NATO slammed for half-hearted job in Afghanistan

[NNN0LHI]

Just what Clarke said. The Taliban and al-Qaeda have been getting stronger while Buckaroo Bush has been pulling his pud in Iraq and we have now become weaker and have more enemies.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L31630402.htm

BERLIN, March 31 (Reuters) - NATO came under fire on Wednesday for failing to move quickly on the expansion of its peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan and sidestepping the country's two biggest security threats, drugs and warlords.

The European Union's External Affairs Commissioner, Chris Patten, called for both alliance and U.S-led coalition forces in the country to reverse the boom in poppy cultivation and stamp out a business that fuels criminal and guerrilla activities.

"We must recognise the link between insecurity and opium poppy production," Patten told Reuters on the sidelines of a Berlin conference called to shore up international support for war-ravaged Afghanistan's political and economic revival.

"If we are to see real short-term gains in the fight against drugs, then I believe ISAF and coalition troops will need to be actively involved."

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[bif]

1. How are they going to expand

When they only control a small portion of the country?

[seasat]

2. This flies in the face of one of their excuses for Iraq

One of the most common excuses that I hear from the radical right is that the reason for invading Iraq was to set up a stable democracy that would result in a new "Domino" effect of democracy in the Middle East. My reply is why didn't we concentrate all our efforts on Afganistan and make that our stable Middle East democracy? Many of the people there are actually appreciative of the US presence. We could have turned them from a society of warlords and drug farms into an agrarian based free market democracy. Instead the neocons sent us to Iraq and have ruined any chances for democratic reform for either country by diluting our resources between the two. We are a wealthy country but our resources are not unlimited, especially the most valuable resource of young lives.

[Hobarticus]

3. Zactly, seasat...

I said the same thing to a Freeper friend of mine and got a blank look in return.