Now that President Obama is safely in office, will the Europeans kick in the troops Washington says it needs in Afghanistan?
A quick read of this editorial from France’s Dernieres Nouvelles d’Alsace might lead one to wonder.
Editorialist Jean-Claude Kiefer writes in part:
“Why these reinforcements? Why the pressing appeal to Europeans to furnish new contingents, above all combat troops? This insistence on extending the engagement in Afghanistan remains the most obscure point of Barack Obama’s program. … With 30.000 additional soldiers – or 50,000, if Europeans respond to the call – will the Americans have a better chance of getting their hands on bin Laden and Mullah Omar, eradicating terrorism, and stabilizing Afghanistan – and by way of a beneficent effect of contagion – calm the Islamist turmoil in neighboring Pakistan, the real source of concern? It’s hard to believe that they will.”
Editorial by Jean-Claude Kiefer
Translated By L. McKenzie Zeiss
February 16, 2009
France – Les Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace – Home Page (French)
A discreet and mournful military ceremony in Moscow yesterday honored the Soviet dead – officially 13,000 – of the Red Army’s 1979-1989 war in Afghanistan. … In a few days, President Obama will announce the sending of new American reinforcements for the other war in Afghanistan, which debuted at the end of 2001 and which is not yet over.
Certainly, one cannot confuse the two episides. In 1979, the USSR under Brezhnev sought to “save” a vassal communist regime. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, Americans and other Westerners have hunted al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the name of “Operation Enduring Freedom,” with the goal of establishing democracy in Kabul – and up to now, with no great success.
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