Reality-Based President "Pleased" With Nato Troop Contributions

He must know they blew us off. And I mean him as President and our whole country's request for greater support in Afghanistan.

STRASBOURG, France (CNN) -- President Obama hailed the NATO summit in Europe on Saturday, calling the meeting "very productive" and praising the alliance's commitment to the fight in Afghanistan."Today I'm confident that we took a substantial step forward to renewing our alliance to meet the challenges of our time," said Obama.

Speaking to reporters as demonstrators protested against more involvement in Afghanistan, Obama said he was "pleased NATO allies pledged their strong and unanimous support" for America's new strategy in Afghanistan -- which calls for more troops, trainers and civilian workers.

From the NY Times today:STRASBOURG, France — European leaders offered few extra troops on Saturday for President Obama’s intensified effort in Afghanistan, with most of the soldiers only on temporary security assignment, underlining deep divisions within the alliance over the war.As expected, European allies agreed to provide up to 5,000 new troops for Afghanistan, the White House said Saturday. But 3,000 of them are temporary deployments to provide security for the August elections in Afghanistan. A further 1,400 to 2,000 soldiers will also be made available, to form embedded training teams for the Afghan Army and the police.

Mr. Obama is raising the number of American troops this year to about 68,000 from the current 38,000, which will significantly Americanize the war. But the new strategy, which the Europeans have pressed for, is aimed at creating larger and better-trained Afghan security forces that can defend the state and allow the West to leave. So the new training forces are important, Mr. Obama emphasized in a news conference after the meeting

Now what, his Afpak strategy clearly puts the Obama stamp of Approval on our mission in Afghanistan, even as we wind down in Iraq. We could use the help and now we are being left high and dry, and this is after we pledged an arm and a leg in money at the G-20.

Reality Via HA

Barack Obama made an impassioned plea to America’s allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, warning that failure to do so would leave Europe vulnerable to more terrorist atrocities.

But though he continued to dazzle Europeans on his debut international tour, the Continent’s leaders turned their backs on the US President.

Gordon Brown was the only one to offer substantial help. He offered to send several hundred extra British soldiers to provide security during the August election, but even that fell short of the thousands of combat troops that the US was hoping to prise from the Prime Minister.

Just two other allies made firm offers of troops. Belgium offered to send 35 military trainers and Spain offered 12. Mr Obama’s host, Nicolas Sarkozy, refused his request.

The derisory response threatened to tarnish Mr Obama’s European tour, which yesterday included a spellbinding performance in Strasbourg in which he offered the world a vision of a future free of nuclear weapons.