This from the Valley City Times-Online...
“It’s a great day in North Dakota when Soldiers return home from a successful mission,” Sprynczynatyk said. “As we prepare to celebrate their return to North Dakota, let’s remember all of the other North Dakota Soldiers and Airmen still serving in countries all across the world. Their ongoing efforts in defense of our nation will always be greatly appreciated.”Geez. Everyone is in an uproar over Afghanistan but how long has this peacekeeping mission in Europe been going on???
About 40 North Dakota Soldiers will remain in Kosovo in order to effectively coordinate mission handover to the succeeding unit, the Puerto Rican National Guard, which will lead KFOR 13. A ceremony to formally assume mission responsibility from the North Dakota National Guard is scheduled for July 24, in Kosovo. These remaining Soldiers are expected home by the end of the month.
Time to put a stop to these type missions. Let other forces handle this type stuff. We are over stretched and this does not help.
As Colin Powell said, "If you broke it, you own it."
ReplyDeleteThe answer of why we are still in Kosovo is a interesting point. This mission is a benfit to the people of Kosovo and the Kosovo Forces soldiers from various countries. (NATO and Non-NATO)
ReplyDeleteLet me start with the enviroment, which is safe and the job of the U.S. forces is to maitain that safety and and security in their area of responsiblity.
Next, the side effect of this is the U.S soldiers make a lot of long lasting friendships and have an opportunity to develop themselves to be better soldiers and more importantly better citizens of this world. Does not sound too horrific, eh?
A vast majority of the people in Kosovo, LOVE Americans. A person can see more American flags flown then some areas in the U.S. (I recall a news story in the U.S. about a resident of an apartment complex that had to take down his American flag, because it was too offensive.)
With that said, adjusting troop numbers and pulling out all American soldiers could be a move the could cause the people in Kosovo to lose sight of the brighter future they deserve.
This mission allows for the people of Kosovo and the citizen-soldiers to learn from each other, I cannot say that enough. The U.S losing this mission would be very disappointing.
I think you should research more before you present an opinion.
Below are two sites that may help you understand what actually is going on in your world.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/KFOR-Multi-National-Task-Force-East/139368092429?ref=ts
http://www.nato.int/KFOR/
Very respectively,
Jon.
ReplyDeleteHow the hell did we break Kosovo?
Joshsfault.
Europe's problem. I don't care about their brighter future. The EuroCorps can handle this.
Research that.
The United States led a NATO war in 1999 against Serbia that led to Kosovo breaking away from that country. America, while it didn't create the Kosovo problem, is directly responsible for Kosovo's establishment as an independent political entity and the de facto partition of Serbia. You guys can't just walk away from this problem; you caused it. You broke it, you own it.
ReplyDeleteJon, you're being deficient.
ReplyDeleteEurope begged the US (along with the UN) for us to get involved in the war. Study your history in a little more depth before you make such statements.
What I wrote is absolutely accurate. The USA planned and lead the NATO bombing campaign. The fact that Europe wanted the United States to run the war isn't really the point, is it? America agreed. If a woman begs you to marry her and you do so, your still her husband. The USA was responsible for the political change in this little piece of the Balkans, and so still is to a certain extent.
ReplyDeletethat Europe wanted the US to lead the campaign is exactly the point.
ReplyDeleteyou want to know why the US is over stretched? our allies in Europe that can't handle this is an example.
want to know why we're over stretched? Japan is another example...heck even the Aussies are picking up their slack in the Pacific.
i can't wait for the time that the US is forced by public opinion back home to get out of other peoples affairs.
the hue and cry world wide will be tremendous. but in the end those nations populations would have brought it upon themselves.
I CAN'T WAIT!
oh and once the genocide was over then it was time for us to leave.
ReplyDeleteWe should let Europe police its own backyard, instead of finding more entanglements(Georgia)to involve ourselves in. Moreover, in a couple years our NATO allies are going to leave us with Afghanistan, so why are we still there?
ReplyDeleteGeorge Washington was on to something, even if it's not entirely practical in today's world.
Solomon, this is precisely the price one has to pay for getting involved in - to say nothing of leading - foreign wars. It's why American armed forces are still in Germany, Japan, Korea, Iraq, Kuwait, Italy, Sinai and, yes, Kosovo. If you're not willing to pay that price, than you should stay home. This, of course, raises all kinds of other problems. Isolationism isn't really an option for America in today's globalized world. But don't think you can trash the shop and then walk away.
ReplyDeleteAnd when George Washington gave his farewell address, the United States didn't import most of it's fuel from abroad.
ReplyDeleteThe inclusion of Japan and Germany in that list shows to me that you are seriously lacking in intelligence.
ReplyDeleteAfter Afghanistan you likely won't see us getting involved in much for a while.
You know what. Globalization is being re-worked. That's what this current financial crisis is all about.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think home prices were inflated world wide? No one wants to talk about it but it was to keep gloablization viable.
It isn't and you can bet....Drake1 hit on it...that the American people are really tired of these entanglements.
We don't talk shit. Others beg us into this stupidity and like a brash young kid stepping into a fight that doesn't concern us, we wander in.
No more.
I've spent the last week reading forums from around the world...from Europe, to the Middle East (including Israel) to the Far East...you know what the common theme is???
They all hate us, think we're stupid and want us out of their affairs.
Cool, the American people want out too. Get ready world...its coming...be careful of what you wish for.
Lastly, if we utilized every ounce of our own nations energy potential and got real serious about energy production, our import of oil would shrink drastically.
Listen Drake, I didn't make this personal. Let's keep things civil, OK? We can disagree without name-calling.
ReplyDeleteAs to your point, why do you thing American forces are in Germany and Japan in the first place? They weren't invited, they got there by way of conquest. A justified conquest, to be sure, but a conquest nevertheless.
I disagree with you about Afghanistan being the end. In my opinion, it's just the beginning. America is becoming more, and not less, dependent on foreign resources.The USA is no longer autarkous and can no longer function economically on its own resources. The political, business, media and military elites who really run things in America are certainly aware of that and will fight to maintain access to those resources. I expect foreign wars to increase over the next 10-20 years. Brace yourselves.
wishful thinking Jon.
ReplyDeleteno way in hell will you see a repeat of this.
Google protectionism and isolationism in the US. our leaders are already freaking out about the public opinion being expressed in all quarters about getting out of foreign areas.
oh and the troops in Germany are a legacy of the Cold War not WW2.
same about the troops in Japan.
Many want the US to pull out of Japan and restation in Australia.
Japan talks smack but doesn't want us to go. Same with the Germans.
Oh and if we can end the commitment to the Sinai that wouldn't be a bad thing either.
ReplyDeleteKFOR was a NATO operation and therefore manned by NATO nations, its as simple as that, although quite a few non NATO countries also took part
ReplyDeleteIt was a sizeable deployment, about 50,000 at its height including troops from as far afield as Argentina and Malaysia with the UK, France, USA, Germany and Italy providing the lions share. Of the top of my head the UK had the largest contingent by far, about 20,000 compared to between 5 and 7 thousand for the US, France, Germany and Italy.
It is quite interesting from a number of perspectives, it gave us the Revolution in Military Affairs nonsense and is one sixth the size of Helmand with roughly the same population yet remind me how many troops we have in that area.
I tend to agree that it is important for European nations to look after their own back yard though and the current size of the US deployment is surprising given obvious commitments elsewhere.
and that's the point. Europe doesn't need us involved in that.
ReplyDeleteas far as a NATO commitment? How? what NATO nation was involved in this?
NATO is strictly a self defense organization. outside of the self defense mandate (meaning for the nations involved)...any operation that occurs outside of the mandate is not warranted.
To be honest this was a UN mission...not Nato.
to say that it is NATO production is to be dishonest.
UNPROFOR was as usual with most UN missions, pretty innefectual so NATO got involved with SFOR and IFOR in Bosnia. Then Kosovo kicked off and KFOR was formed
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nato.int/kfor/docu/about/background.html
Contributing nations included the following (many non NATO)
UK, Germany, US, France, Italy, Netherlands, Canada, Russia, Canada, Belgium, Ukraine, Spain, Poland, Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Iceland, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Turkey, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, India, Georgia, Eire, Malaysia, Mongolia, Morocco, Phillippines, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, Chile, Finland and a few others.
I agree that it should be all Europe but it would be equally fair to say that the US did have and does have a contribution that was not in the majority. Not sure why you have forces there now though, just does not seem logical.
What NATO actually is could be debated for decades, one might argue that operations in Afghanistan have nothing to do with NATO but it is NATO that is there
Just to add, how useful would the thousand or so personnel in Kosovo be in Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteThis of course also raises a question about all overseas postings and there actual value, Germany for example
Its a debate we are having in the UK, do we really need to be in Germany, subsidising the German economy with our presence there for very little actual benefit in defence terms
agree about the Germany postings.
ReplyDeletethey're making money by having US and UK forces in country. another hold over from the cold war.
but back to the Kosovo mission. it was a UN franchise. yes NATO took it over but it shouldn't have if they followed the charter.
I think the reason NATO got involved was because the UN mission lacked any teeth, had overly restrictive ROE and a lack of unity of purpose (sounds familiar)
ReplyDeleteThings changed when NATO took over, even if most of the forces in theatre simply swapped their blue berets for their normal head dress!
It wasnt a peace keeping mission in the traditional sense, keeping sides apart after all the fighting had been done, it was a peace enforcement mission, actively keeping the sides apart by sustained and vigorous action.
Do you think Afghanistan is currently a NATO mission in the truest sense of the charter, self defence
If it was nearly a decade ago it certainly isnt any more yet the largest contributors are NATO nations.
Goes back to a very broad subject, what is NATO for now
NATO is a blanket for European nations that don 't want to properly contribute to their own defence.
ReplyDeleteGermany is the biggest culprit in this case but other nations are also skimping.
In this case France does a better job. UK certainly does. Greece had been and so had Italy.
Its ironic that the Germans lecture on fiscal sobriety while they allow others to fund their part of the defense.
Maybe it comes down to what actually is meant by defence, in Germany's case what do they have to defend against in 2010, likewise any European nation. There is simply no credible conventional threat to any mainland European nation so defence actually means expeditionary operations in support of foreign policy. Germany has a fairly non expeditionary approach so you might argue that what they spend on defence now is actually more than they need.
ReplyDeleteThere are always multiple perspectives
ok, then don't tell me to open up the US defense market to foreign competition.
ReplyDeletedon't tell me that the US is throwing its weight around the world if one of the most powerful countries in the EU isn't willing to provide for an expeditionary component to its defense needs.
Hey, only 500-600 U.S soldiers in Kosovo. If you did the research I ask, you would know the troops are in the middle of Deterrent Presence. In the last year the number of soldiers has gone from 1200 to 500ish. More cuts on the way.
ReplyDeleteYour point is mute. We are pulling out of Kosovo.
i don't care if we only have a pfc doing checks on humvees the point remains.
ReplyDeleteits a mission that should have be over long ago.
Why?
ReplyDelete