I am all for making Afghanistan a better place and fighting the Taliban. I also agree that Germany and so many other NATO members have to do more.

But let’s not forget: the NATO mandate was to support the rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan and provide some policing. It was expected that the Americans would continue their war on the Taliban.

But what happened? America went to Iraq and allowed the Taliban to remerged. They also ignored warnings from Afghans and the international community that the US sock puppet Hamid Karzai does not have the backing and power to push serious development in Afghanistan ahead. Instead corruption, drugs and local warlords succeeded. The Taliban are back and more and more locals support them instead of ‘their’ government.

Also the international rebuilding efforts were uncoordinated and wasteful. Not the kind of results you want to have to convince the locals that western democracy is better and improves the lives of the poor Afghan people.

The US loves to shift the blame to NATO for it’s own failures. While the rest of NATO is going through a tough realization of their shared failure. Loosing Afghanistan is not an option they say - but most countries lack the political will and commitment to make it work.

Very sad.