Check out "NATO Didn't Lose Afghanistan," a critique of the United States' post-9/11 activities in that Central Asian country, by author, activist, and former National Public Radio journalist Sarah Chayes (left). From her home base in Kandahar, Chayes contends that NATO troops don't deserve their current status as "the favorite whipping boy" for "the unraveling situation." First of all, she writes, the 26-country alliance has done a better job than Americans alone did to train Afghans. She argues that NATO should've been brought in not years after U.S.-led intervention, but rather soon after the 1st-ever invocation on September 12, 2001, of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which states:The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Once in, NATO ought to have been "given the kind of muscular peacekeeping mission it learned to conduct in the Balkans." But it wasn't -- and so now the United States should "offer gratitude and support, rather than blame," Chayes concludes.
