So this is pure idiocy:
As the United States prepares to send additional troops to Afghanistan, the Obama administration is about to repeat one of its predecessor's mistakes in Iraq by accepting soldiers from a non-NATO country, Mikheil Saakashvili's Georgia, to support U.S. operations in Afghanistan.
Like the Bush administration, the Obama team seems too focused on its war priorities to assess the possible unintended consequences of this decision for the shaky relationship between Georgia, Russia and the United States.
Georgia's president appears desperately eager to secure defense commitment from the United States through NATO membership. He energetically cultivated the George W. Bush's administration in rhetoric and action, including by deploying soldiers to Iraq in August 2003. The Georgian force eventually grew to more than 2,000 before being withdrawn as a result of the country's August 2008 war with Russia.
We shouldn't accept Georgian help in Afghanistan because they hope to gain credit with us in case they need our help in the future? Yeah, uh huh. Of course they'd want that. Ultimately, any country enters a war because they believe it is in their own interest and not just a privilege to have their young soldiers die at the side of an ally. Is this guy really saying we should only accept allies with pure motives and objectives exactly the same as ours? Is it possible to be that unfamiliar with reality?
Georgia deserves our help to resist the Russians. But the Georgians know well that our help does not automatically include sending our own troops to fight the Russians at their side. August 2008 demonstrated that well enough. But help against the Russians can take many forms well below the level of sending in our military to fight. Shoot, the UN Charter kind of suggests we--and everyone for that matter--should resist an invader of a sovereign state.
There are no strings attached to Georgia's help. What the Georgians have attached to their help is hope--hope that we will help them. And we should help them. We should owe them our help--but consistent with our own national interests, of course.
I welcome our Georgian allies/friends to the fight in Afghanistan. If we don't welcome them, when does the review of the 40+ allied contingents begin to check on the purity of their motives?
