Word: nato
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...report that Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the new head of NATO, is a Dane with a tough, no-nonsense style who will sort out NATO in Afghanistan [Sept. 14]. Why, then, does he say, "We would very much like to see further contributions from the European side," when a "tough, no-nonsense style" would say, "France and Germany, your troops are no use behind a hedge 500 miles away from the fighting - get them where the action is." Bob Wydell, OSWESTRY, ENGLAND...
Tough Talk You report that Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the new head of NATO, is a Dane with a tough, no-nonsense style who will sort out NATO in Afghanistan [Sept. 14]. Why, then, does he say, "We would very much like to see further contributions from the European side"? A tough, no-nonsense style would be to say, "France and Germany, your troops are no use behind a hedge 500 miles away from the fighting - get them where the action is." Bob Wydell, Oswestry, England...
...NATO and the U.N. - whose senior representative to Afghanistan, Norwegian Kai Eide, was accused by his American deputy, Peter Galbraith, of tacitly favoring a Karzai victory following the election debacle (Galbraith was fired this week) - will now be forced to work with an Afghan leader that has not only distanced himself from Western tutelage but also lacks legitimacy in the eyes of his people. (See the top 10 U.N. General Assembly moments...
...Still, the U.S. and NATO have little choice but to work with the leader they have, even if he's not the leader they wish they had. Karzai believed that Washington was trying to get rid of him ahead of the election, and he'll see his victory as a triumph also over those in Western capitals who had sought his ouster. Having secured another term of office, and with the West desperate to save its mission in Afghanistan from collapse, Karzai has the upper hand - and that will make it all the more difficult to cajole him into fighting...
...While many of the comparisons between the NATO mission in Afghanistan and the failed Soviet occupation in the 1980s are flawed, there is an unfortunate parallel in at least one respect: Moscow's insistence that Afghans recognize their puppet government, despite its failure to deliver to the people. "Everyone is focusing on the number of troops the U.S. has in Afghanistan," says analyst Haroun Mir, director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies. "The Russians had twice as many troops [as the NATO coalition does now] but they failed, not because they were weak, but because the Afghan...