By the Bush administration’s standards, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was remarkably candid last week: acknowledging that popular opposition in Europe to the Iraq war was making it harder to persuade European governments to send more troops or take more risks to salvage Afghanistan.

Nearly everything about President Bush’s botched war of choice in Iraq has made it much harder to win Afghanistan’s war of necessity. The fact that Mr. Gates is permitted such truth-telling is a measure of how bad things have gotten in Afghanistan and how much the United States needs more outside help.

definately -- Europe needs to stand up and be counted -- this is our fight just as the US stood up during WW2 -- belatedly and reluctantly but it did -- Japan attacked but defeating Germany was made the priority -- the European priority has to be to secure a stable Afganistan in the global struggle against al-Qaeda -- that means troops and understanding that there will be casualties -- we as Europeans can play ostrich or get real (a new President will help but we shouldn't undermine the struggle by waiting for Jan 2009)

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from related article this

These are difficult days for NATO, for reasons few are prepared to admit. The difficulty is finding combat troops for Afghanistan. This is treated by Washington as a failure of political courage due to misinformed public opinion in Europe, potentially correctable if sufficient pressure is applied. It is no such thing.

Gates, Truth and Afghanistan - New York Times