Word: nato
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...NATO's member nations convene in Bucharest, Romania, to discuss the state of the alliance, Afghanistan will be at the top of the agenda. General Dan McNeil, commander of the alliance's 43,250 soldiers in Afghanistan, has lobbied for another troop surge to help battle the rising insurgency in the country's south. But lower-level commanders on the ground have something else to add to that wish list. Says one: "Frankly, defeating the Taliban is the least of our worries. They are not going to beat us. What is killing this country is corruption and drugs. That...
...easy to take a wrong turn in Bucharest's Palace of the Parliament," says Victor Micula, the Romanian official responsible for organizing this week's NATO summit. Ground was broken for the monstrous, labyrinthine structure, locally nicknamed the "Madman's House," in 1986 on the orders of Nicolae Ceausescu. Work had not yet been completed when Ceausescu was deposed and executed three years later. Indeed, says Micula, the job is still unfinished...
...Although most argue that politics should be kept out of the Games, it is not as though American boycotts of the Olympics are unprecedented. In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. In response, the United States and most other NATO nations boycotted the Moscow Olympics the next year. By reducing the Olympics to a contest between Communist nations, the West was able to express its anger at the Kremlin’s misdeeds. If a host nation’s aggression against a neighbor warrants a boycott, surely a host nation’s aggression against its own people warrants...
...Also weighing against the new accessions to NATO are opinion polls showing that 58% of Ukrainians are opposed to joining the alliance, and Georgia's internal troubles with its secessionist regions...
...Hence the appeal, for Putin at least, of a compromise accepting the presence of the missile shield on its borders in exchange for keeping its southern neighbors out of NATO. It remains to be seen, however, whether President Bush - who talked passionately on Tuesday about the need for NATO to admit Georgia and Ukraine - is ready to split the difference...