Europe May Cut Military Role in Afghanistan

It looks like Europe is recognizing that the Afghanistan war is going the way of Iraq. The military situation is only going to deteriorate. The main reason being the U.S. is overstretched unable to fight two wars simultaneously. Bush is preoccupied with Iraq and this means the focus is taken away from Afghanistan. With a resurgent Taliban, the departure of NATO forces would be a death blow to the real war against terror:

The United States is worried about weakening Italian and German military commitments in Afghanistan as casualties increase in the fight to stem the bloody Taliban insurgency, officials said.

Debate is raging in Italy and Germany, and to a lesser extent the Netherlands and Denmark, on whether they should remain in the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF), already grappling with a shortage of troops in the face of one of the most intense military engagements in decades.

Europeans governments are realizing that there can be no cooperation with that madman in the White House:

Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema recently blamed a lack of coordination between US and ISAF forces for hundreds of Afghan civilian deaths, which he called "morally unacceptable."

"The Italians can be proud of what they are doing but at the end of the day it's not so much a referendum on 'are we making a difference?' but really a referendum about how closely do you want to be associated with the US administration," the US official said.

In Germany, where polls show a strong 64 percent majority calling for withdrawal, parliament would have to vote on whether to continue with commitments for reconstruction, military deployment and training of Afghan forces.