Europeans Offer Few New Troops for Afghanistan

By Jeremy Shaub

While there were protesters outside of NATO, President Obama was inside talking about action against Al Qaeda and trying to instill Western democracy and rights. Obama stated that, “We want to do everything we can to encourage and promote rule of law, human rights, the education of women and girls in Afghanistan, economic development, infrastructure development.” But Obama's biggest goal is to defeat Al Qaeda. Outside NATO though protesters were not happy and they have set a hotel and a border post on fire in Strasbourg during the NATO session. But to help aid in this effort Obama asked Europe for troops. Europe offered 5,000 troops but ended up deploying only 3,000 troops. Obama is also raising the number of troops in Afghanistan from 38,000 to 68,000 which will "Americanize" the war. But a senior European diplomat stated, “No one will say this publicly, but the true fact is that we are all talking about our exit strategy from Afghanistan. We are getting out. It may take a couple of years, but we are all looking to get out.” But overall the Europeans have given more, but not much.
Also there was another struggle inside NATO and that was choosing a new secretary general. The Europeans favored Mr. Rasmussen but Turkey did not like him because they said he insensitive to Muslims concerns. But to help sway Turkey, NATO gave Turkey two NATO jobs. Obama thought it would help Turkey to have their President meet up with Mr. Rasmussen to help ease the tension

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/world/europe/05prexy.html?ref=world