Blair was wrong saying at the Latvian summit that NATO’s credibility is on the line in Afghanistan. NATO was created to contain the communist threat and did that marvelously. NATO all but failed in the essentially police action in Yugoslavia and during peacekeeping operations. NATO cannot succeed fighting guerrillas in the Afghan mountains.
Vietnam did not discredit the US army, and Afghanistan won’t discredit NATO. Both were created for large-scale total wars. The best sledgehammer cannot be used to make even the worst furniture.
NATO is a thing of the past, and would better be honorably discharged.
I agree with you on this one. NATO has been a thing of the past of the past few decades. It is just like the liberals in that aspect. It isn't smart enough to know yet. But it's time is coming…and so for the Libs too. Teddy Kennedy, John Kerry, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Palousi……..All I can say on this is….their time is coming. I just hope that when it comes, it isn't too late for the rest of us.God Bless America…God Bless our Troops…-Robert-
From DanielPipes.orgIn a short, brilliant, and operational study, "NATO: An Alliance for Freedom", published by … FAES, we learn that containing the Soviet Union was not the organization's founding principle. Rather, NATO was imbued with the more positive goal "to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of [the member states'] peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law."http://www.fundacionfaes.org/documentos/Informe_OTAN_Ingles.pdfProof that NATO was always mandated to defend democracy against more than Communism can be found in its having forgone the strategic value of Spanish territory and its military force so long as that country remained under the thumb of Francisco Franco's fascist government. Only after he died in 1975 and the government became democratic did Spain get an invitation to join the alliance in 1981.
The above study is short and sweet. It envisions NATO as a democratic replacement for the UN, as well as the leading force against Islamic radicalism, among other things.Highly recommended reading.
To Beta: Political cynicism has limits. NATO could not cooperate with fascist Spain against anti-fascist USSR. But NATO cooperated with essentially similar military regime in Greece which lacked the stigma of fascism.Defending freedom, in those years, meant countering the communist expansion.
C'mon, who are you all kidding!Everybody with a gram of intelligence knows that NATO is just the eastern extended arm of US imperialism!