AEI - Dutch Retreat? US Pressure Dutch to send troops to Afghanistan in defiance of public opinion polls

American Enterprise InstituteDutch Retreat? US Pressure Dutch to send troops to Afghanistan in defiance of public opinion polls

"While American politicians spent the last months of 2005 arguing over the U.S. military presence in Iraq, their counterparts in the Netherlands were debating the future of the Dutch contingent in Afghanistan. At issue is The Hague's pledge to deploy slightly over 1,000 Dutch troops to the restive Uruzgan province when NATO assumes responsibility for southern Afghanistan this summer. The Netherlands' skittishness makes for an important cautionary tale not only about the near-farcical indecision of a European ally in the war on terror, but more important, the risks inherent in outsourcing ever-greater responsibility for Afghanistan to NATO, as the Bush administration evidently hopes to do. The debacle with the Dutch began this fall, when the country's military intelligence service produced a report describing the treacherous conditions in Uruzgan and predicting casualties if the Netherlands dispatched forces there. Opposition parliamentarians began to rally against the mission, buoyed by public opinion; one poll found a whopping 71 percent of Netherlanders opposed to it. Rather than confront and puncture these doubts, the tripartite coalition government in The Hague chose to drag its feet. Despite reassurances from the United States and NATO that Dutch soldiers would receive swift reinforcements if they came under fire, the cabinet further delayed making any decision, until at last endorsing the deployment just before Christmas--but on the condition of parliamentary approval. Artfully describing its move as an "intention" rather than a "decision," the Dutch government thus passed the buck once again until February, when the parliament should render final judgment."

Note EU-Digest: The US Government is using every trick in the book to overturn Dutch public opinion polls and get the Government to send additional troops to Afghanistan. Tonight Dutch TV viewers were even "treated" to an interview on the Dutch Christian TV station EO featuring Paul Bremmer, former US Ambassador to the Netherlands and first "governor of occupied Iraq". Bremmer warned the Dutch viewers that in case the Dutch Government did not send troops to Afghanistan, it could have a negative effect on the relationship of the Netherlands and the US.