Gates: Libya War Exposes NATO'S Chronic Weakness!

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned NATO allies for their over-dependence on US military might, saying that it was putting the Libya mission and the Alliance at risk. Painting a bleak picture of the state of the 28-nation transatlantic alliance, Gates said America's "partners in crime" were running short of munitions after 11 weeks of raids in Libya. In other words, these "partners" need to buy a lot more "stuff" from our defense contractors, so that America's lagging economy can get a boost. Gates continues: "Frankly, many of those allies sitting on the sidelines do so, not because they do not want to participate, but simply because they cannot." Did I mention that my Vietnam war experience was fun? Frankly, Gates has no idea of what a REAL war is all about! Gates continued: That the NATO-led ground war in Afghanistan had scored important accomplishments (read innocent civilians killed, like the ones our US Air Force killed in Dresden, while my mother, grandmother, and I were condemned to watch from a nearby hill, barely south of that doomed city). In Afghanistan, Gates said it was worrying that an alliance with two million in uniform has "struggled", at times desperately, to sustain a deployment of 25,000 to 45,ooo troops and faced shortages of helicopters, transport aircraft, maintenance and surveillance planes. Turning to the NATO operation in Libya, it has become painfully clear that similar shortcomings - in capability and will -have the potential to jeopardise the alliance's ability to conduct an integrated (must mean all races are welcome to die in the Libyan desert), effective and sustained air-sea campaign), Gates said!