Word: jaap
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...former ambassador to the U.N. Richard Holbrooke, who will serve as Obama's envoy for Southwest Asia, said last year that the Afghan government "is weak; it is corrupt; it has a very thin leadership veneer." And it's not just the Americans. On Sunday NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer wrote in the Washington Post that "the basic problem in Afghanistan is not too much Taliban; it's too little good governance. Afghans need a government that deserves their loyalty and trust; when they have it, the oxygen will be sucked away from the insurgency...
...compromise on the most difficult issues." Moscow has also initiated a Europe-wide security conference to be held next year to discuss the continent's security frameworks, although there's unlikely to be any enthusiasm in Western Europe for moving beyond NATO as Russia would like. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said it was "crystal clear that the present security structure should remain intact," and that "there is not a glimmer of chance that in whatever discussion NATO could or would be negotiated away...
...NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has consistently called on Europeans to shoulder more of the burden, and particularly to lift so-called "caveats" that some countries have in place to limit deployments to relatively safe parts of Afghanistan. Yet he acknowledges that Europeans are very active in institution building, civic reconstruction, economic assistance, advising on tackling corruption, and helping the Afghan and Pakistani governments improve border security - all areas where the E.U. has a lot of experience...
...same applies to NATO, the labyrinthine alliance whose heads of state and government are now meeting in the Palace - and which is also still under construction after 59 years. On Thursday NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer unveiled a series of decisions reached by the 26 member states that will, he says, "substantially change the Alliance." Yet Scheffer's announcement bitterly disappointed three countries that had hoped to be on a fast track to NATO membership...
Speaking to TIME, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer denies that the rift between NATO members is "a question of Europe vs. America." De Hoop Scheffer says he will ask for 10% more troops at Bucharest, and stresses that Europeans have suffered casualties. But he acknowledges that he will "keep pushing" all the allies to do more. He needs to. The U.S., its armed forces already stretched like a piano wire, is now being forced to dispatch another 3,200 Marines to Afghanistan. The Canadian government of Stephen Harper took the unusual step of threatening to pull...