The Redhunter

Earlier this week I discussed the situation with regards to Canada, and how the public up north was souring on the war. Today we'll cover some of our other allies

There's a brief history of OEF on their website, and it's worth quoting from it a bit just so we have the organization straight

Combined Joint Task Force-82 (CJTF-82) is a U.S.-led subordinate command of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). CJTF-82 serves as both the National Command Element for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, reporting directly to the U.S. Central Command commander, and as ISAF’s Regional Command – East.

CJTF-82 is headquartered at Bagram Airfield.

The 82nd Airborne Division has been leading this effort since February 2007.

The ISAF website identifies 39 countries that are participating in some way:

NATO Countries (26) Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada , Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States

Non-NATO Countries (13)
Albania, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Finland, The Former Yoguslav
Republic of Macedonia, Georgia, Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, and Jordan

The number of troops from each country is not listed, and I do not have time to search the website of each country individually. If anyone has that information please leave it and a link in a comment.

On with the Story

First up; the Gates controversy. From The Belmont Club last week

When Secretary of Defense Robert Gates accused NATO forces in Afghanistan as being untrained and unready to conduct counterinsurgency warfare it set off a spasm of transatlantic recrimination. British conservative lawmaker Patrick Mercer called Gates' comments "bloody outrageous". But Gate's remarks were a subsidiary part of a much larger accusation that he made before the House Armed Services Committee in December, 2007 which tellingly evoked not outrage but silence. "I am not ready to let NATO off the hook in Afghanistan at this point," Gates told the House Armed Services Committee. Ticking off a list of vital requirements -- about 3,500 more military trainers, 20 helicopters, and three infantry battalions -- Gates voiced "frustration" at "our allies not being able to step up to the plate." Gates was baldly accusing the NATO allies of reneging on their commitments. To make the criticism even more stinging, these statements coincided with an announcement the US was about to send 3,200 Marines to cover the 7,500 man shortfall in the NATO deployments. The answer to that criticism wasn't outrage but rationalization. The NATO troops, the European allies countered, were bearing the brunt of the fighting against the al-Qaeda/Taliban forces. Bill Roggio looked at the validity of the British claim.

Long story short: Roggio didn't buy it. But follow the link and judge for yourself.

The LA Times has additional information on the committments of our allies. In a story titled" Going It Alone Because We Have To"

The tragedy is that he had to rob Peter to pay Paul because Britain can't maintain 7,000 troops in Iraq and 7,000 in Afghanistan.... Look at Afghanistan, where NATO is always having trouble dredging up an extra helicopter or another infantry battalion to throw into the fray. The British and Canadians are doing more than their share; their willingness to fight hard and take casualties sets them apart from most NATO countries, which prefer to send troops to safe parts of Afghanistan rather than to the front lines in the south and east. But 5,500 British and 2,500 Canadian soldiers can cover only so much ground, even with another 1,500 Brits thrown in. As usual, the United States, with more than 27,000 troops in Afghanistan, is left to carry the lion's share of the burden.

Meanwhile, over at The Corner, John Hood links to a story that shows European public opinion turning against the war in Afghanistan

[F]our years into NATO's mission - the alliance took over ISAF in 2003 - mounting troop and civilian casualties, the latter often caused by airstrikes used when soldiers have been lacking, are turning public opinion.

A survey in Canada in August showed that solid majorities of people in Britain, France, Germany, and Italy thought the ISAF-mission was a failure, while almost one in two Canadians agreed.

A poll in Germany, which has lost more than 20 troops since 2002, found that almost two out of every three people want the government to withdraw its 3,000 troops, even though they are deployed in relatively stable areas.

The Netherlands, which one official said is "punching above its weight class," is expected to renew in coming weeks the mandate of some 1,500 Dutch troops deployed in the southern province of Oruzgan.

Surveys suggest the majority of Dutch people are against an extension.

Responding to this story, Mark Steyn made the obvious but still worth quoting observation:

John, that story on the Nato mission in Afghanistan is very dispiriting. This, after all, is supposed to be "the good war," not like illegal blood-for-oil Iraq. Yet countries that steered clear of Bush's Mesopotamian adventure have no stomach even for a mission with impeccable multilateral bonafides. The Canadians have been taking casualties at a higher rate than the U.S., U.K. or any other nation, but they've also been doing a tough job very well of which their countrymen should be proud. But they're not, not really. Huge numbers of the Canadian public don't support the mission, don't think it's worth it, and want it ended. And so do the Brits and Europeans and most other members of the Nato "alliance."

That's how it would go here, too. When Democrats complain that Iraq is a distraction from the real war in Afghanistan, it's worth remembering that's just a shell game. If America pulled out of Mesopotamia and devoted its attentions to the Hindu Kush, Afghanistan would become the new Democrat-media quagmire in nothing flat.

But the bigger lesson is that most western nations have signaled to the world they have no stomach for any fight. And it's not just the Taliban and al-Qaeda who draw their conclusions from that, but the Russians, Chinese, North Koreans and all kinds of other folks.

This in turn leads to Jonathan Forman's discussion of the "Information Battle Space" last May in National Review. Although it's 8 months old, his observations are still relevant. Forman reviews several stories that had recently appeared in the Western press, all of them critical of European soldiers, accusing them of various atrocities. All were shown to be false, or at least highly questionable.

For the most part, Taliban claims are assumed to be true. Statements by Coalition spokesmen, on the other hand, are a different matter. Such officials are said to make “claims,” and they are essentially assumed to be propagandists, if not flat out liars, by many correspondents....

The critical part though is nearer the beginning of the piece

Make no mistake, the Taliban and their allies, like the Sunni insurgents in Iraq, know perfectly well that they don’t have to defeat the Coalition militarily; all they have to do is undermine the political will of the Western electorates.

It looks like they're succeeding in reducing the will of our allies.

Next up: Whither Waziristan?