Articles found 16 Sept 2006
Hilliers response when asked what the Leo's would be used for.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl79yHyh2N0&eurl=
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We debate, with guns blazing
But is it informed debate? There is a serious lack of understanding about Canada's mission to Afghanistan
CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD Globe & Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com//servlet/story/LAC.20060916.COBLATCH16/TPStory/National/columnists
I spent yesterday morning at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto, where I was one of four journalists on a media panel that was part of a senior officers' course.
It was more time "in the company of soldiers," to borrow the title of the latest book from U.S. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Rick Atkinson, and I confess I tried to put my audience at ease with a brief rendition of the chorus from The Prick of Steel, one of my late father's air force songs.
(Well, I do love any opportunity to sing the thing.)
I don't think I am betraying any secrets by saying that for all that the relationship between the press and military is sometimes confrontational, and is always fraught with the potential for peril (both real and imagined), the soldiers in the crowd and reporters on the panel have one thing in common.
I don't purport to speak for my colleagues -- least of all for the CBC's Carol Off, whom I got to meet yesterday for the first time after years of admiring her work and who is one of this country's most accomplished journalists and the author of, among others, The Ghosts of Medak Pocket.
But I think it fair to say that to varying degrees, most of us on the panel are frustrated by the lack of understanding about Canada's mission to Afghanistan; by the paucity, not of debate, but of informed debate; by the large and self-serving political apparatus that stands between our two groups; and by what appears to be our collective and separate inability to do very much about any of it.
The press in this country is, for the first time in decades, actually covering, in significant numbers, the Canadian Forces in action, and from my informal reading and viewing, are doing at least a reasonable -- if, as always in our business, uneven -- job of it. Some of us have been embedded with the troops based at Kandahar Air Field; a smaller but growing number of us have been on the front lines, such as these are in the modern war; I think it safe to say that, in the main, this has been a hugely successful venture.
Ordinary soldiers are more available to the press than ever before in my lifetime, and they are, in my experience, not at all shy about speaking forthrightly about what it is they're doing and why they're there. And for the most part, I think, we in my business are fairly faithfully painting the picture as it is in southern Afghanistan.
Yet we are failing miserably, somehow, in getting the message across.
Public opinion polls repeatedly show that Canadians are confused about why we are in Afghanistan, that they fear young soldiers are dying in vain, and that they have difficulty distinguishing between Afghanistan and Iraq and, more generally, among Afghanistan, Iraq and the countries of the larger Middle East.
Anecdotally, most reporters have had experiences that echo what the polls say, as have most soldiers, I think. For all the words and miles of tape the former have produced, for all the intelligent comments the latter have made from the lowliest private all the way up through the ranks to colonels, many of our fellow citizens do not appear to know that Afghanistan is a mission approved by the wider international community, with about three dozen NATO and non-NATO countries contributing to the effort (including the likes of plucky Romania, whose troops fearlessly muck about in Cold War-era vehicles) and specifically sanctioned by the United Nations.
Those who do know, and who, in the normal course, give their knee-jerk blessing to such UN-approved ventures, pay the UN stamp of approval here little heed -- even suggesting in one breath that Canada pull out of this UN mission and, in the next, that Canada should be sending troops to another UN mission, such as Lebanon. It makes little sense.
This problem is not of the military's creating and, while I feel we in the press are somewhat responsible -- I feel I fail the soldiers damn near every time I write about them because I've yet to properly capture their marvellous ability to switch gears, for instance -- the real culprit is Ottawa, that is, the elected leaders.
It was the Liberal government that first sent the troops to Afghanistan, a decision reaffirmed, the mission extended, by the Stephen Harper government.
There was little debate, even in the House of Commons, but then the House of Commons rarely hosts what could be properly called debate; instead, there is grandstanding, sniping and posing.
And since then, the Harper government has done a simply dreadful job of explaining the mission. As Ms. Off noted yesterday, when Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor recently deigned to utter a few words about it, he was in Australia. And when Mr. Harper spoke this week on the Sept. 11 anniversary, he made the correct link -- Canada is in Afghanistan because the 9/11 terrorists trained there -- but failed to deliver anything resembling a statesmanlike or ringing explanation of the good we are doing by being there.
I mentioned that flat address the next day to a Canadian officer I know.
I think I said, "Someone should be offering a robust defence of this mission. It's defensible." He corrected me: "It's advocate-able."
Mr. Harper has in Rick Hillier, the Chief of the Defence Staff, the best natural salesman in the country. Yet the CDS appears to have been muzzled and, in his absence, neither Mr. Harper nor Mr. O'Connor is stepping up to the plate.
This brings me, in a roundabout way, to an event tomorrow in Toronto.
The polls do reveal one heartening result, that whatever ambivalence Canadians may have about the mission and despite their confusion, they appear to at least grasp what a tremendous group of soldiers we have there. And tomorrow, on the lawn of Queen's Park in Toronto, a memorial to Canada's veterans, all of them, will be unveiled. Veterans and the public alike are welcome.
Best of all, there's a parade first -- an old-fashioned military parade, with bands and pipes and horses and marching troops, starting about noon at the Fort York Armoury. I was in Ottawa last week, where the political animals reign. No wonder I crave the company of soldiers again.
cblatchford@globeandmail.ca
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Large-scale anti-Taliban military action under way
POSTED: 1512 GMT (2312 HKT), September 16, 2006
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/09/16/afghanistan/index.html
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- The U.S.-led coalition on Saturday acknowledged it is conducting a large-scale military operation against the resurgent Taliban in eastern Afghanistan.
In addition, NATO and Afghan troops have been conducting operations in Kandahar province in the south and in Konar province in the northeast.
Operation Mountain Fury targets five provinces near Pakistan: Paktika, Khost, Ghazni, Paktia and Lowgar.
"Mountain Fury is just one part of a series of coordinated operations placing continuous pressure on Taliban extremists across multiple regions of the country," the military statement said.
About 3,000 American and 4,000 Afghan security forces are involved. Of the U.S. contingent, the bulk comes from Task Force Spartan, which comprises the 3rd Brigade of the Tenth Mountain Division, U.S. military officials told CNN.
Soldier killed in attacks on base in Khost
Two attacks on a base in Khost killed a coalition soldier and wounded Afghan National Army soldiers and a coalition soldier, the Combined Forces Command in Kabul said Saturday. The command did not identify the coalition soldiers' nationalities.
The operation, which has involved a combination of patrols, shelling and bombs, has been going on for a few weeks, a military spokesman told CNN.
The military said it launched the "maneuver" phase on Saturday designed to defeat Taliban militants and foster "economic growth and development."
U.S. military officials report an upsurge in Taliban activity across the eastern Afghan border in the last several weeks, as Pakistan negotiated a truce with pro-Taliban tribal groups in the border region of North Waziristan.
The Pakistani military told CNN, however, that it has closely coordinated with coalition forces in Operation Mountain Fury.
A similar operation called Operation Mountain Lion was launched earlier this year in eastern Afghanistan.
In total, 37 nations have contributed 20,115 troops to the NATO forces in Afghanistan. (Details)
On Wednesday a NATO spokesman criticized member countries for failing to respond to a call from military commanders for reinforcements in southern Afghanistan.
CNN's Henry Schuster contributed to this report
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U.S. pilot targeted Canadians' trash fire
PAUL KORING From Saturday's Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060915.wxafghan16/BNStory/National
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force A-10 Warthog pilot who strafed Canadian troops in Afghanistan, killing one and wounding dozens, mistakenly shot a blazing garbage fire just lit by the Canadians, after being told to target a fire at a suspected Taliban position.
The Warthog pilot apparently mistook the Canadian fire for the intended target, according to an officer familiar with early reports arising from the accident. The Canadian fire appeared almost directly in line with his course.
While some details of the sequence of events leading to the deadly "friendly fire" incident remain unknown, a general picture of the accident is emerging, according to senior military officers who have seen "after-action" reports. Those officers are not party to the official investigation and stress that their knowledge is limited.
In this scenario, ill-fated coincidence, ambiguities and failures to achieve 100-per-cent confidence in target identification before opening fire all appear to have contributed to a very short burst of fatal cannon fire.
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I support the Canadian troops who are in Afghanistan to free its innocent citizens
By David Turner, Burlington The Hamilton Spectator (Sep 16, 2006)
http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1158357013950&call_pageid=1020420665036&col=1112876262536
As a first-generation Canadian with parents being refugees from eastern Europe, I, unlike other readers, do support the war. I support Stephen Harper and his wish to have troops in Afghanistan.
Let us think back to 2002. Jean Chretien, then prime minister, made a pledge to Canada and NATO to help the innocent Afghan citizens who were being oppressed by the Taliban. This was in response to a request from the United Nations asking for military support in Afghanistan.
I suppose when we helped defeat the Nazi oppression in Europe during the Second World War it was considered both peacekeeping and Canadian, but when trying to defeat the Taliban oppression, it is said that we are just following our neighbours to the south.
Just because there are casualties and progress is slow in Afghanistan, does that make it wrong that we are trying to free innocent Afghan citizens?
What would it show to the world if Canada left Afghanistan in its present ruins?
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Tensions overshadow gains in Afghanistan
Civil conflict could reignite as stability remains elusive
By Pamela Constable Updated: 2:10 a.m. CT Sept 16, 2006
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14858705/
KABUL, Afghanistan - Despite scattered gains by international troops fighting Taliban insurgents in the country's south, Afghan and foreign analysts here have voiced concern that a recent peace initiative is backfiring and that lapsed Afghan militias could be drawn into the conflict unless it is quickly quelled and replaced by aid and protection.
NATO and U.S. military officials here said this week that an intensive two-week operation against Taliban fighters in Kandahar province had been a tactical success, killing more than 500 insurgents and forcing others to retreat. Afghan and foreign forces also retook a district in neighboring Helmand province that had been seized twice by the Taliban.
But these pockets of progress on the battlefield are part of a larger, murkier political map. As other Afghan militias begin defensively rearming, ethnic tensions have risen, raising the specter of the kind of civil conflict that devastated the country in the early 1990s.
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Bold stance on Afghanistan
Layton has started a national dialogue to get people thinking about achieving realistic goals
Sep. 16, 2006. 01:00 AM Editorial, Sept. 12. Corina Crawley, Ottawa
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1158228016878&call_pageid=970599119419
NDP shows haste in rush to please
I take issue with your assertion that the NDP is not "ready for prime time."
The NDP's stance on Afghanistan is bold, refreshing and worthy of praise. Jack Layton has finally had the courage to do what the Liberals should have done when the mission began to emphasize a military solution over all else — say no.
We have clearly lost our way in Afghanistan. We have not achieved the objectives we first set out to do, which was to capture and punish those responsible for 9/11. The rights of women have hardly been improved. Contrary to delusional NATO public affairs officers, we have not "liberated" the country from the Taliban, or the country's wicked and ruthless warlords and drug dealers. Indeed, many of them now sit in the government of President Hamid Karzai.
Ask yourself this: If the mission is so noble and about defending "shared" values, why are our other NATO partners — like France, Spain and Germany — shunning the political liability that is Afghanistan? Why are British commanders calling the operation a "textbook case of how to screw up a counter-insurgency," as one did in Monday's London Telegraph?
The misguided adventurism of Stephen Harper in Afghanistan is proving to be like the frog in a pot of boiling water. Give it much longer, and it can only get worse.
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Bomb blast kills 3 in Afghanistan
Sept. 16, 2006, 4:39AM © 2006 The Associated Press
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4191663.html
KABUL, Afghanistan — A bomb blast south of the Afghan capital killed three people and wounded another on Saturday, police said.
The remote-controlled device went off as a car carrying four people passed by on the main road in Musayi district, Kabul province, said Ali Shah Paktiawal, a police official.
The victims were all Afghans working for a local private security firms that provide services to local and international non-governmental organizations, said Mohammad Daud Nadim, regional police chief.
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Coalition soldier killed in Afghanistan
Sept. 16, 2006, 8:19AM © 2006 The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan — A U.S.-led coalition solider killed, another wounded as bases come under attack in eastern Afghanistan, coalition says.
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Experimental drug given to British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
· Troops could launch lawsuits, warns expert
· Veterans' groups criticise 'guinea pig' decision
James Randerson, science correspondent Saturday September 16, 2006 The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1873961,00.html
Soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq are being treated with an experimental blood-clotting drug that has not been fully tested.
Because randomised controlled trials have not yet been carried out into the drug's effectiveness, it is impossible to know whether it is doing more harm than good to patients.
Veterans' support groups have criticised the Ministry of Defence action. One trauma expert has said soldiers treated with the drug could sue the MoD if trials produce evidence it is harmful.
Phil Willis, the Liberal Democrat MP who is chairman of the science and technology select committee, described the MoD's decision as "a dereliction of its duty of care that indicates a moral bankruptcy within the military".
The drug, called NovoSeven, was originally licensed in 1999 as a treatment to stem bleeding in haemophiliacs.
It is undergoing trials for use to stop bleeding in trauma patients with severe wounds and bleeding within the brains of patients with severe head injuries. But its effectiveness and safety as a blood-clotting agent in these circumstances has not been proven.
Inquiries by the Guardian have established that the MoD has authorised its use in battlefield trauma casualties.
Ian Roberts, an expert in trauma care at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "The point is that it is hugely expensive. Like all treatments there is potential for harm and it is not licensed for use."
Professor Roberts wrote to the defence secretary, Des Browne, on August 8 to ask whether the MoD had approved NovoSeven - also called Recombinant Factor VIIa - for use on British servicemen and women. It is thought that the US and Israeli militaries are also using the drug.
"My concern is that the MoD may be wasting resources on expensive treatments that may do more harm than good when it could be investing in high quality research that has the potential to improve the care of combat casualties world-wide," he wrote.
Prof Roberts has not received a reply, but the MoD confirmed to the Guardian that the drug was being used in trauma patients injured on the battlefield.
Veterans' support groups were dismayed. "It seems to us wrong that the military would almost use soldiers as guinea pigs for drugs that have yet to have a proven safety record," said Andrew Burgin of Military Families Against the War, a group with 600 members.
Michael Shalmi, a scientist at Novo Nordisk, the Danish company that manufactures the drug, said: "It is far too early to say whether the benefits of NovoSeven in [the head trauma] context outweigh the risk on a definitive basis." He said a single dose of the drug would cost between £750 and £3,000 depending on the size, and confirmed that data from the drug's use by the MoD and US Department of Defence would not be fed into the company's randomised controlled trials of the drug.
In its response to the Guardian, the MoD said: "Use of Recombinant Factor VIIa in by the defence medical services (DMS) has been authorised after an extensive review of the current evidence. It is strictly controlled in the DMS and only authorised when conventional resuscitation measures have failed."
But Prof Roberts said that even the severely injured should not be given an experimental treatment. "Just because someone's at a high risk of death, it doesn't mean the treatment can't increase their risk of death." In his letter, he said the MoD might be open to legal challenges if clinical trials subsequently find the drug is harmful to trauma patients. But the MoD denies it is putting personnel at risk.
Martin Shalley, president of the British Association for Emergency Medicine, said it was not unprecedented for drugs to be used "off label," in situations where they have not been fully tested. Doctors sometimes had to take a pragmatic approach.
Neither Novo Nordisk nor the MoD could confirm how many patients have been treated with NovoSeven.
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Angus Reid Global Scan : Polls & Research
Iraq, Afghanistan Wars Split Views in U.S.
September 16, 2006
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/13164
- Adults in the United States are divided on whether their country’s interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan are part of the same conflict, according to a poll by Rasmussen Reports. 44 per cent of respondents think Iraq is a distraction from the war on terror, while 43 per cent regard it as part of the war on terror.
Afghanistan has been the main battleground in the war on terrorism. The conflict began in October 2001, after the Taliban regime refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Al-Qaeda operatives hijacked and crashed four airplanes on Sept. 11, 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people.
At least 471 soldiers—including 333 Americans—have died in the war on terrorism, either in support of the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom or as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The coalition effort against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was launched in March 2003. At least 2,680 American soldiers have died during the military operation, and more than 20,100 troops have been wounded in action.
Yesterday, U.S. president George W. Bush discussed his government’s handling of the war on terrorism, saying, "If there’s any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it’s flawed logic. I simply can’t accept that. It’s unacceptable to think that there’s any kind of comparison between the behaviour of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective."
Polling Data
Is Iraq part of the war on terror, or a distraction from it?
Part of the war on terror
43%
Distraction from the war on terror
44%
Source: Rasmussen Reports
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 1,000 American adults, conducted on Sept. 10 and Sept. 11, 2006. Margin of error is 3 per cent.
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Mounting casualties compel Canada to send Afghanistan reinforcements
By Keith Jones 16 September 2006
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/sep2006/cana-s16.shtml
Canada will soon deploy additional troops and armaments to southern Afghanistan to bolster NATO’s embattled occupation force.
Canada’s minority Conservative government announced yesterday that it will deploy between 200 and 500 additional Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel to the Kandahar region. The cabinet has also approved a CAF request to send fifteen heavily-armored Leopard tanks and an undisclosed number of armored engineering vehicles, called Badgers, to Afghanistan. The 42.5 ton Leopard has a 105-mm cannon, capable of firing explosive shells at long range, as well as several fixed machine-guns.
CAF chief General Rick Hillier said that four of the tanks will be shipped to Afghanistan by air as soon as possible. Although he termed the reinforcements small, Hillier claimed that they will “dramatically multiply” the CAF’s “opportunities to secure and stabilize” the Kandahar region.
Reinforcing the 2,300-strong CAF contingent in Afghanistan is one of several steps Canada’s minority Conservative government has taken in recent days to counter the growth of Taliban resistance in southern Afghanistan and mounting opposition among the Canadian public to the CAF waging war on behalf of the US-installed and dependent government of Hamid Karzai.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper devoted his address on the occasion of this week’s fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack to arguing that the CAF should play a leading role in suppressing the Taliban as part of Canada’s contribution to the “war on terror.”
To serve as a backdrop to his address, Harper’s aides assembled relatives of several Canadians who died in the attack on the World Trade Center and of several CAF personnel now serving in Afghanistan. Harper concluded his speech by calling on Canadians to pray for the victims of 9/11 and for the Canadian troops in Afghanistan.
Last May, Harper and his Conservatives rammed a motion through parliament that sanctioned prolonging Canada’s participation in the Afghan counter-insurgency campaign by two years, till at least 2009, and expanding the mission to include Canada assuming overall command of the NATO operation in Afghanistan for one-year, starting in February 2008.
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Taliban ideals are clashing with a more secular society.
Video - CNN's Anderson Cooper reports (September 13)
javascript:cnnVideo('play','/video/world/2006/09/13/cooper.afghanistan.vice.vs.virtue.cnn','2006/09/20');
Note: allow 15sec commercial to run
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Contributions to NATO forces in Afghanistan
POSTED: 1055 GMT (1855 HKT), September 15, 2006
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/09/15/afghan.nato.troop.ap/index.html
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- Contributions to the NATO International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan based on figures provided by its headquarters in Kabul:
Britain: 5,000
Germany: 2,750
Netherlands: 2,000
Canada: 2,000
Italy: 1,600
United States: 1,300
France: 1,000
Spain: 600
Romania: 560
Turkey: 450
Norway: 340
Denmark: 325
Belgium: 300
Greece: 180
Bulgaria: 150
Portugal: 150
Lithuania: 130
Hungary: 120
Czech Republic: 100
Estonia: 90
Slovakia: 60
Slovenia: 50
Latvia: 40
Iceland: 15
Luxembourg: 10
Poland: 10
Non NATO contributions to the force:
Sweden: 220
Australia: 200
Croatia: 100
Macedonia: 100
Finland: 90
Albania: 30
Azerbaijan: 20
Ireland: 10
Austria: 5
New Zealand: 5
Switzerland: 5
Total: 20,115
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On the front line in Afghanistan
By Damian Grammaticas BBC News, Afghanistan
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/5349310.stm
Nato forces in Afghanistan say they are on the verge of a major success in their battles against Taleban fighters but some of the troops have their doubts about the mission.
At first it looked like a bird - maybe a bat - far away, skimming low over the trees, twisting left and right.
Then it leapt, soared upwards, clear to see now, a British Harrier jet.
The aircraft climbed high above the grey-blue mountains and vanished, no trace of it in the perfect, cloudless sky.
From my vantage point, on top of a small two-storey building, I was watching a battle unfolding.
Two Apache helicopters operated by the Dutch military appeared from the east, circling like hunters looking for prey.
Then they flew fast over the trees, every few seconds there was a rasping snarl as they unleashed their rockets.
Canadian Nato troops had spotted some Taleban men trying to outflank them.
There were thumping explosions as Nato guns pounded shells into the area, sending up plumes of smoke and dust.
Even closer to the battle than me, ran the main highway leading west from Kandahar city.
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Nato struggles in Afghanistan
By Jonathan Marcus BBC diplomatic correspondent
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5345452.stm
For now there is not going to be a Polish solution to Nato's problems in Afghanistan
Nato spokesmen are making it clear that Poland's decision to send 1,000 troops to the country early next year - a few months earlier than planned - has nothing to do with the alliance's current military problems in the south of the country.
Nato is still struggling to find up to 2,500 extra troops for southern Afghanistan and it needs them urgently.
If they cannot be found then the success of Nato's mission could be called into question and this in turn could have a considerable impact upon future perceptions of the alliance itself.
Nato leaders accept that Afghanistan represents a fundamental test for the alliance.
The crucial problem for any international institution is relevance. Is it still useful to its members? Can it re-invent itself for a world that is very different from that in which it was founded?
Into the unknown
So far Nato has not done too badly. In the wake of the ending of the Cold War, Nato lost an enemy but it soon found a new role in exporting stability.
In part, this was a diplomatic process by broadening its membership eastwards to take in not just former Warsaw Pact members like Poland, but also countries like the Baltic republics whose territory was once part of the Soviet Union itself.
But Nato also became a key international military player - perhaps the only organisation in the world capable of mounting major peace support missions in Bosnia and Kosovo.
However Afghanistan presents very different challenges.
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Afghan village mirrors national plight
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4244454.stm
The BBC's Soutik Biswas spent Tuesday in an Afghan village, linking ordinary people there with BBC News website readers from all around the world who sent their questions on daily, rural life. Here he reflects on the day.
In seven hours sitting under a burning sun with only a slight wind blowing from the Hindu Kush mountains, replying to questions from strangers all over the world, Rahmat Gul - devout Muslim, father of seven children, teacher and vineyard owner - had not lost his cheeky sense of humour
When a reader from Turkey e-mailed in asking what single thing he would wish for if he had a magic wand, Mr Gul quipped: "I would like to marry an English woman. I am ready for a new wife."
Mr Gul was one of six residents of Asad Khyl, an arid, brown village of high-walled mud homes, cracked culverts, dry streams and shrubby vineyards in the rolling Shomali plains north of Kabul, whom I had chosen to take part in our live One Day in Afghanistan project.
We had lugged a laptop, a satellite dish, a generator, a table, a few chairs, garden umbrellas and miles of cables from Kabul to Asad Khyl to hook up live with the world so that our readers could have a live pow-wow with Afghan villagers.
Mr Gul's infectious humour, along with a sumptuous lunch feast, helped keep us going.
"Soutik brother, listen to me," he said once midway through the programme with a mischievous smile.
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