NATO puts pressure on Ottawa

It's not NATO putting the pressure on. It's the U.S.

I would like to see NATO pressure some of the 'hump' countries into doing something instead of pissing in the ear of a counrty that's already working hard and contributing much.

I'd agree. This is way too late. We'd have to lobby parliament to start up a new mission extension and that would be political suicide.

Even if the political will was there, the government may not have the fiscal will to pay for re-equipping the military in the short term to do it.

I think they are doing this to use as leverage to the other member nations who are not engaged to say they have already knocked twice on the doors of countries like Canada. Now they can use that for some serious arm twisting if they want to be serious about NATO being solvent. As it stands now NATO membership is more of a burden then a boon unless we get less paper tigers for members and more countries like the Dutch that actually show up when needed.

I don't think asking Canada would matter much to the others. I think they simply don't understand or care about our situation. I guess they think if Obama butters us up and asks nicely, we'd be flattered to tag along again.
Too little, too late.

Considering Obama rejected all the troop increases last month and insisted on an end game I don't think he is the one asking here.

But wasn't Obama saying that Afghansitan was the fight we had to win though?
Didn't he campaign on pulling the troops from Iraq and surging Afghanistan to a win?

Please Rain, your not one of those Stop War tin foil hat types that think Obama is part of some vast imperialist plot are you? I know is in Halifax this weekend making the pitch that the next 12 months will be critical for the mission and if we are to save it we need to be there. I don't think that is a coincidence and there will be some serious screws put to Canada by NATO to get more from us but that well is dry. It's not that the PM is abandoning his allies but that NATO just has been lazy and relied to much on the same few countries again and again. It's not Canada's role to provide depth to NATO it's NATO onus when they sign on these fair weather friends that they tell them when to step off the gravy train and step up to their commitments.

The whole mess was put in motion by forces beyond NATO's control but they must be prepared for crisis nevertheless and they are clearly lacking in foresight. If this crisis doesn't bring to a head a serious sea change in how NATO itself functions then perhaps not only should Canada pack it in for this mission but consider abdicating membership with NATO altogether.

I just wanted to make it clear that Obama pushed hard to raise the importance of Afghanistan during the campaign but now is going to shut it down and I fear that he will shut it down before the Afghans are ready to take over.
I wish Canada could still take an active, solid role in the mission but it's contrary to the wishes of the Canadian public and parliament.

The problem is you can convert a medieval society that Afghanistan is and make it into a self sufficient authority in 8 years. We would be lucky if it was 50 but there is no money or political will for such commitments and that was a fools errant from the get go. We should have done what we were indented to do there, kill Usama and get out. This humanitarian BS will get us all killed. The best we can do is create gated communities but that only lasts as long as we are there to guard them.

Politically no leader can define the mission in such stark terms and expect to be elected but that is the frank talk NATO needs at this point.

I disagree. Insurgency is a hard thing to fight but they definately can be won. I do believe we are winninng this one but fighting an insurgency takes far longer than many democracies have tolerance for. Like the taliban say, The west has the watches but they have the time.
Before the soviets invaded, most of Afghanistan was on it's way to being as modern as it's neighbors. I think the main problem was our "trust" in Pakistan.

Since our democratic problem is a short attention span, maybe this is the proper medium.

Pakistan corruption is a symbol of what has to be done. The rise of the rest and not the fall of the west is the real cause of instability. So many see what they do not have they turn to extreme measures. To stop them from strapping vests with bombs they need a job, education and a safe place to sleep. Economic recovery has been and will always be the only true exit strategy. Even if we give up today we will only end up right back there because of 9/11 redux. We must break the cycle but in order to do so we must break the rules that set this in motion to begin with.

We can't keep sending aid to Pakistan when their own ISI is set to overturn India and in bed with the Taliban. We can not fight the Taliban with NATO if members do not support when times are tough. The US is the only nation that can do the heavy lifting but doing things it's way and expecting the rest to fall in line is the quickest way for the US demise to foment, worse then doing nothing at all. The same people who were against the very idea of the US being in a world cop body like the UN are the very people clamoring that the US invade Iraq and kill Usama when the US was attacked. That ended up with the situation we have today and Europe just barley signing on with the coalition. The US could not have possible done any worse in forming and maintain a coalition but now that we are here. The fact is this problem would manifest no matter who was in charge. The question of how we get countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan into the modern era has yet to be answered with any serious credibility and that is why the Taliban still has currency in this debate.