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Foreign Policy Shifts?

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Flash said:
They may poke fun at themselves but us belittling the sacrifices of our allies doesn't help at all. The Canadians and Brits I have worked with were all especially proud of their country's service in Afghanistan and have the casualties to show for it. Simple courtesy in acknowledging the shared sacrifice many of our NATO and other allies have borne with us in Afghanistan is not that hard and a much better way to act than being ungrateful jerks.
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Figured I'd get this in before the lock...

I haven't encountered anyone whose served over there whose been dismissive of or belittled the sacrifices our NATO counterparts have made in the war. It'd be pretty arrogant presumption a persons part if that's what they've gleamed from an off the cuff response to an absolutely rediculous post on an Internet forum. If that's what actually happened in this thread (I couldn't help but notice it spun out of control), I'd wager that we've reached a point where we're manufacturing things to get upset about.

I have encountered a lot of frustration with the political leadership due to what has been perceived as gross mismanagement of the war over the last decade or so (and we can look back to how that mismanagement started with GWB before being inherited by BO), especially in recent years during the "draw down". Included in that is frustration what ISAF role has become and acceptance that our collective presence (US, NATO and other) there has become little more than a half assed effort, doing the bare minimum to keep the country from falling to the Taliban, again and reverting (back to) a terrorist safe haven. Such frustration could be the source of the wording for the proliferated ISAF patch that seems to have somehow managed to only offend Americans who are not in Afghanistan. To be clear, the frustration isn't directed laterally towards peer nation militaries but upward at the political leadership that is running the show.

Do we, Americans, find our European partners a bit quirky and poke fun at that? Yes (I mean seriously why do they need to sell several different kinds of Barbie dolls in an exchange in a war zone?), and they do the same with us and also each other. That's the nature of the beast.
 
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