-ordinated attack on American cities was somehow where Western Civilisation would be forced to fight a battle to the death with "radical Islam". I'm not at all sure how that was supposed to work, but it seems like an invasion of Iraq was supposed to draw all of the world's "bad guys" into a conventional military conflict with American Military Might, in which said bad guys would be killed off and The World Would Be Safe Once More. Certainly Bush never explained how it was supposed to work, only that it was absolutely neccessary, and that if you didn't unquestioningly support it, then you were pro-terrorist. Nobody, to my knowledge, asked the Iraqis if they'd like to be the host for The Final Battle Between Good And Evil. Surely any country would jump at that opportunity, wouldn't they?
As it turned out, our "hosts" had problems of their own, and without Saddam around to make them play nice they started going at each other in a big way. This ethnic cleansing between Iraqis was somehow - I'm really not clear on this - supposed to really be Al-Qaeda's doing. Yeah, if Al-Qaeda hadn't come to Iraq to fight the big Deathmatch, then the whole sectarian violence thing somehow wouldn't have happened, at least if you follow Bush's contorted, sinuous, and very poorly articulated reasoning. But since Bush was the one that picked Iraq as the place where Good would fight to The Bitter End against Evil Incarnate, wasn't his kind of his doing? Not at all, the Administration said, because the civil war was not really a civil war at all. It was instead Al-Qaeda going around killing Sunni and Shia alike, and some of Saddam's leftover thugs taking a crack at anyone they could get their hands on for some unexplained reason.

It took a few years for Bush to see that it really was a civil war after all.

That didn't matter, though. The Final Battle Against Radical Islam was becoming more like a long-term guerilla war instead of the glorious, quick, and decisive slaughter of bad guys who would line up to be shot by our troops. Bush tried telling us about the power of positive thinking. He said we had an obligation to protect the Iraqis because they had voted, even though the Sunnis boycotted that election and we ended up with an impotent and incompetent government for all of troubles. We were just supposed to forget all of that old stuff the Administration said; if we didn't "win" the occupation then Al-Qaeda would take over Iraq. So much for the Central Front/Deathmatch concept.

And so we arrived at the place we are now at, nearly five years after invading. We can't leave or even cut the number of troops we have in Iraq, or the Bad Guys will take over - you know, the Bad Guys that the invasion of Iraq was supposed to wipe out forever. While Iraq is now, in the Administrations' mind, embroiled in a civil war, the "war" against Al-Qaeda is still not admitted to be a guerilla conflict; it's a conventional WW2-style war that we can "win" militarily.

So that, children, is the story of The Decider and the Mysteriously-Changing Menace. Whatever it appears as, we must fight it to the death or else we will surely perish. And only The Decider knows for sure what the real Menace is. It might seem strange, but we are always winning and we are always also still in terrible danger from whatever form the Mysteriously-Changing Menace may take. Be confident and terrified at the same time, because anything else would embolden the Enemy.

Judging by the poll results below, the American public isn't buying Bush's tale. Yet the Republicans have based much of their appeal on something that only 1/3 of the country thinks was worth doing in the first place.

story from ARG Monitor

Iraq War Not Worth Fighting for Americans

January 31, 2008

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Many adults in the United States disagree with their government’s decision to launch the coalition effort, according to a poll by Hart/McInturff released by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News. 59 per cent of respondents think removing Saddam Hussein from power was not worth the number of U.S. military casualties and the financial cost of the war.

The coalition effort against Hussein’s regime was launched in March 2003. At least 3,940 American soldiers have died during the military operation, and 29,000 troops have been wounded in action.

In December 2005, Iraqi voters renewed their National Assembly. In May 2006, Shiite United Iraqi Alliance member Nouri al-Maliki officially took over as prime minister.

In September 2007, commander of the Multi-National Force - Iraq David Petraeus and U.S. ambassador in Iraq Ryan Crocker provided a comprehensive assessment of the situation in Iraq to the U.S. Congress. In addition, U.S. president George W. Bush said U.S. forces in Iraq would be reduced by 5,700 troops in December, and announced the possibility of a further decrease in July 2008.

On Dec. 20, Bush delivered his final State of the Union address. In his speech, the American president discussed the Iraq war, saying, "The mission in Iraq has been difficult and trying for our nation. But it is in the vital interest of the United States that we succeed. A free Iraq will deny al-Qaeda a safe haven. A free Iraq will show millions across the Middle East that a future of liberty is possible. A free Iraq will be a friend of America, a partner in fighting terror, and a source of stability in a dangerous part of the world."

Polling Data

When it comes to the war in Iraq, do you think that removing Saddam Hussein from power was or was not worth the number of U.S. military casualties and the financial cost of the war?

	Jan. 2008	Sept. 2007	Jan. 2007
Worth it	32%	35%	33%
Not worth it	59%	56%	57%
Depends	4%	4%	5%
Unsure	5%	5%	5%

Source: Hart/McInturff / The Wall Street Journal / NBC News
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 1,008 American adults, conducted from Jan. 20 to Jan. 22, 2008. Margin of error is 3.1 per cent.

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Juan Cole's summary:

A new poll finds that the percentage of Americans who think the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein was worth it to the US declined from 35% to only 32% between December and January. The percentage who thought it was not worth it rose from 56% to 59% according to the same poll. It turns out that the American public is not impressed with a mere reduction in violence nowadays from apocalyptic levels last year this time. They want to know why we went there in the first place, and why their sacrifice of blood and treasure was worthwhile. No one, including McCain really has an answer for that.