ROME, Sept. 24 (UPI) -- Italy, which just buried six soldiers killed in Afghanistan, is joining other European nations who are increasingly critical of the NATO-led military campaign.
After a suicide attack that killed six Italian paratroopers and wounded four others in Kabul last week, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he was anxious to bring Italian troops home "as soon as possible."
Italy has 3,100 soldiers stationed with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force; 500 of them will be brought back home immediately, Berlusconi said, but that should not be much of a shock to NATO, as those soldiers were in the country only temporarily to secure last month's presidential elections.
More of a shock is the general sentiment in Europe toward the war in Afghanistan, at a time when top military officials are actually calling for more troops to be sent there.
U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal, the top American military commander in Afghanistan, in a report leaked to The Washington Post, gives a sobering assessment of the war there. McCrystal says an additional 30,000 soldiers are needed, mainly for training Afghan troops, to win the war against the Taliban.
While most of the reinforcements would come from the United States, European nations would have to chip in as well -- and that's not so easy to do, as the war in Afghanistan is increasingly unpopular in Europe.
According to a report by The (London) Times, Britain is preparing to send an additional 1,000 troops to Afghanistan, despite the fact that every other Brit wants London to bring all troops home.
London has 9,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan, the second-largest force behind the United States, which has 62,000 soldiers in the country.
In Germany, half of the population wants to end the German contribution to ISAF, and nine in 10 say a request for additional troops should be denied. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is running for chancellor, said last week that in 2013, he wants to have the conditions in place to start pulling out German troops. Germany is the mission's third-largest contributor, with 4,500 soldiers in the northern provinces.
France, which has 3,000 troops in Afghanistan, is already overstretched with its military presence in Lebanon and may not be able to commit additional troops to ISAF, observers say.
