A Call to Arms

Even as the new Nobel Peace Prize winner, American President Barack Obama, weighs up whether the United States will send thousands more soldiers to Afghanistan to stem the resurgent insurgency of the Taliban, new NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has thrown down the gauntlet and told reluctant European countries that they must join the fray and not stand on the sidelines or send troops only into safe, non-combatant areas.
With casualties mounting among US and UK soldiers, who are doing most of the fighting, Rasmussen said that the timidity of European governments to engage in Afghanistan is straining relations with the US, repeating what his predecessor Jaap de Hoop Scheffer had said, but with a renewed sense of urgency inAfghanistan, as the Taliban gains new footholds, recapturing territory previously taken by NATO troops.
Rasmussen gave his warning after he received a grim assessment from the top commander of US forces in Afghanistan that the war could be lost unless NATO members take up arms against a resilient enemy. But, even as he spoke, some EU countries said that they were rethinking whether to stay – in addition, European civilian opposition to the war has increased.