Gates Calls Europe Anti-War Mood Danger to Peace

[alp227]

Source: Brian Knowlton, The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who has long called European contributions to NATO inadequate, said Tuesday 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.

“The demilitarization of Europe — where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it — has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st,” he told NATO officers and officials in a speech at the National Defense University, the Defense Department-financed graduate school for military officers and diplomats.

A perception of European weakness, he warned, could provide a “temptation to miscalculation and aggression” by hostile powers.

The meeting was a prelude to the alliance’s review this year of its basic mission plan for the first time since 1999. “Right now,” Mr. Gates said, “the alliance faces very serious, long-term, systemic problems.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/world/europe/24nato.html

[Hardrada]

1. What a dope. Europe is not fanning flames in the ME.

[saigon68]

63. The Chimp's man -----a NeoCon holdover

A War Criminal and a murderer all rolled up into one.

Well little ram emauel is happy with him anyway

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

2. Pull back and look at it with another set of eyes.

Just a big blue marble going around the sun.

[DebbieCDC]

3. Hmm, being anti-war is a danger to peace

Can someone explain that statement to me please?

[htuttle]

4. Sure -- easy peasy

War is peace. Freedom is Slavery. Up is down. Left is right.

Clear now?

[calimary]

64. Yep, what's wrong with them??!?!?!?!? Gotta get out there with that taste for BLOOD!

What's wrong with them anyway, that they're not anxious to go to some other country threatening and terrorizing and slaughtering people?

Shee-it. Just don't make them warmongers like they used to.

[sakabatou]

5. I'm sure Big Brother could.

After all, war IS peace...

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

9. I can't explain it but the watchers that spied on us during the sixties

sure thought so, always there with cameras. The real danger about peace is lower corporate profits, everlasting war for everlasting profits it,s not just a slogan, but an operating principle.

[L. Coyote]

52. since the sixties, and before

if you are older, you date yourself :rofl: as post-Commie-in-every-closet :rofl:

[L. Coyote]

55. now the spying is easier

and universal. Now isn't that democratic!

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. Well, as we used to say in the 70's..

Fighting for peace
is like fucking for virginity.

[DebbieCDC]

22. Ah yes I remember that saying

How true

[appal_jack]

62. fucking for virginity = more fun, less death and suffering.

Fucking for virginity strikes me as a lot more fun at least. Who cares if the stated goal is never attained?

-app

[Jackpine Radical]

16. What don't you get?

We had to destroy the planet in order to save it.

[Synicus Maximus]

32. we had to destroy the village to save it

[liberation]

6. "How dare those Europeans learn from their past and use their moneys to take care of their people...

... rather than continuing insane wars of domination to prop and defend the interest of the very few at the top."


I am sure that is what Gates mean to say, but his French is kinda rusty.

[bossy22]

11. they do this

because they don't really have to worry about possible military/defense issues, because always in some way that U.S. will intervene and bring things under control.

The truth is we could actually do both, but no one has the balls in congress to do it

[liberation]

29. Not really...

... if you think the US bases in Europe were/are there to protect the Europeans from "foreign" attack, I have a nice ocean-front property to sell you in Arizona. Probably that was the case right after WWII, but any time after the 60s... most Western European nations were fairly self sufficient in regards of self defense.

After WWII Europe started to reconsider their stand on many issues, and they started to move away from their nefarious militaristic pasts and insane colonial policies which left not just untold numbers of victims among the decimated cultures, but provided plenty of fodder for their local cemeteries with the bodies of their own dead due to some silly dreams of empire. Of course the change was not instantaneous (the French still had to get their asses kicked in Argelia and Vietnam, the British were bankrupt and trying to hold to a crumbling empire proved to be too self evident, the Spaniards were kicked out of Western Sahara, etc in order for the Euros to finally get the memo). The US Military presence, for the most part in Western Europe was viewed for what it was: creating a cushion for the US in case of a soviet expansion. And we all know that cushions get squashed, abused, and farted on. Not a very good place to be.

Europe has very good self defense forces, and no country in their right mind would dare invade the EU. In fact there have been cases in which European countries had to mediate in conflicts themselves because the US would not commit to protect them since they were allied with the aggressor (Cyprus comes to mind). What Europeans no longer have are effective aggressive/power projection forces, and are very timid in regards of intervention (the Balkans comes to mind) due to a fairly traumatic past which is still far too recent.

If we were to pull tomorrow from all our European bases, the EU would have no problem defending themselves. The UK and France present a good enough nuclear deterrent. What it would mean, is that American expeditionary forces won't be able to project troops as easily (esp. in the middle East). Trying to equate our power projection needs with an altruistic defense of Europe is fairly disingenuous.

I grew up as an AF brat, and it was clear that the locals (of whom my mum was one) could not wait to get US troops out of their hood. Heck during the 80s, I remember seeing all sorts of variations and misspellings for "Yankee Go Home" in graffiti all over the cities I grew up in the old world...

Empires always end up in the same fashion: collapsing into the toilet of history. I wish we had learned that lesson and moved on, but as the saying goes "those who don't study history are condemned to repeat it." Heck we even went into Afghanistan as any self respecting dying empire should...

[Blue_Tires]

57. they also do it because they've had horrible meaningless wars

going back a dozen centuries before the first explorers set foot here...

I remember the run-up to the Iraq invasion, and there was a series of interviews with Europeans against it...A German woman said in so many words that U.S. civilians have never known what it means to go through bomb raids, and have their city completely flattened -- She said if we ever had to go through that, our views of war would be changed forever

[MellowDem]

36. Bosnia...

or perhaps Darfur. Both are cases where Europe blatently ignored atrocities at its doorstep. Not all wars are wars of domination. And there are positive uses for a military given the right circumstances.

[DBoon]

60. Not like those Europeans have any real experience with war

over say the last 100 years

What do they know?

[Lucky Luciano]

7. It's official now. War us peace. nt

[bossy22]

8. hes partially right

the U.S. has been picking up the slack in NATO ever since its creation. Hell, with almost anything military is western europe, the U.S. ends up picking up the slack.

In reality western europe really has to stop relying on U.S. power projection for their defense needs. It used to be that powers such as the UK could project a decent amount of force abroad (falkland islands war) but today can't really muster any true overseas strength (in fact parliment has been debating this recently in regards to the Royal Navy and its declinging ship numbers).

This doesnt mean that i think they should have massive arms build-up, but that they should invest a bit more in their militaries.

[EFerrari]

10. We won WW2 and the Cold War is o.v.e.r.

The only reason to maintain all those arms in Europe is to keep war profiteers in Cuban cigars.

[bossy22]

14. nope

the cold war may be "over", but that doesnt mean foward basing can't take on a new mission. All our foreign bases allow us to have a global network of power projection- and allow us to respond to almost any situation in a matter of hours/days. It gives us multiple options that other countries do not have.

btw our arms in europe have decreased greatly since the end of the cold war.

[EFerrari]

47. That "global network of power projection" is destroying this country.

"We" don't have anything. Our government and the multinationals it protects at our expense have a very nice boondoggle going.

[DBoon]

61. "global network of power projection"??

how about the global reality of an economically shrinking former superpower?

[WriteDown]

15. And for other countries to rely on the US military for protection...

Let's reduce our defense budget and let other countries fend for themselves for once.

[WriteDown]

13. And make that double for the UN..

Time for the US to pull out of these antiquated alliances. Let the US handle it's own messes and the rest of the world handle their messes.

[bossy22]

17. ideologically simple- realistically impossible

U.S. isolationism will only hurt all of us (the world). The truth is that no other country on the planet as the clout the U.S. has. An international incident with out a U.S. stabilizing factor could spiral out of control

[WriteDown]

19. Then a planned slow withdrawl....

Put countries on notice that they'll be in charge of their own defense starting on X date or will have to pay a large fee for US military protection.

[bossy22]

21. that would be the only way of truly accomplishing that- you are right

i just question whether the global system will be able to handle such a change. It could be, i dont know. I'm just unsure

[EFerrari]

65. How did the planet survive so well without US for so long?

And reducing our bases around the world is not "isolationism".

[liberation]

31. Why the UN?

US forces have never been under UN command (I think we are about the only member with that exception) and we are the biggest debtors to the UN general fund. While we still get them to be our puppet.

It always amazes me when I hear Americans painting themselves as the victim of the UN. That is fairly hypocritical.

There is a difference between meddling in the business of other people, and completely withdraw from the international scene. For starters doing so would completely collapse our economy.

[WriteDown]

50. Look at the dues we pay and look how useless it is.

You need to look no further than Haiti to see how corrupt ineffective it is. Better to scrap it and start a new organization perhaps. League of Nations II?

[EFerrari]

66. Most people think we give more to other countries than any one

and that we are indeed in thrall to the UN. It's an amazing propaganda victory.

[tom_paine]

18. Yeah, we need the Germans to get aggressive again! That'll get the rest in line!

:rofl:

Actually, I am still predicting that it's our own Empire who is scheduled to be the "Germans" in whatever upcoming global conflict the Global Aristocracy either plans or blunders us into.

Look around you: nothing but "Good Germans" as far as the eye can see! More than enough RW Authoritarian types to staff and run the Camps.

[RainDog]

20. Gates=Cheney stay-behind

I would like to join with Europeans in telling Gates to go fuck himself.

yeah, why don't those Europeans embrace predatory capitalism and all war all the time?!?!

...maybe because they lived through that shit already.

[bossy22]

23. the european system (western europe primarily)

post-WWII was not a product of europe realizing its mistakes in WWII and becoming "enlightened"; but a product of europe being too weak and "exhausted" to really fight on or be the central part of the "world system". It's like any fist-fight/brawl; do they eventually stop because the participants finally learn the error of their ways, no. They stop because they beat each other up until they are so exhausted- so weak that they can't fight anymore and the status quo that preceded the fight can no longer be maintained. That was europe after WWII.

Europe rebuilt itself under the "parental supervision" of two powers; the U.S. and the USSR. In fact in a very simple analogy- you can compare such a process with the domestication of a wild animal.

[bongbong]

26. Quite an authoritative statement

Are you sure that the REAL problem isn't that Europe has lost all its Precious Bodily Fluids? :rofl:

[RainDog]

27. yes, the socialists beat the nazis

at great cost to all those nations who had to fight against that ideology.

western europe was rebuilt and governed under various forms of democratic socialism which has, during the bad financial time, proved less harmful to the overall economy than the sort of capitalism practiced in the U.S.

the U.S. became a world power because we provided so many of the materials to rebuild those nations.

what we see now in the U.S. is corruption beyond description in the "nation-building" shake down that was the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. We see Americans going bankrupt when they lose their jobs. We see Americans go without health care because of the predatory capitalist system at work here.

so, yeah, I join with Europeans telling Gates I don't want his predatory capitalism and hyper-militarism in pursuit of the same.

Too bad Americans forgot the legacy of FDR and what he did to make American democracy viable when it could have easily fallen.

[MellowDem]

38. The Europeans beat the Nazis and the Communists...

which to me, is two sides of the same coin. And they beat both in large part thanks to the help of the US, and Nazis and Communists battling each other of course.

[RainDog]

39. the europeans who beat the nazis were communists and socialists

they were the ones who were the resistance - in western europe.

the liberals fell to the nazis and accepted their rule.

the communists did not lose. where in the hell did you ever get that idea?

[MellowDem]

40. They were capitalists too..

The communists definitely did lose. They had control of Eastern Europe for a while, but maybe you forgot the end of the Cold War? They just lost later on. The socialists you mention are capitalists as well. They live in a mixed system, like ours.

[RainDog]

42. I was responding to the WWII reference. not beyond

And, yes, I know the Europeans nations have mixed economies. That is what I think works the best. I'm not anti-capitalist. I am anti-predatory capitalism, or capitalism without regulation to protect national interests.

[MellowDem]

43. Sorry for the miscommunication...

I agree with you as well.

[Alcibiades]

48. Well you're wrong about that one

The Soviet Union beat the Nazis. The Soviet Union itself collapsed much later, not due to any action taken by western Europe, but rather because of Gorbachev's refusal to use violence to hold its crumbling empire together.

We helped, for sure, but our help mainly took the form of material aid while tens of millions of Russians died.

[MellowDem]

53. The Soviet Union was a big part of it...

but they couldn't have done it without the US or the Western European allies. Just the amount of troops Germany had to use on all the other fronts helped the Soviets immensly and the material aid was critical to be able to sustain the Soviet Union. I know it is all opinion, since it is a "what if" scenario, but the Soviet Union could not have beat Germany alone without the help of the Allies IMHO. I was also talking about beyond WW2 with regards to the later collapse of Communism.

As for the tens of millions of Russians who died, a lot of them were killed by Stalin himself, ironically enough, and were not all as a result of the Nazis.

[Alcibiades]

58. Really?

You seem to profoundly misunderstand what happened on the eastern front in WWII.

[MellowDem]

59. I understand it...

it is only opinion after all in a "what if" situation. I have read a lot about WW2, and although it was the line Stalin pushed after the war, I don't buy it.

[ashling]

24. I vaguely remember electing a new president to stop this shit

Pretty soon Gates will start referring to "Old Europe" ... which reminds me

Gates was giving Bush his daily briefing .... :evilgrin:

[IndianaGreen]

25. so being antiwar is bad for peace?

How Orwellian from Gates! Europeans are tired of having their sons and daughters die in American wars. No wonder the Dutch government felt, on account of Afghanistan.

[earcandle]

28. WE ARE THE ONLY HOSTILE POWER < YOU MURDERER!

[SlingBlade]

30. Anti-War Mood A Danger to Peace. OK. Now who wants to step

up and defend THIS shit ?

Com'on now, Don't be bashful, Your always there when somebody questions this administrations
stance on Single Payer Health Care.

Always there when somebody questions this administrations stance on
War and Assassinations

Always there when somebody questions this administrations stance on
Handouts to Wall Street and Big Insurance

Always there when somebody questions this administrations stance on
Tax Cuts for Corporations

Always there when somebody questions this administrations stance on
Warrantless Wiretapping

Always there when somebody questions this administrations stance on
Detention without Charges or Trials

Always there when somebody questions this administrations stance on
Whitewashing Torture and Corporate Malfeasance

Always there when somebody questions this administrations stance on
Allowing War Criminals to walk free

Always there when somebody questions this administrations stance on
Expanded Faith-Based Initiatives

Always there when somebody questions this administrations stance on
Nuclear Power

Com'on Boys and Girls, Let see those shit calls and Unrecommend's ! :argh:

[marasinghe]

35. rec for your post. :-)

to be fair, i believe some DU'ers could be confused on whether a rec' signifies approval or disapproval, of the sentiments expressed in the original item; wasn't sure in this instance, myself.

just like gates is confused enough not to understand what: "take your frikkin weapons, shove 'em up your ass & stay the fuck out of our backyards" means, when said with a european accent.

[MellowDem]

37. He never claimed it...

so I doubt there is anyone willilng to defend it. He said demilitarization is a danger to peace.

[SlingBlade]

51. demilitarization is a danger to peace. Sorry the difference is zero.

[MellowDem]

54. demilitarization is very different...

from an "anti-war mood". Demilitarization implies a physical reduction in defense, whereas an anti-war mood implies oppostion to war. That's a big difference, and one doesn't necessarily lead to the other.

[MellowDem]

33. Misleading title...

Gates said the demilitariazation of Europe was a danger to peace, not "anti-war mood".

[Odin2005]

34. Gates is an idiot.

[ConcernedCanuk]

41. "Anti-War Mood Danger to Peace" - somewhere - Gandhi is scratching his head . .

.
.
.

:freak:

[DutchLiberal]

44. War criminal, Bush-and-Reagan-left-over Gates: Change we can believe in!

[ixion]

45. Uh, yeah, right

:eyes:

[Jefferson23]

46. "By comparison, the United States spends more than 4 percent of its G.D.P. on its military."

Don't remind me, especially now that it is highly unlikely that Americans will receive meaningful health care insurance reform!

Does he really think he can drum up excitement for continued war?

[Vidar]

49. Have to keep our merchants of death happy.

[L. Coyote]

56. My guess, no one else wanted his job

too bad if so

[EFerrari]

68. My bet is that the new admin was CYAing by keeping him on.

And this has to get some kind of award for most Orwellian headline of the year.

[defendandprotect]

67. Tsk, tsk -- mustn't fall back into that "Vietnam Syndrome" . . .

Why is Obama keeping this creep on -- ???

The only "hositile power" I see is the US/MIC-Superpowerdom!!

And our terroris -- violence -- wars --

[jxnmsdemguy65]

69. He probably meant to say that it's a danger to profits...

profits of the military industrial complex that Gates represents so effectively...

[harun]

72. That's the translation of it.

[Hardrada]

73. We are so on to those scum.

But what to do about them?

[classysassy]

70. Give gates the gate

When will this administration wake up and get rid of Gates and the rest of the holdover from the last mis administration?

[harun]

71. So Obama's guy Gate's is saying War is Peace..... where have I heard that before.....

What they are really afraid of is the populace in the United States figuring out higher education and health care are attainable for the lower and middle classes once we stop dumping all our money in to Imperialism.

[Rapier09]

74. NATO is the root cause of this decay anyway

You're not going to get armies of motivated Germans to fight for you in Afghanistan and launch some sort of Bliztikrieg just to make their American overlords happy.What the hell has America done for them anyway.

I am sure rebuilding Dresden after burning it to the ground was a grande gesture but hmmm that is not going to make the Deutch really want to risk their necks for Washington.

[New Dawn]

76. Washington did not even rebuild Dresden

That was in the area that became the German Democratic Republic (i.e. East Germany).

[New Dawn]

75. Neocons (even "moderate" ones like Gates) are the real threat to peace.