At 12:22 28-12-01 -0500, Jon Gabriel wrote:
>So, what happened in Afghanistan was just our war? The invocation of
>Article V, that doesn't mean anything to you? You have, on many
>occasions, criticized the US for not moving faster in Bosnia. That was
>clearly not our war. Why then do you blame us for failing to send
>soldiers fast enough to fight in what was very clearly someone else's war?
>
>Gautam>>
>
>
>Jeroen,
>
>I would like to point out that according to what you have now said you
>believe that The Netherlands should not fulfill their NATO treaty obligations.
>
>By your own admission: ("What I said was that we should not send our
>soldiers to Afghanistan to fight your war.") you feel that your country
>should not fulfill its obligations under the treaty.
It is a bit more complicated than that. I did not say we should not fulfill
our obligations. We have signed the treaty, therefore we should abide by it
or get out of NATO. Wat I do believe, however, is that is was wrong to
invoke Article V in the first place. An act of terrorism is not an act of
war, so this was not something NATO should have gotten involved in.
As I said in a previous post, there have been plenty of terrorists attacks
in Europe over the last four decades, but nobody ever considered invoking
Article V because of it. Why should things be different when the US becomes
the victim for a change? Because this was a case of state-sponsored
terrorism? Well, the left-winged terrorists in Europe were sponsored by
countries in the Eastern Block. NATO did not bomb *them* for it.
Jeroen
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