“We went it alone – and there was progress”

Even to Europeans, going into conflict without “Europe” is like going fishing without an accordion. Thank goodness for the boots on the ground for flipping off Brussels, because in their deeds, they want the mission in Afghanistan to fail:

The European Union’s high-profile police mission in Afghanistan is ineffective and suffers from top-down management from Brussels, where those without any knowledge of local conditions limit local officers in carrying out their jobs, according to the former head of Eupol in Kabul.

Yes, THOSE “internationalist”, lesson-giving sophisticates.

As an example of the difficulties, Vittrup says that NATO and the Afghan government wanted the EU to start training and setting up a 5-6,000 officer Afghan CID department. The EU waited so long to handle the issue, that Vittrup decided it was better to seek forgiveness after the fact, than to wait for the go-ahead.

And they imply that they’re some sort of divine example, a inspiring light in the world.

Discontent with Eupol in Afghanistan is one of the reasons that NATO is expected to set up its own civilian task force at the NATO summit in Portugal next week. Cooperation with the EU just doesn’t work.