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Reuters January 16, 2010 Afghan combat burden must be shared: Miliband By Peter Graff KABUL: NATO allies must fairly share the burden of combat in Afghanistan, increasingly being borne by just the United States and Britain, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Saturday. The Afghan war has become increasingly unpopular at home in Britain as combat deaths have soared, with Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government under pressure to do more to persuade its European allies to do more to fight. The British and U.S. contingents each suffered more than twice as many deaths in Afghanistan last year as in any previous year, while the total from all other NATO allies barely changed. Britain lost 108 troops in Afghanistan in 2009 and the United States lost 316. All other NATO allies together lost 95, the first time British losses in Afghanistan have exceeded those of all the other non-American allies combined. Two British soldiers were killed in an explosion Friday. "The scourge of international terrorism and the security reason that we're here is an overriding one," Miliband told Reuters in an interview during a visit to Kabul. "It applies to every country in the world, it certainly applies to every country in NATO, and that's why we will not cease in our drive to say that the burden should be fairly shared." U.S. President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 extra U.S. troops to Afghanistan late last year, which will bring the U.S. contingent to nearly 100,000. Britain maintains the second largest contingent, almost 10,000, and nearly all of them are deployed in Afghanistan's most violent province, Helmand. Miliband pointed out that other allies have promised to send more than 7,000 extra troops since Obama gave his new pledge. .... Miliband said he expected more offers of extra troops from NATO and non-NATO allies at a conference Britain is hosting on January 28 to discuss Afghanistan. "We've got to respect the decision making processes in different countries but I think the call that has gone out from President Obama is very, very clear," he said. "I think it's right that every country should look at what it can do and whether it can do more because in the end 'all for one and one for all' is the basis on which the NATO alliance works." =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato Blog site: http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/ To subscribe, send an e-mail to: [email protected] or [email protected] Daily digest option available. ============================== --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST --^---------------------------------------------------------------- This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.bNM5nn.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [email protected] For Topica's complete suite of email marketing solutions visit: http://www.topica.com/?p=TEXFOOTER --^----------------------------------------------------------------
