12 April 2001 NATO No Mo

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/will-the-libya-intervention-bring-the-end-of-nato/2011/04/11/AFhvpoMD_story.html

Will the Libya intervention bring the end of NATO?

By Anne Applebaum, Monday, April 11, 7:18 PM
On a tour of a Tripoli hospital last week, a Libyan government escort showed Western journalists evidence of the “civilian casualties” caused by NATO airstrikes. They weren’t fooled — and he knew it. “This is not even human blood!” he cried, disgusted by his own government’s pathetic propaganda.



Anne Applebaum

Writes a weekly foreign affairs column and contributes to the PostPartisan blog.



The incident made for a few amusing newspaper stories: We Western journalists love to mock the foreign dictators who try to manipulate us. But how often do we notice the more delicate fibs told by our own leaders? It isn’t quite so blatant as fake blood, but when Western leaders talk about the Libyan campaign as a “NATO operation” they are, at the very least, being economical with the truth.

Think about it: There was no NATO discussion of the operation, no debate, no vote, no joint planning. Technically, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization operates only in the wake of an attack on a NATO member. The war in Afghanistan followed such an attack and was, in the beginning, widely perceived as a war against a common enemy. Libya is different: There was no attack, there is no common enemy, and now there is no consensus.

There has always, as long as I can recall, been NATO, an organization built to oppose the Warsaw Pact with the bodies of young European and American men and women. The original twelve members of NATO in 1949 were the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

In 1952, Greece and Turkey joined. West Germany was admitted in 1955 and in 1982 Spain became the sixteenth member. The dissolution of the USSR brought a number of former Warsaw Pact nations into their former enemy's camp. NATO now totals 28 nation with only two of those located in North America. The alliance is now 62 years old and has withstood numerous strains including the withdrawal and later return of France from military operations.

While the main potential for such combat is in Europe, and while the HQ for the alliance is in Belgium, the U.S. Has always acted as if it is the only force behind NATO:. For a long period of time after WWII as Europe recovered from the devastation wrought by armies of millions looting, pillaging and destroying; the U.S, was the big kid on the block with the most toys. But Europe has recovered and is now capable of fielding its own armies, navies, and air forces.

Growing up in the middle grounds of America, most people I knew believed Europe to be composed of ungrateful unwashed and incapable of self defense. The thought of allowing European officers to command U.S, troops in battle was anathema. It was only slightly less objectionable to allowing officers from U.N. Nations to command our troops. We have never really afforded European military forces the respect they deserve. That disdain, of course, is easily transmitted to our allies.

As the latest round of warfare in Europe takes place, the U.S. Populace is torn between wanting no part at all for economic or for social reason; or for destroying Libya simply for its location and culture/religion. The agreement we are operating under utilizes our stand-off cruise missile technology and our AWACS and refueling capabilities, as well as our current land and naval aviation assets in place. Now we are standing down a bit and letting the NATO folks do their part. That job sharing is going to take some shaking out. Many nations sent their troops and hardware with restrictions. Some can only engage Libyan aircraft. Some can drop bombs, others can not.

In the mean time, we watch as the folks who taught us how to wage continental warfare try to reclaim their superiority against a mob of Libyans and mercenaries with only slightly more training and capability than the Libyan rebels we think we should support. NATO has to figure out how to dismantle the current Libyan regime without leaving itself open to charges of colonialism, racism, and Islamophobia.

Also in process of departure, the Microsoft Office software I've used since 1990 in one revision or another.

The net book has too little capacity to let Microsoft office gobble it up. Yesterday I discovered that the WordPad editor I planned to use on the net book could not open some of my Word documents and was destroying them in the attempt. I've been toying with the idea of converting to Open Office anyway. This may be just the shove I need to change direction.

It is simply a matter of learning new software,primarily word processing and spread sheets while making certain that all documents are now opened with Open Office . Like NATO, the changes may lead to something better, something worse, or just leave me curled up and whimpering about styles, font,s tables, and formatting.