What happened to NATO? For half a century there was a clear purpose to the military alliance. It was intended to safeguard Europe from being overrun by masses of Soviet tanks. Oh sure, the mutual defence of North America was in there too, sort of, wink, wink.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was, as the name suggests, an alliance of Western nations on both sides of the Atlantic. The members' land and air forces kept Western Europe viable while their naval forces maintained the North Atlantic sea lanes.
The US was always the senior partner in NATO. It had most of the guns and most of the planes and most of the ships but, then again, it also had the most to gain or lose.
Despite de Gaulle and lesser irritants, NATO more or less sailed smoothly through the close of the 20th Century until those pesky Soviets folded up and closed shop. The music stopped, the dance ended and no one was quite sure what to do next. The North Atlantic suddenly seemed very quiet, even dull.
Along comes 11 September, 2001 and the al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington. Get the horses harnessed up, boys, we're going to a fire! Everyone threw on his best pants and raced toward the sound of the guns, except there was no gunfire.
Even though the United States had suffered an attack that was much more a criminal act than an act of war, no one wanted to bother with petty details. Instead we all invoked Article 5 and raced off in mutual defence of a member under attack. That was almost six years ago. Where have we come in the meantime? The answer isn't encouraging.
NATO started fraying from the outset. Some members were eager to come to America's aid, others were hesitant. Still, everything probably would have worked out well enough except that Bush decided to parlay his strength into an illegal, ill-conceived and incompetently executed war in Iraq that was doomed to wind up where it stands today - a mess.
Instead of going to aid America by taking the battle to al-Qaeda, NATO is now backed into something much more grandiose and futile. We're part and parcel of a frat boy's fun scheme to reshape the Middle East. The illusion that (a) we're only in Afghanistan and (b) our presence there isn't an essential part of Bush's greater Middle East fiasco is sheer fantasy.
Bush erased all doubts when he told the NATO Secretary General this weekend that the alliance should play a much bigger role in the "war on terror." Now, let's see. That would be George Walker Bush's war on terror, his Global War Without End on Terror, Amen. That would be the very same war that this cretin has incompetently waged for six years now without accomplishing anything except to leave global security in tatters and the world a much more dangerous place.
This is like the falling-down drunk behind the wheel of the schoolbus asking you to put your kids aboard.
No, it's better for NATO to have no defined role even if it means an end to the alliance than to transform it into some multi-national foreign legion to be commanded by that dimwit in Washington. The American people wouldn't follow this clown into another adventure, why should we send our young people to sacrifice their lives in his ill-conceived causes?
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