NATO

München, Deutschland - home of Beer Hall Putsches, BMW and NATO's Conference on Security Policy. The 44th just wound down and Great Satan and a few select buds were on hand to dish out some strong medicine.

Def Sec Gates pretty much spelled it out in a tripple sized tea spoon

"Some allies ought not to have the luxury of opting only for stability and
civilian operations, thus forcing other Allies to bear a disproportionate share
of the fighting and the dying. "

This is significant. Getting rich, fat, drunk and lazy under Great Satan's protective shield since Cold Warsaw Pact climax time is rapidly appoaching an end.

For all the jazz about Euro Power it could be better called Euro Powerlessness. Euro power failed to stop ethnic cleansing, genocide and war in their own backyard a decade ago. Great Satan had to step in and take out the trash.

Now, it's time for some back pay - with interest.
France's Defence Minister Motin agreed that NATO could shoulder more of the danger.

"A supplementary effort should perhaps be made in the short term"

Def Sec Gates was relentless as he hammered point after point about Europa's naked vulnerbility

"A complex plot to down multiple airliners over the Atlantic that could have
killed hundreds or even thousands;

A plot to use ricin and release cyanide in the London Underground;

A separate plan for a chemical attack in the Paris metro;

Plots in Belgium, England, and Germany involving car bombs that
could have killed hundreds;

Homemade bombs targeting commuter and high-speed trains in Spain and Germany;

Individuals arrested in Bosnia with explosives, a suicide belt, and an instructional propaganda video;

Two plots in Denmark involving explosives, fertilizer, and a bomb-making video; and
Just in the last few weeks, Spanish authorities arrested 14 Islamic extremists in Barcelona suspected of planning suicide attacks against public transport systems in Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, and Britain.

Imagine, for a moment, if some or all of these attacks had come to pass. Imagine if Islamic terrorists had managed to strike your capitals on the same scale as they struck in New York.

Imagine if they had laid their hands on weapons and materials with even greater destructive capability – weapons of the sort all too easily accessible in the world today."

In other words, "Get with it y'all." Actually, Europe doesn't really have much of a choice. Failure in Afghanistan would probably effect Europe much more than Great Satan. And not just from "Ashura Missiles" with a 2K kilometer strike range, that may or may not end up in terrorist hands

"We should also remember that terrorist cells in Europe are not purely homegrown
or unconnected to events far away – or simply a matter of domestic law and
order. Some are funded from abroad. Some hate all western democracies, not just
the United States."

Def Sec Gates delivered a bit of a history lesson to soft power salesmen about NATO's history and how she was founded as a bond between free, functional egalitarian societies to initially defend against and then utterly destroy aggressive regimes bent on conquest by Stuka und Panzer.

Resulting in a several Regime Changes and the forcible establishment of functional, free, egalitarian democracies that remain to this very day. Democracies that tend to fiddle about blindfolded while an ever closer world is literally on fire.

"I am not indulging in scare tactics. Nor am I exaggerating either the threat or
inflating the consequences of a victory for extremists. Nor am I saying that the
extremists are ten feet tall.

The task before us is to fracture and destroy this movement in its infancy – to permanently reduce its ability to strike globally and catastrophically, while deflating its ideology.

Our best opportunity as an alliance to do this is in Afghanistan. Just as the hollowness of Communism was laid bare with the collapse of the Soviet Union, so too would success in Afghanistan, as well as in Iraq, strike a decisive blow against what some
commentators have called Al Qaeda-ism."

Historically speaking, when the smoke cleared after VE Day in 1945, Europe was in ruins - not only physically - but also in cash and spirit. Instead of giving up and going under, America led and Europeans built, created, speculated and came out with the longest period of Peace that Europa has ever known.

Even the Cold War now seems to have been a no doubt victory. The only question really is how on earth did the Soviet Empire hold out so long against a world that ignored the jawflapping, prepped for war and maintained a watchful eye - ultimately resulting in the most awesome of all Regime Changes - from the inside out.

"A time when we again faced a threat to peace and to our liberty squarely and
courageously. A time when we again shed blood and helped war devastated people
nourish the seeds of freedom and foster peaceful, productive societies. That
mission drew us together in 1948 and keeps us together today."

Maybe - it's the same thing now. Alexis de Tocqueville once prophesied that foreign affair wise, democracies had a tough time with "great undertakings" and the willpower to "follow it with determination."

With NATO, the European democracies and Great Satan did follow it with determination. Def Sec Gates gets psychic too:

"Future generations will look back on this period and say, victory seemed almost
preordained."