Saturday, February 2, 2008

Germany Upset At U.S. Call For More Afghan Support


Well, we're having a war of words between NATO allies, Germany and the U.S., after U.S. Defense Secretary Gates sent a letter to his counterpart Franz Jung telling the German that they are not holding up their end of the bargain in the Afghan War. So, what does Jung do? He fires off his own letter and basically says that Germany isn't doing anything more than they originally agreed to. One German defense official put it this way:



"The location we have been given is in the north and that is where we are staying and, by the way, although it might seem more peaceful at the moment, there is no knowing whether that will last,”

That is complete bullshit. All of the fighting, attacks by the Talian, suicide bombings are in the southern provinces of Afghanistan which is being fought by U.S., British, Dutch and Canadian troops while Germany has the northern area where nothing is happening. Let's put it this way. Germany is in charge of an area like Kuwait in the Iraq War while the other NATO forces have Diyalah, Samarra and Mosul. So the Germans got lucky in drawing the straw to protect the North in Afghanistan and now that the ones in the South are in trouble and asking for help, Germany is basically saying: Tough shit.
There's an old saying Germany...about "burning bridges."

Here's the full story.


Berlin slaps down US demand to send troops to fight the Taleban

Nato’s mission in Afghanistan was rocked by another blazing row over the refusal of some coalition members to fight the Taleban in the south.
An unusually stern letter from Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, to his German counterpart about the role of Germany’s troops in Afghanistan caused anger not just in Berlin but elsewhere in the alliance.
Washington has taken the lead in putting pressure on Nato with a warning that the credibility of the alliance is at stake. But Mr Gates’s latest intervention seems likely to cause more division.
His letter to Franz Josef Jung, the German Defence Minister, went to the heart of the problem that has faced Nato since its mission expanded throughout Afghanistan, and in particular to the southern provinces where the Taleban are concentrated.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan the role of every other Nato country is covered by caveats that range from a ban on deploying out of area — except in the most extreme circumstances — to no night flying, largely because of lack of technical capability; no flying in poor weather; no involvement in riot control and no venturing from bases without the maximum force protection or too far from the nearest hospital.
Mr Gates’s written demands for German troops to be sent to the south provoked an instant putdown from Berlin, which reminded Washington that Germany’s remit in Afghanistan was to defend the north, and that it had 3,100 troops there.

Mr Jung made it clear yesterday that Germany had no plans to deploy troops to the south, where most of the fighting has been going on since the early summer of 2006.

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