NATO signals Afghan reinforcements

[Teddy Ruxpin]

The truth is out:

Matthew Fisher, Ottawa Citizen, 30 Nov 06, page A6

Germany dodges call for troops: Harper's plea for Afghanistan reinforcements largely ignored

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RIGA, Latvia - Prime Minister Stephen Harper looked subdued and German Chancellor Angela Merkel was reportedly "ecstatic" at the end of the NATO summit yesterday after Germany successfully dodged demands from Canada and other allies that it provide more help to troops fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

The few countries to volunteer additional forces, such as Britain and Estonia, were, as Mr. Harper noted at a news conference after the summit ended, already committed to participating in combat operations in the south.

"Look, we're not going to kid you, the security situation remains a challenge in the south," the prime minister said after a closed three-hour session with other NATO leaders. "We still believe we are under-manned, but we're getting more forces all of the time, we're getting more flexibility from our NATO partners."

Canada's quest for more help in the south had only limited success at the two-day gathering, which ended with a predictable blitz of statements celebrating the alliance's cohesion and unity.

It was agreed that if NATO troops in Afghanistan found themselves in an emergency situation, the NATO commander could send troops from other NATO countries to their aid. However, helping out allies in distress has always been part of the NATO charter.

An undisclosed number of the more than 100 caveats that had prevented troops from some NATO countries from participating in combat operations or moving troops outside specific geographic areas were also eliminated.

But on the crucial demand by Canada, Britain, the U.S. and Holland that troops from others in the 26-country alliance join them and four smaller NATO members in the battle in Afghanistan's bloody south, there was very little movement and none by those nations with large armies such as Germany, Spain and Italy, whose troops are now deployed in relatively calm parts of the country.

"In the grand majority of cases, the caveats that have been softened have to do with emergencies and, obviously, we don't intend to be in an emergency," Mr. Harper said before boarding his plane back to Ottawa. "There is clearly still work to be done."

Asked what the new measures announced at the summit might mean for Canadian troops, who have done a disproportionate share of the fighting and dying in Afghanistan, the prime minister said: "It is difficult to project future casualties and future battles based on this summit."

Canada's anger before the summit has mostly been directed at Germany.

The reason may be partially explained by a story published yesterday on Der Spiegel's website.

The German news magazine reported that Berlin had refused several requests for its forces to come to the aid of NATO's embattled warriors in the south during the Canadian-led Operation Medusa in late August and early September. The missions Germany wanted no part of included deploying a medevac aircraft to the base where Canadians were located in Kandahar, allowing a drone aircraft to be used for reconnaissance of the area and having its special forces commandos deployed as forward air controllers to direct airstrikes against the Taliban across the south, the weekly said.

"Our goal was to stay in the north and that is exactly what we will be doing," a source close to the German delegation in Riga said yesterday.

The mood among the Germans after the summit was described as "ecstatic" and "satisfied" by different members of the delegation.

"We are well positioned with our mandate and there is no reason to change that mandate," Ms. Merkel was quoted by Der Spiegel as having told other NATO leaders when she spoke after Mr. Harper at a dinner on Tuesday night.

Ms. Merkel's fragile coalition government deliberately did not want spelled out what might actually constitute an emergency, Der Spiegel reported.

Furthermore, the magazine said the Germans wanted NATO to remain vague about whether emergencies might be declared that might involve "regularly sending German troops to the south for single missions conducted jointly with the U.S.A. or Canada."

However, alliance members will be told very soon exactly what their responsibilities will be if the NATO commander in Afghanistan declares an emergency, the top Canadian at NATO, Gen. Ray Henault, told reporters yesterday.

"Is 'in extremis' defined in everyone's mind?" the former Canadian chief of defence asked rhetorically. "We have to make sure it is so that there is no misunderstanding in the future. There is a definition of this in our doctrine and we are going to make sure everyone knows what it is."

Meanwhile, the question of getting NATO members to send additional combat forces to the south remains. "The south is still in need of reserves," Gen. Henault said. "At the dinner last night we asked countries to re-visit this issue."

Canada, Britain, the U.S. and Holland have borne most of the casualties in Afghanistan, with Canada having a casualty rate five times higher than the NATO average.

 

[mainerjohnthomas]

Strong words there Mainer, but you overlook the fact that the will to defend your homeland on your own soil is a lot stronger than defending your freedoms in some far off land.

Aye, the words are strong and bitter.  Like many of the cold warriors here, I spent most of my time training to die in the fields of Germany to buy time for North American and British forces to halt and drive back the forces the Soviets were driving through Germany to conquer Western Europe.  Now the nations of Western Europe, that we forged NATO to pledge our blood to defend, are shying from the duty to risk their blood to stand with us.  The Netherlands alone is worthy of their salt, for they have set their servicemen and women along side our own, in the combat zone, to kill or die to keep the faith.  For the years of my service it was not our hearths that NATO was pledged to use my life to defend, but the hearths of the Western European powers that now are unwilling to risk their larger and well equipped armies on ground that has not first been cleared and made secure by the four nations that hold their oaths as more than a PR ploy.  It really makes me feel the gratitude of our NATO allies when I remember my own times deploying to Germany to help defend its borders, and that happy feeling I got when I looked at my Grandfather's France and Germany star, knowing that all those Canadian lives bought us such worthy allies.  At least I could feel pride looking at the medal for the liberation of the Netherlands, for they at least remember.
Maybe I'm just a bitter old heathen, but I don't recall our orders for REFORGER ever including a caveat that we were not to risk any Canadian lives, but sit back safe and let the Germans do the dying; I don't think our officers could have spoken, nor our troops have heeded, such a cowardly command.

 

[ambex]

Well said Mainer.

 

[George Wallace]

mainerjohnthomas

Like it is the 'new Army' that we see today, it is also a 'new NATO'.  All those Cold Warriors, like you and I, faced off against an enemy who never came, but now sits at the table as our new partners in NATO.  Half of the German Army today, was on the other side of the Wall in our day.  The German Chancellor is from the East.  We now have Poles, Estonians, Czechs, Romanians, etc. in our NATO multi-national Force, all of whom were once our enemies.  Who would have known back in the '80's that the world would look like this today?

At the same time that you complain that their caveates are keeping them from participating shoulder to shoulder with us in combat, I would like to seriously ask you if you would really want to be fighting shoulder to shoulder with some of these guys.  Some of them are raw conscripts with little training or will to be there.  I look at it as being a "bit" of a blessing that some of them are restricted by caveates, as I feel some of them would be more of a hindrance than not. 

Do I wish that the more well trained and quipped members of NATO contributed more to this deployment?  Yes, I do.  I just don't want any 'weak links'.

Perhaps it is time to open up some of our Training areas and start up Training along the lines of what we did in the 1940's with the Commonwealth Air Training Plan and train multi-national troops for Tours in Afghanistan, or encourage more proactive "SUE's" where foreign troops could be embedded in Canadian Units.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

I should be careful talking about the capabilities of others, but I would stand with the Romanians again.   

 

[mainerjohnthomas]

As far as the caveats keeping untrained and underequiped forces out of the fighting in Afghanistan, the last time I served along side the Bundeswher I found German land forces to be both well trained and equipped, and both times I served with French forces, I found their troops to be similarly trained and equipped (especially their airborne units, great esprit).  I never served with many of the countries that now make up NATO, but if memory serves correctly, the poorly trained conscripts of the eastern block seemed to have marched through Afghanistan before; against the support we could lend the Afghans.  How much harder could it be for them to assist us now?  From what some of my buddies who served with some of the former Soviet satelite republic forces in peacekeeping ops, their troops are actually becoming better trained now then they were as our enemies.
    I ask that you do not take my comments as criticism of the soldiers of our allied nations, for they stepped up to serve their country as have we all.  It is the lack of moral courage of their civilian governments, and lack of will of their civilian population that I have issue with.  I have no doubts that the soldiers of NATO would stand unhesitatingly into danger at our side, were their leaders only to authorize it.  The civilians of those nations may not understand, but then neither do many of our own.

 

[George Wallace]

     I ask that you do not take my comments as criticism of the soldiers of our allied nations, for they stepped up to serve their country as have we all.  It is the lack of moral courage of their civilian governments, and lack of will of their civilian population that I have issue with.  I have no doubts that the soldiers of NATO would stand unhesitatingly into danger at our side, were their leaders only to authorize it.  The civilians of those nations may not understand, but then neither do many of our own.

I agree, especially the common problem being the moral courage of the Governments and lack of will or knowledge of the population at large.  As you point out, our population is no different, even though our present Government is currently giving us a lot of support............however, looming in the background is Taliban Jack and an unknown Liberal leader, to yet be decided, who may in a few years or months change all this.  Will we swing the other way and join the NATO membership who we are presently critiquing, should we have a change in Government?  Will the Taliban propaganda being spewed in our Press cloud the minds of Canadians just as it is many Europeans? 

 

[Edward Campbell]

I agree, especially the common problem being the moral courage of the Governments and lack of will or knowledge of the population at large.  As you point out, our population is no different, even though our present Government is currently giving us a lot of support............however, looming in the background is Taliban Jack and an unknown Liberal leader, to yet be decided, who may in a few years or months change all this.   Will we swing the other way and join the NATO membership who we are presently critiquing, should we have a change in Government?  Will the Taliban propaganda being spewed in our Press cloud the minds of Canadians just as it is many Europeans? 

Spot on, George.

The German politicians and officials in Riga were reported to be 'ecstatic' at having beaten back an ABCD (America, British, Canadian, Ditch) demand for more, active, support for combat operations in the South.  They were, I suggest, ecstatic not because they relish more dead Canadians but because they do not need to confront a population which is deeply anti war, capitalism, American, globalization, etc, etc, etc.  The German politicos were ecstatic because they will not be punished for disagreeing with the national consensus.

I believe that anti-war sentiment in strong and growing Canada.  The other antis are strong, too:

1. Anti-Americanism is, almost, part of our late 20th century creed – it has fertilized our national roots for 200+ years but it became respectable when the petty, puffed-up, provincial poltroon Pierre Trudeau 'led' our government from one misstep to another.

2. Anti-capitalism is almost gospel in universities – where the ill-educated preside – and in the media.

3. Anti-globalization, the last refuge of the modern Luddites, is also highly popular in Canada.

It's not just Canada.  My sense is that Americans are, also, increasingly isolationist, again – which means anti-war (except in defence of a clear and present threat) and, under the tutelage of the likes of CNN's Lou Dobbs, that isolationism is mixed with strong doses of anti-capitalism and anti-globalization.

Part of the blame for all of this must rest with George W. Bush's administration's unilateralism and inept, to put it kindly, public diplomacy.  Neither Powell nor Rice have been able to overcome the deep antipathy with which a substantial majority of people, around the world and even in America, regard Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.  President Bush and his administration are the most divisive force in the West since Barry Goldwater frightened the Europeans, especially the Russians, French and Germans, half to death.

The West needs new, united leadership.  Faith in America's traditional good intentions has been badly weakened.  Even at the height of the Viet Nam era anti-Americanism most people were willing and able to separate America's noble aims from it's less than stellar actions.  No more; there is, I fear a broad consensus – in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Germany and so on that America has lost sight of its founding principles and that Americans – broadly, not just the political class – are trying to use their power for purposes other than the good of all.

The new, united leadership must, however, start in Washington – no other country, no other coalition of countries can, now, provide that leadership.  The new, united leadership must look back to the public diplomacy of the Truman/Eisenhower (Marshal/Acheson/Dulles) era when America was, relatively, almost as powerful as it is now but still managed to forge and maintain strong, loyal alliances amongst nations (peoples) which trusted America's commitments to its own, traditional, publicly espoused values.

The next leader of the Liberal Party of Canada – and it doesn't matter who it is – will run against the Afghanistan mission.  He will do so not because it is bad policy but, rather because most Canadians, thanks to the 2009 extension, identify Afghanistan with Stephen Harper and many, maybe even most Canadians are generally anti-military.  The next Liberal Party of Canada leader will also run against George W. Bush – because a huge majority of Canadians despise him which means that the Liberals will move closer and closer to the European consensus.  If the Liberals regain power Canada will follow the European lead, again.  That lead will be wrong, but popular.

 

[Journeyman]

Concurring with emphasis.....

...Canada will follow the European lead, again.  That lead will be wrong , but popular.