NATO hears 'noise before defeat'

[bemildred]

When the blame-game begins in an indeterminate war, it is time to sit up and take note. US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' interview with the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday rings alarm bells.

There has been no effort to claim he was misquoted. In fact, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell confirmed the chief was "not backing off his fundamental criticism that NATO needs to do a better job in training for counter-insurgency".

Morrell made a little concession, though, that Gates meant no offence to any particular NATO country. NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer responded he had the "greatest respect" for NATO forces fighting in southern Afghanistan. He advised Washington, "Combating insurgency is a complex thing, and not always easy." At The Hague, the American ambassador was summoned and asked to "clarify". Dutch Defense Minister Van Middlekoop publicly regretted, "This is not the Robert Gates we have come to know." Other European politicians expressed surprise, indignation.

In NATO history there have been few such laundering of dirty linen in public view. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Taliban head Mullah Omar have achieved something that Soviet leaders Josef Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev couldn't.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JA19Df06.html