Target Centermass

Day: February 10, 2006

  • NATO Commander Fears Rapid-reaction Force Delay

    This is not a good sign for the future relevancy of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

    NATO’s top commander of operations said on Friday he doubted whether the alliance would have enough troops to declare a long-heralded rapid reaction force fully operational in October as planned.

    A delay to the 25,000-strong NATO Response Force (NRF) would be a setback to U.S.-backed efforts to turn the alliance that was Europe’s Cold War protector into an outfit capable of launching itself into crisis spots around the world at days’ notice.

    NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen. James Jones, in an interview with Reuters at a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Sicily, said NATO allies still had not come up with the final 25 percent of the troops due to serve in the force.

    “The reason I’m not confident is it isn’t resourced now,” Jones said, when asked if he was confident it would be fully operational by October.

    “As things stand now, I can’t say that, missing 25 percent of a force, that I have a great deal of confidence that we’re going to generate 25 percent as if by magic. I’m hoping to get there,” he added.

    Jones also said the alliance would scale back the first major maneuvers for the force, first proposed by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in 2002, in the Atlantic island group of Cape Verde this June.

    “We’ve downscaled the operation in terms of some of the manpower, which is really what costs a lot of money,” Jones said. He said some 6,000 troops would take part instead of a planned 8,000, insisting it would still be a valid test.

    With the countries squabbling over financial and troop contributions for the relatively small response force, I find myself again questioning the worth of the Cold War-era alliance in the world of today and tomorrow.

  • Chavez: Return Falklands to Argentina

    Already happily playing the role of thorn in the side of the U.S., Hugo Chavez has decided to tweak the Brits as well.

    Venezuela’s president has called on Tony Blair to return the Falkland Islands to Argentina, accusing the Prime Minister of being a “pawn” of Washington.

    “We have to remember the Malvinas [the Argentine name for the islands]; how they were taken away from the Argentines. Mr Blair, return the Malvinas to Argentina,” said president Hugo Chavez.

    The socialist leader has long been the most vocal critic of US president George Bush, but Mr Blair was added to his list of “imperialists” after the Prime Minister said in parliament on Wednesday that if Mr Chavez wanted to be respected, he “should abide by the rules of the international community”.

    He responded: “Mr Tony Blair, you have no moral right to tell anyone to respect international laws, as you have shown no respect for them, aligning yourself with ‘Mr Danger’ [president Bush] and trampling on the people of Iraq. Do you think we still live in the times of the British Empire or colonialism?”

    The Argentine president, Nestor Kirchner, has vowed that the islands will one day be part of Argentina, but has not aggressively pursued the issue since taking power in 2003.

    That lack of Argentinian aggression is certainly based upon a brief but bloody lesson learned almost 24 years ago, a lesson that shows that Chavez’s comments are assuredly going to fall on deaf British ears.

  • America Won’t Attack Us, Says Iran

    Iran again grabs the opportunity to play the role of the little streetpunk in need of a good smackdown.

    An Iranian vice president said he did not believe that the US would attack his country over its nuclear programme and compared defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld to a vampire showing its teeth.

    “Iran is not Iraq, Iran is not Afghanistan,” Isfandiar Rahim Mashaee said during a visit to the Indonesian capital Jakarta.

    “They still cannot leave (those two countries), it is impossible for them to invade Iran.”

    The United Nations nuclear watchdog voted last week to refer Iran to the UN Security Council over its nuclear programme – raising the stakes in the dispute over the Middle Eastern country’s nuclear ambitions.

    The US and Europe suspect Iran is secretly developing bombs, but Iran insists the programme is for energy.

    The US has denied it has any plans to invade the country, but Rumsfeld reportedly agreed with a German interviewer recently that all options, including a military response, were on the table.

    Asked about that report, Mashaee said Rumsfeld was like “Dracula showing his teeth”.

    Actually, yeah, I can kind of see the Dracula in Rummy. Then again, I kind of like that in a Secretary of Defense. It’s not the nature of the position to be the good cop in the greater scheme of things.

  • Spain, Russia Sign Agreement on Anti-terrorism

    Well, at least Communist Russia didn’t sign another non-aggression pact with a Bolshevik-hating German dictator. Instead, today’s Russia opted for sheer symbolism in hopes of economic gain.

    Spain and Russia signed an agreement to strengthen cooperation in fighting terrorism, local media reported on Thursday.

    The two countries agreed to establish an international fund to help terror victims and share information about potential terrorists. They urged to maintain the role of the United Nations in fighting terrorism with multilateral efforts.

    The two countries condemned terrorism in all forms, stressing that any anti-terrorism measures should observe human rights and adhere to international law.

    Yes, this is purely window-dressing. Spain, soured on aggressively engaging Islamist terror by the Madrid bombings, is quite willing to go through the motions with strictly police endeavours. Meanwhile, Russis must play the game by harder rules, knowing their soft southern belly is exposed to Islamist possibilities. A pact between two governments saying they oppose terror means little; wake me when a civilized nation actually openly states they support it.

    So what is the driving force behind this pact today? Money.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin also called for boosting economic and investment ties between the two countries, saying Russia had large amounts of unexplored energy resources. He invited Spanish businessmen to invest in Russia.

    The two countries signed a number of cooperation agreements on agriculture, sport, anti-drug trafficking, tourism and space exploration.

    Again, money. Anything about terror is as meaningful as the wrapping paper on a child’s Christmas present — gone and forgotten in mere seconds.