The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is having a meeting in the Netherlands this week. As host, Dutch Defense Minister Eimert Van Middelkoop welcomed the 26 countries to the meeting and immediately launched a jab at about 22 of the countries. It seems the Dutch are getting pissed off a bit perturbed about the fact that they, along with Canada, Great Britain and the United States that are fighting in the dangerous South and Eastern portions of Afghanistan, while the other countries hang out in the relatively safe North. Well Mr Defense Minister ... welcome to our world. For years the US and Great Britain have been doing the dirty work heavy lifting for the world. I guess it's not as fair when your countrymen now must help shoulder the burden.
But let's be fair to the Dutch ... they have earned the right to complain, because they are actually there, bleeding with the Canadians, Brits and Americans. Our attention should be turned to those that are shirking their responsibilities. First on the list is of course the French. They have volunteered now to send 50 troops to the south to help with training the Afghani forces there ... of course the other 1,000 troops will remain hiding in the north. The German contingent of 3,100 troops have never ventured out of the north.
On a positive note, Slovakia said it would double its' contingent to 111 troops (do they now have 55 1/2 troops in country?), some of which will be sent south to help the Dutch. The Czech republic will increase its' forces from 225 to 415, but have not said where they would be sent. The country of Georgia, which is not in NATO, is reportedly considering sending 200 troops to help the Dutch in an attempt to suck up prove themselves worthy of NATO membership.
A proposal has been put forth to rotate the troops of all participating NATO units, so that no one Nation unfairly shoulders the burden of all of the combat. In a perfect world, this would be both fair and just ... let's see if NATO can accomplish this.
My thanks to Lime for teaching me how to do the cross-outs on this post.
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