Obama Failure Promotes NATO Fallacy
President Obama’s must important task to accomplish on his overseas junket to Europe was to finally get real NATO cooperation in the fight against terrorism. His argument in this campaign was that if we made overtures to the Europeans than they would join us. Unfortunately our President has failed. Apart from a temporary assignment of 5,000 troops from NATO which will essentially not be placed in combat, the United States will continue to be the sole provider of combat troops in Afghanistan with an estimated troop strength soon to be 68,000.
Many so-called progressives are calling for compromise with the jihadist Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. CNN Commentator and author, Fareed Zakarias has suggested that the United States should just accept that some mistreatment of women will occur. Our NATO allies in Europe have grown tired of the war in Afghanistan and essentially are pulling out all their combat forces. French President Sarkozy has ironically announced that France is now totally rejoining NATO when NATO will be doing nothing.
Much of the media is saying the NATO alliance was the greatest alliance in history that saved the world from Soviet domination. The reality was that the actions of the NATO alliance after the Korean War were almost always the actions of the United States acting alone risking itself for the benefit of Europe such as in the Berlin airlift. When the Cuban missile crisis threatened to put nuclear weapons at America’s doorstep, President Kennedy found America was alone. The French intelligence agency was the first to identify the missiles but everyone remembers the standoff as the United States vs. the Soviet Union not NATO vs. the Soviet Union. Released tapes and records of White House meetings that occurred during the Cuban missile crisis show that NATO solidarity with the United States was seen as unreliable such that the United States in the greatest risk to its security since World War II found its allies lacking.
A new nationalist and aggressive Russia has gotten significant influence on Western Europe because of their new dependence on Russian petroleum imports. The bold talk of bringing in states like Georgia and Ukraine has faded into what the New York Times calls “lipservice”. Although Georgia itself had acted capriciously no one denies that the recent Russian invasion of Georgia was wrong. The lack of resolve of the NATO alliance in responding to this action more than ever showed that NATO has become by its own lack of will been placed on a path to irrelevance.
| Video Report of Women Being Flogged |
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Meanwhile today the Taliban is boldly showing video of a flogging of crying woman accused of breaking religious law in the northern region called Swat of Pakistan. Recently the government of Pakistan relinquished control of this area which at one time aspired to be a resort attracting international tourists. Now it has become a dungeon for its female inhabitants who can look forward to torture, flogging, beheading, and illiteracy. America must stand up for human decency even it means standing alone. Mr. Obama was too soft and wrong to just call new laws in Afghanistan that legitimize the torture of women as “unfortunate”. We must not and cannot make deals with the Taliban. America must stand for the rights of women worldwide. Conservatives must continue to push the heresy of the left on this point.
Europe seems to forget it was the place that pretended not to notice that millions of Jews,Gypsies, and Slavs were executed. The European continent which accuses the United States as being ethnocentric and unconcerned about world affairs has been called on its bluff. The truth has always been that Europe cares about things that affect Europe and nothing else.
The memory of hundreds of thousands of American GIs who gave their lives to save Europe from a certain tyranny has faded from the quaint coffee shops where the intelligentsia discuss the faults of American capitalism. The beautiful streets, parks, and factories that were paid for by a generous American public in the Marshall plan which dot every major European city are not places where Europeans give thanks for American help but instead have become the stages for protest against America. Every American serviceman who has ever served in the European theater remembers that look of disdain one received from young Europeans when wearing the uniform in public.
President Roosevelt correctly called the United States the “arsenal for democracy”. The NATO alliance was never a true alliance in the sense that any members beside the United States ever really contributed much. The Neo-Conservative movement which is now maligned and discredited by the left was exactly right to recognize this essential concept.
Thanks for reading Contempo Magazine blog which discusses issues for McAllen, the Rio Grande Valley, and America from a conservative Hispanic point of view. Tony Magaña grew up in McAllen Texas, attended Texas A&M University, served as an officer in Army Reserve, and holds a doctorate from Harvard University. The co-founder of Contempo Magazine has participated in Valley business for over 20 years. He is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and also writes for the American Daily Revew
