Whats the point of having the NRF available and never use it?

U.S. President Barack Obama authorized 17,000 more U.S. troops for Afghanistan this week, taking the U.S. contingent to around 55,000, in addition to the 30,000 from 40 other mostly NATO countries already operating in Afghanistan.

Some European allies have announced plans to send more troops, but these numbered in the hundreds, not thousands, and Germany said the NRF should not be used for Afghan duty.

"The NRF should not be used as a reserve," German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung told reporters in Krakow. "The NRF has fundamentally different tasks."

This is actually something I agree with Obama on.

We need those troops in Afghanistan, and we need them there now.

Rest assured as well though that other countries will be wagging their fingers saying "shame on you" later on.

At least Obama is showing a little bit of guts here.

NATO is impotent and useless, much like the United Nations.

They're turning a blind eye to what's going on.

I just love this part here.

A deal reached Monday in Pakistan allows the imposition of Islamic law in the former tourist resort of Swat and surrounding districts in exchange for an end to a brutal insurgency that has killed hundreds and sent up to one-third of the area's 1.5 million people fleeing.

What you people expect, as US is losing his standing due to his economic crisis and inability to support itself without the need of borrowing money from allies, so the power of the US is brushed aside in favor of what nations seems more convenient to them.

Been the biggest borrower in the world comes with attachments, US no longer can impose policies like it used to to before when other nations were more Dependant on us.

Sad but truth, in the future we will be a follower rather than a leader.

At least we still have a mighty Army, but for how long.

Afghanistan is teetering on the edge of NATO’s remit so invoking the treaty and the NRF is scraping the bottle of the barrel and imho somewhat undermining the whole purpose of NATO.

However having said that those nations that are involved did so of their own free will and must shoulder part of the burden. But more so this means relaxing rules of engagement as well as deploying more troops, it’s no good sending 3000 extra troops if they’re going to spend most of their time in base.

In the end though I think Afghanistan has become folly. The whole purpose of the war, removing Al Qaeda, is never going to be achieved in a practical sense. They may leave the country but they have clearly just moved their operation to Pakistan; if Pakistan kicks them out they’ll find some other lawless countryside, and there’s plenty of them, to base themselves. Al Qaeda is too fluid and too amorphous to be pinned down and eradicated; with hindsight it would in my opinion have been better to allow a militarily primitive country (Afghanistan) host the group allowing for easier monitoring and if needed military strikes against key targets.

edit -

Originally posted by ItsallCrazy
I hope the UK are going to send some troops over

You're welcome to volunteer. But right now the UK is operating well beyond its limits; sending more troops would cause untold damage and that is unacceptable without significantly more investment from government.


[edit on 19-2-2009 by Mike_A]

[edit on 19-2-2009 by Mike_A]

Sorry to burst the bubble again Frankidealist35, But the War on Terror was Bush endeavor and right now he is not the president anymore we all know the reason he did that to be able to invade Iraq.

See the rest of the world remember how Bush got into Afghanistan claiming the rights to defend itself for the 9/11 and retaliated.

But then it left Afghanistan on its own with minimum care to go after is price Iraq.

Now Obama has to convince the rest of the allies nations that Bush was wrong and the he never should have forgotten Afghanistan for Iraq that had nothing to do with 9/11.

Whoa, memory becomes shady after a while.

like I said before probably our friends in the UK will be the ones lending a helping hand.

But I don't see anybody else doing much.