Emperor George Strikes Again

Note: this is the second attempt at this post. I did a "blog this" post earlier which I thought had been posted, but, when I went back to look at the site, it wasn't there anymore. Nor was it saved as a draft. Sometimes dealing with cyberspace makes one reach for the nearest bottle with alcoholic content residing within. That being said, here is my recreation, to the best of my ability, of that first effort>

To the best of my recollection, the purpose of NATO is to keep the western democracies of Europe safe from invasion by the godless, soulless communists comming from the steppes of Mother Russia. Or something like that. However, since the fall of communist Soviet state, there has been a drastically diminishing chance of that invasion happening. So, NATO has been transformed into a peace keeping organization geared to keeping the Balkan wars at least localized. Other than that, NATO has little to do these days.

That being said, one still must admit that, as a military force, NATO is a pretty attractive weapon if you are an aspiring Emperor. Which is why, I guess, that George finds it hard to keep his hands off the trigger. His latest great idea is to use NATO forces as peacekeepers in the Sudan (Bush Sees Need to Expand Role of NATO in Sudan - New York Times free registration required--I think).

I have a couple of problems with this. The most obvious problem is that I don't think the Sudan poses much of an invasion risk to Europe, so I'm not quite sure why NATO troops are necessary. Of course, at one level George is basically using OPT (Other People's Troops) to further his own agenda. You see, the Sudan is a breeding ground for Islamic terrorists who could, someday, threaten the U.S. At least that is how I think his reasoning goes. I know for sure that any basic humanitarian reasons he might put forward are only there for window dressing.

I do not know how this proposal is faring in Europe. I do know that if I were a citizen of a European NATO country, I would not be all that pleased with this proposal. For one thing, white European troops on the ground in an African Muslim nation is, inherently, a bad idea. Another good reason to keep NATO out of Africa is that there is another institution which can and should shoulder the responsibility for peace keeping in countries like the Sudan: the U.N.. The U.N. is not an American puppet, which is good in that part of the world, and it enjoys more inherent support than would NATO. In other words, rather than put NATO troops in harms way, put the whole thing in the hands of the U.N. and be done with it. If the U.N. wants to use troops from countries that also belong to NATO, sobeit. However, that is the U.N.'s call and not that of Emperor Bush.

All in all, this is a bad idea that deserves to be relegated to the trash heap.