So much for NATO. From Fox News, Request made to send 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan:
Gates wants to keep the Marines in Anbar, but Marines want to go where the targets are, which, at the moment, is Afghanistan. Since NATO won’t fight in Iraq, Gates is making the logical decision here. Keep Iraq’s surge forces in place until Petraeus is ready for a drawdown, and try to fill the cracks in Afghanistan with NATO allies who are still committed to the fight. I agree with my friend Charlie Munn here, NATO should have never been given the reigns in Afghanistan. While we’ve seen laudable fierceness from a few friendly nations (Canada, UK, Poland, Australia, Belgium), the rest of our NATO allies are acting like high-maintenance girlfriends. Better to organize combat forces under U.S. or British command, instead of the clunky UN mandated International Security Assistance Force in which combined forces are restricted by ridiculous ROEs (no night fighting, no snow fighting, to name two of the silliest). Now this isn’t to say that we’re ungrateful for NATO’s help, we are. It’s just that when the United States was ready to invoke the treaty’s collective defense clause during the Cold War–as NATO did after 9/11–we were prepared to send the bulk of our force–reserve, guard, active duty…the whole shebang–to fight the Soviets under the REFORGER (return of forces to Germany) plan. It pissed the Russians off something awful, but it also demonstrated our firm allegiance to our European allies. To expect similar resolve from NATO in Afghanistan, a fight where we are numerically and technologically superior, isn’t asking much. Not in comparison, at least.
