Sweden edition

Bildt: bigger role for EU in Afghanistan

Published: 27 Jul 09 07:55 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/20920/20090727/

The European Union should take on a larger role in Afghanistan, Sweden's foreign minister, Carl Bildt, has suggested.

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Bildt, writing on his blog, said his conversations with Swedish journalists had informed him that "certain people" were calling on Sweden to "more or less scrap our involvement in Afghanistan". The calls follow news that Swedish troops had been involved in an exchange of gunfire in the north of the country.

Bildt said that he had "great difficulty understanding" the calls for withdrawal. In the blog post, entitled 'Abandon? No, quite the opposite' ('Overge? Nej, Snarare tvärtom'), he argued that for renewed engagement with the country.

"I believe that the European Union can do more to help Afghanistan," he said.

He did not elaborate on the role he envisaged for the EU in Afghanistan. He said Sweden, which holds the rotating presidency of the 27-member bloc, would table a proposal after the summer.

He also used the blog post to praise recent changes to US policy in the country:

"They have recognised the need to protect civilians, and to focus more on civil and economic measures for building peace," he wrote.

TT/The Local (news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518)

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09:22 July 27, 2009 by bocale1

"I believe that the European Union can do more to help Afghanistan"... still not clear to me what Afghanistan we are supposed to help... is Karzai representing the whole Afghanistan? is their social structure, based on clans and very different from our western culture, compatible with the type of democracy we try to export? "Free" elections in middle east countries are so far proved the opposite, giving power to the most religion extremist groups around (Iran, Iraq, Palestinian, etc...). Or, instead, we are talking about a war that Western countries are fighting against Taliban which may represents a threat for us? if so, maybe that should be made clear with all implications, including civil casualties that, in a war, are nearly always an acceptable cost to pay.

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10:02 July 27, 2009 by Huey

Let the Americans and their allies finish what they started. Politics from the EU would be a wrong choice at this time.

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10:51 July 27, 2009 by Weekend_warrior

Sorry, but do you not think that the EU and "Neutral" Sweden, are allies of the United States?

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11:49 July 27, 2009 by bocale1

W_w, of course we are but several military initiatives taken by US under the Bush presidency were definitely unilateral and this cannot be ignored (see Iraq, for example).

Concerning Afghanistan, I think that the point is to agree about medium-long term objectives of the mission (actually there are 2 different missions currently ongoing there) and those are far to be clear for most of the countries participating there.

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12:02 July 27, 2009 by Nemesis

There is a simple choice here.

Either

Leave the Americans to drown in the cesspit they have created for themselves in Afghanisatan and remove all European troops.

OR.

Take the gloves of, saturate Afghanistan with European troops up to at least 500,000 or more, all under European command, not American. Increase the number of US troops to at least 200,000 and put all American troops there directly under European control. Invite the Chinese to send as large a contingent of troops as they can spare. Remove every weapon frrom Afghanisatan and keep the troops there for at least 5 years, so as to stabilise and then very slowly bring the numbers down. Then give the entire bill for this to the US.

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12:07 July 27, 2009 by Eye_Witness

Just replace the word "role" with "roll" in the topic headline, and it would make the perfect sense. " Bigger roll for EU in Afg"

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09:13 July 29, 2009 by byke

I wonder what certain people had referred to sweden as to quit, and for what reasons?

I wonder if other task forces are unhappy with swedish tactics and operations in terms of achievements and quality?

Could it be that the idea of a multinational task force is great on paper but in reality based on success and quality of work, that certain groups are wished to be weeded to achieve a better result?

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