US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has long called European contributions to NATO inadequate, said Tues. that public and political opposition to the military had grown so great in Europe that it was directly affecting operations in Afghanistan and impeding the alliance's broader security goals...A perception of European weakness, he warned, could provide a temptation to miscalculation and aggression by hostile powers. Mr. Gates blunt comments came just three days after the coalition government of the Netherlands collapsed...making it almost certain that most of the 2000 Dutch troops will be withdrawn this year. And polls show that the Afghan war has grown increasingly unpopular in nearly every European country.
Tatarewicz: NYT headline sounds like something right out of Orwell's 1984. The whole Gates' speech was most likely scripted by a desperate Israeli neocon agent in the administration. "Broader security goals" and "aggression by hostile powers" can only refer to Israel and invasion of it to take back land Jews stole from Arabs, certainly not the US or any European country. Some good poster comments following the article in VT.
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