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General News    H3'ed 9/28/09

U.S., NATO Poised For Most Massive War In Afghanistan's History

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Leading up to the Washington Post's publication of the McChrystal assessment, NATO's Military Committee held a two-day conference in Lisbon, Portugal which was attended by McChrystal and NATO's two Strategic Commanders, Admiral Stavridis (Supreme Allied Commander, Operations) and General Abrial (Supreme Allied Commander, Transformation) which "focused mainly on the operation in Afghanistan and on the New Strategic Concept. [17]

The 28 NATO defense chiefs present laid a wreath to the Alliance's first war dead, those killed in Afghanistan.

Earlier this month the Washington Post reported that "The U.S. military and NATO are launching a major overhaul of the way they recruit, train and equip Afghanistan's security forces, an announcement that came "in advance of expected recommendations by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. [18]

The article quoted Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee:

"We're going to need many more trainers, hopefully including a much larger number of NATO trainers. We're going to need a surge of equipment that is coming out of Iraq and, instead of coming home, a great deal of it should be going to Afghanistan instead. [19]

According to the same report, this month NATO will "will establish a new command led by a three-star military officer to oversee recruiting and generating Afghan forces.

"The goal is to ˜bring more coherence' to uncoordinated efforts by NATO contingents in Afghanistan while underscoring that the mission ˜is not just
America's challenge'" [20]

Contributing to its quota of body bags, NATO has experienced losses in Afghanistan that have reached record levels. "According to the icasualties website, 363 foreign soldiers have died in Afghanistan so far this year, compared to 294 for all of 2008. [21]

In September Britain has lost its 216th soldier in the nearly eight-year war. Canada lost its 131st. Denmark its 25th. Italy its 20th. Poland, where a recent poll showed 81 percent support for immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan, its 12th.

Russian ambassador to Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov, who had been in the nation in the 1980s, was cited by Associated Press on September 12 as saying that in 2002 the U.S. had 5,000 troops in the nation and "Taliban controlled just a small corner of the country's southeast.

"Now we have Taliban fighting in the peaceful Kunduz and Baghlan (provinces) with your (NATO's) 100,000 troops. And if this trend is the rule, if you bring 200,000 soldiers here, all of Afghanistan will be under the Taliban.

Associated Press also cited Kabulov's concern that "the U.S. and its allies are competing with Russia for influence in the energy-rich region".Afghanistan remains a strategic prize because of its location near the gas and oil fields of Iran, the Caspian Sea, Central Asia and the Persian Gulf.

He also said "Russia has questions about NATO's intentions in Afghanistan, which"lies outside of the alliance's ˜political domain' and "Moscow is concerned that NATO is building permanent bases in the region.

The concerns are legitimate in light of this month's latest quadrennial report by the Pentagon on security threats which "put emerging superpower China and former Cold War foe Russia alongside Iran and North Korea on a list of the four main nations challenging American interests. [22]

At the same time a U.S. military newspaper reported on statements by Pentagon chief Robert Gates:

"Gates said the roughly $6.5 billion he has proposed to upgrade the [Air Force] fleet assures U.S. domination of the skies for decades.

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Rick Rozoff has been involved in anti-war and anti-interventionist work in various capacities for forty years. He lives in Chicago, Illinois. Is the manager of the Stop NATO international email list at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/
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