Rummy's replacement is doing a lot to raise the opinion of all the NATO countries!!!The Associated Press
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Some of America's closest NATO allies reacted with surprise and disbelief Wednesday to reported comments from U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates suggesting that their troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan are not up to the job.
The Dutch Defence Ministry summoned the U.S. ambassador for an explanation of a Los Angeles Times article that said Gates complained about soldiers from Canada, Britain and the Netherlands not knowing how to fight a guerrilla insurgency.
In Ottawa, the Liberal opposition demanded the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper call in the U.S. ambassador to Canada -- or seek direct clarification from Gates himself.
At the very least the comments smack of insensitivity in light of the death of a Canadian soldier north of Kandahar on Wendnesday, said defence critic Denis Coderre.
"We are paying the price in lives,'' he said. "Our men and women know how to fight. We need to know who he was talking about; which countries.''
In Washington, Gates' spokesman Geoff Morrell said the secretary had "read the article and is disturbed by what he read.''
Morrell did not challenge the accuracy of the quotes in the story, but said he thought it left the wrong impression -- that Gates had singled out a particular country.
"For the record he did not -- to the L.A. Times or at any time otherwise -- publicly ever criticize any single country for their performance in or commitment to the mission in Afghanistan,'' Morrell told Pentagon reporters in Washington.
Instead, Morrell said Gates had pointed out that "NATO as an alliance, does not train for counterinsurgency. The alliance has never had to do it before.''
In Britain, Conservative legislator Patrick Mercer said Gates' reported comments were "bloody outrageous.''
"I would beg the Americans to understand that we are their closest allies, and our men are bleeding and dying in large numbers,'' Mercer, a former British infantry officer said.
"These sorts of things are just not helpful among allied nations.''
The United States has regularly criticized Germany, France, Italy and other allies that refuse to allow their troops in Afghanistan to join U.S. forces on the front line against the Taliban in the insurgents' southern strongholds...
I'm a little baffled by what anyone could hope to gain by saying something so stupid and vague. If Gates has issues with the way any of the NATO forces are handling their responsibilities some consultation and perhaps even instruction (on a non-public level) would be far more useful. How will something like this encourage NATO countries to a) send more troops to Afghanistan and b) allow such troops to be involved in the combat against the Taliban as opposed to perform relief/humanitarian/policing missions in the nothern part of the country? IMO it won't... and its not like the US has troops to spare for Afghanistan.
As a Canadian, I support our involvment in the Afghan mission although polls are suggesting a growing majority of our citizens do not. There is a lot of political pressure (by our opposition parties) to try and get our troops out of the south and into the north where there aren't combat operations dealing with the Taliban, if not right out of the country. We haven't lost the numbers of troops that the US has in Iraq but 78 Canadian troops have died in Afghanistan: a significant number when put in the context of the size of the force in place and the even the total size of our Armed Forces... and critics of the mission say its too many for a conflict that we shouldn't be involved in (which I disagree with). To this point, the feedback has been that our people have been doing their job well (from reports detailing the US request to retain some of our sniper teams and unit citations and decorations from US area commanders, etc). Statements like this, that give useless cocksuckers like Denis Coderre any semblance of credibility, do no good for anyone.
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