| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Black Elk" |
| Date: |
21 Oct 2005 06:17:05 PM |
| Object: |
The proper use of the military. |
NATO says forces will aid Pakistan quake effort
The Associated Press, Reuters
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2005
BRUSSELS NATO allies agreed Friday to send hundreds of military engineers,
medics and troops to reinforce the earthquake relief effort in Pakistan.
The alliance also said it was stepping up its airlift of aid to Pakistan
from Europe, but continued to struggle to find the helicopters that are
needed to rush aid into the high mountains of Kashmir and northern Pakistan.
"This is the first time NATO has done something like this on this scale,"
NATO's secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said after alliance envoys
meeting in Brussels approved the plans.
"NATO is not a humanitarian organization. NATO is playing its role within
the framework of what it is," he added, saying he hoped the troops could be
deployed as soon as possible.
De Hoop Scheffer said the United Nations aid coordinator, Jan Egeland, had
visited NATO earlier but did not repeat an appeal for the alliance to stage
a massive air evacuation on a scale similar to the 1948-49 Berlin airlift.
"He did not mention it," de Hoop Scheffer said. "It's more use for us to
send engineers with road-clearing and snow-moving equipment - because it
will be winter soon - than that sort of operation, which, to my knowledge,
Pakistan has not requested."
NATO officials said up to 1,000 troops would go, led by engineers from
Spain, Italy and Poland who will seek to clear roads blocked by the quake
and subsequent mudslides so aid can reach stricken areas over land.
In addition, NATO will set up a field hospital, a mobile field headquarters
to help coordinate operations with the UN, and send three Lithuanian water
purification units.
NATO officials said the alliance would also fly four heavy-lift helicopters
from Germany, which has already sent two big cargo choppers. Officials
pointed out that individual allies have sent about 40 helicopters to
Pakistan, with the United States taking a lead role.
De Hoop Scheffer also announced NATO was speeding up the airlift to Pakistan
with 12 flights by giant C-17 cargo planes provided by Britain and the
United States to carry aid from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in the
next few days.
In Pakistan, the Turkish prime minister made a record pledge Friday to a
faltering relief effort for the 3.3 million people who have been left
homeless as survivors in distant mountains scrambled for aid before the
harsh Himalayan winter closes in.
The prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, offered $150 million in cash and
aid, making Turkey the biggest single donor nation. On Thursday, the UN
warned that it had so far funded only about a quarter of its urgent appeal
for aid.
Central to the NATO plan is the deployment of engineers and commanders from
the alliance's elite NATO Response Force. NATO officials said it would mark
the largest operation for the force, which has been used to help protect
elections last year in Afghanistan, guard the Athens Olympics and coordinate
an airlift of European aid to the United States after Hurricane Katrina.
NATO is running an airlift of aid to Pakistan from bases in Germany and
Turkey.
The operation from Turkey is NATO's biggest joint airlift with the UN
refugee agency.
It aims to ferry about 860 metric tons of UNHCR supplies to Pakistan over 10
days.
The operation has moved more than 60 metric tons of tents, blankets and
other items from Turkey to Pakistan, the refugee agency said.
BRUSSELS NATO allies agreed Friday to send hundreds of military engineers,
medics and troops to reinforce the earthquake relief effort in Pakistan.
The alliance also said it was stepping up its airlift of aid to Pakistan
from Europe, but continued to struggle to find the helicopters that are
needed to rush aid into the high mountains of Kashmir and northern Pakistan.
"This is the first time NATO has done something like this on this scale,"
NATO's secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said after alliance envoys
meeting in Brussels approved the plans.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/21/news/nato.php
--
Doomed to defeat by the superior Allied forces, it was thought that the
forces of fascism had been routed and that the world was safe for democracy.
The irony is that the intelligence apparatus of the U.S. government saved
many of the most hardened Nazi war criminals from a certain execution in
order to recruit them as scientists, spies and guerrilla warriors in the
anticipated war with the Soviet Union. And this had dire effects on our
country's democracy.
Many Americans may not be aware of this wide spread recruitment of SS and
Gestapo alumni into our intelligence agencies but it has had a profound
effect on the shaping of our domestic and foreign policy, often with ruinous
consequences. The legacy of this incorporation of Nazis into the CIA and
U.S. military has been a half a century of support for fascist regimes,
juntas, death squads, torture and the overthrow of democratically elected
governments around the world.
http://archive.democrats.com/view2.cfm?id=9099
--
The fair use of a copyrighted work:
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site
is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
.
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| User: "Docky Wocky" |
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| Title: Re: The proper use of the military. |
21 Oct 2005 09:38:15 PM |
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Gee. If the proper use of a military is cleaning up after hurricanes and
earthquakes, then they obviously don't need all them guns and tanks and
planes and ships and stuff, do they?
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| User: "Black Elk" |
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| Title: Re: The proper use of the military. |
21 Oct 2005 11:12:42 PM |
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"Docky Wocky" <mrchuck@lst.net> wrote in message
news:rCh6f.10069$Io4.1225@trnddc06...
Gee. If the proper use of a military is cleaning up after hurricanes and
earthquakes, then they obviously don't need all them guns and tanks and
planes and ships and stuff, do they?
That's the general idea.
--
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired,
signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
those who are cold and are not clothed."
President Dwight D. Eisenhower
April 16, 1953
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