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 Dutch to Leave AfghanistanPosted on Feb 21, 2010
One day after the Dutch Cabinet collapsed, the country’s prime minister has announced that he expects the Netherlands to pull out all its troops from Afghanistan in August. The Dutch parliament had voted for the August pullout last October. One Afghan official told the BBC that a withdrawal would leave a “big vacuum” in training, construction and security operations that the Dutch are involved in. —JCL
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By Kees Klinker, March 1, 2010 at 10:43 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Straight from the Netherlands : The troops have to leave Afghanistan, since the netherlands (as the UK) have some sincere issues with Iceland. The troops are preaparing a take over of Iceland due to the differences in opinion about paying back debts…
Report thisBy MarthaA, February 22, 2010 at 2:28 pm Link to this comment
grumpynyker, February 22 at 4:22 pm,
So be it. I am all for bringing our troops home and letting private industry support their mercenary warriors themselves. I want our government to pull out and the taxpayer to not be paying for mercenaries to fight for private industry. The FBI says that Bin Laden didn’t have anything to do with the 9/11/01 attack anyway:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13664.htm
Defense Contractors and International Development – What’s Going on Here?
http://www.undispatch.com/node/9529
We could get away from mercenary contractors if our nation really wanted to, it is just that there is so much money to be made by the wealthy, and as long as the elite are in control, the elite feel that deaths of the populace are relatively insignificant, war for profit will reign until the populace en masse say it’s enough.
Report thisBy MarthaA, February 22, 2010 at 2:28 pm Link to this comment
grumpynyker, February 22 at 4:22 pm,
So be it. I am all for bringing our troops home and letting private industry support their mercenary warriors themselves. I want our government to pull out and the taxpayer to not be paying for mercenaries to fight for private industry. The FBI says that Bin Laden didn’t have anything to do with the 9/11/01 attack anyway:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13664.htm
Defense Contractors and International Development – What’s Going on Here?
http://www.undispatch.com/node/9529
We could get away from mercenary contractors if our nation really wanted to, it is just that there is so much money to be made by the wealthy, and as long as the elite are in control, the elite feel that deaths of the populace are relatively insignificant, war for profit will reign until the populace en masse say it’s enough.
Report thisBy MarthaA, February 22, 2010 at 2:23 pm Link to this comment
grumpynyker, February 22 at 4:22 pm,
So be it. I am all for bringing our troops home and letting private industry support their mercenary warriors themselves. I want our government to pull out and the taxpayer to not be paying for mercenaries to fight for private industry. The FBI says that Bin Laden didn’t have anything to do with the 9/11/01 attack anyway:
Defense Contractors and International Development – What’s Going on Here?
We could get away from mercenary contractors if our nation really wanted to, it is just that there is so much money to be made by the wealthy, and as long as the elite are in control, the elite feel that deaths of the populace are relatively insignificant, war for profit will reign until the populace en masse say it’s enough.
Report thisBy grumpynyker, February 22, 2010 at 11:22 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Here’s a thought; let the corporations finance (out of
Report thistheir own budget) mercenaries like Blackwater/Xe to
invade/occupy third world and provide security for
their employees who’re are looting underdeveloped
countries’ resources. Bring our soldiers home to
repair/rebuild our infrastructures.
By BobS, February 22, 2010 at 8:43 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
In Holland everyone likes Obama, but less than 30% believe in success of ‘the mission’. There is some concern about abandoning the Afghans, as the military mission has been sold to the public as humanitarian etc. Right and center right are much more concerned about possible loss of standing with NATO, being kicked out of the G20, and loss of domestic business. I never hear concern about pipelines etc. The new government will be very unstable, as (probably, hopefully…) no party wants to form a coalition with the right wing extremist ‘freedom party’ which, just like the tea party movement, exploits discontent of the voters. They might get 30+% of the votes though!
Report thisBy balkas, February 22, 2010 at 5:37 am Link to this comment
Maybe the dutch are leaving because possible US use of WMD against pashtuns. So, why stay?
Report thisUS will always be in afgh’n and with full support by nato.tnx
By thecrow, February 22, 2010 at 5:08 am Link to this comment
Like the Canadians, the Dutch are too smart and too decent to be complicit in more atrocities for the sake of an indefensible pipeline:
http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/right-of-way/
Report thisBy RC, February 21, 2010 at 10:16 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
This has as much to do with Dutch politics as foreign policy. The current government probably would have extended the stay of troops had it not collapsed. People are divided: on the one hand, the US would pitch in if Europe got into a war. On the other hand, Rumsfeld et al allowed Afghanistan to drag on for close to a decade because they wanted to invade Iraq. Last month the Dutch government almost fell because a big investigation found the entire war to be unjustifiable by any international/UN laws.
Labor saw the rest of the collalition caving to international pressure (NL is the first country to pull out) and withdrew, thus bringing down the already very unpopular government (~70% of Dutch think the government collapse is a good thing).
The real irony here is that the PVV (the right-wing, anti-immigrant, pro-corporate party) will be the big winners here.
So in a nutshell: Dutch people don’t like their soldiers dying in a situation caused by a demonstrably illegal war (Iraq) started by a very unpopular US president (Bush). A weak government collapses over the issue, but due to the economic climate created by the same president and the low voter turnout from the unpopular coalition, people will vote for the Tea-Bag Party of the Netherlands.
Report thisBy gerard, February 21, 2010 at 5:19 pm Link to this comment
Just one more crack in the united front of the “allied efforts” (euphemism!) in Afghanistan.
Report thisEurope doesn’t love us anymore. I wonder why. Could
be they are tired of illegal military ventures preparing the way for domination of American-style corporate capitalism, profits over people, oil over environmental clean-up, war over peace. How do you say “Enough already!” in Dutch?
By Vic Anderson, February 21, 2010 at 4:27 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
A most welcome crack in the wall of MANIFEST INSANITY. Time to fold the US
Report thisGovernment, in order for the same sane to prevail. Go Dutch and come home to
guard the borders and overhead airspace, INSTEAD!
By MarthaA, February 21, 2010 at 4:18 pm Link to this comment
I pray that the United States will somehow be able to get a Parliamentary Political System similar to the Dutch, so that the largest political party will be able to cause the War to end for the United States in the name of Jesus, Amen.
Report this