But just because the dictionary definition of “withdrawal” would indicate that NATO wouldn’t be occupying the nation after that point doesn’t mean they’re not going to keep a major military footprint there going forward, as Gen. Lange says that NATO will keep “around 15,000″ troops there from 2015 on.

Lange says the troops would provide “training and technical support,” but did not indicate if this figure was independent of whatever troops the US plans to keep. The US is in open negotiations to keep an occupation force in Afghanistan through 2024.

Exactly how long beyond 2014 NATO envisions keeping troops in Afghanistan is unclear, but last week German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said he wanted to see NATO commit to supporting Karzai through at least 2025.

“Afghanistan and its people need a clear and reliable commitment to a long-term engagement,” Westerwelle warned, saying that Germany “stands ready” to pledge its own commitment to the situation through that date.

The Bonn Conference is the latest in a long, drawn out series of conferences aimed at “solving” the disastrous situation after a decade of occupation in Afghanistan. With Pakistan boycotting the conference, little has been expected to come out of it.

The commitment through 2025 would be a predictable result, as a previous conference was the one at which NATO decided to commit to an occupation through 2014. The unpopularity of the occupation among voters in several NATO nations may make such a long extension difficult to sell, but US officials have been openly talking about 2024 for quite some time.

At issue are the roadblocks in northern Kosovo, set up by Kosovar Serbs to protest the ethnic Albanian dominated government’s efforts (with NATO help) to crush dissent in the north and close the border to all outside trade.

After a bit of haranguing from NATO, Serbian President Boris Tadic has called on the Kosovar Serbs to remove the roadblocks and let NATO close them off from all outside trade. The Kosovar Serbs, who don’t really have any special reason to listen to the president of Serbia, haven’t reacted so far, prompting “deep concern” from NATO officials.

And even though Tadic played ball, his inability to dictate the behavior of other people of the same ethnicity as him has several in the EU, including Germany, looking to impose various punishments on Serbia, including eliminating them as a candidate for EU membership.

France opposed, but not on the grounds that there isn’t collective racial guilt, let alone on the grounds that the protest in Kosovo is mostly a reaction to harsh crackdowns by the Kosovar regime. Instead, their argument is that they want Tadic’s party to win the next election, and they’re worried that the sanctions will hurt his chances.

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The rally was organized to protest the deaths of four Afghan civilians killed in an overnight attack on their home by NATO troops. NATO confirmed the raid but claimed everyone in the house was an “insurgent.”

The protesters marched against a nearby German military base, and police accused some in the rally of throwing “hand grenades” at the base. Despite the claim, there were no reports of any German soldiers killed in the march, and only two “slightly” wounded.

The marchers in the rally condemned NATO for the raid as well as the Karzai government for allowing it. President Hamid Karzai condemned the raid and accused NATO of acting without consulting Afghan security forces.

The official NATO statement claimed that the raid was a “joint operation” with the Afghan government, and insisted that all four killed, including two women, were members of the “Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan” for the district.

NATO’s statement also accused the four of having a “suicide bomber vest” in their home, as well as “multiple weapons.” The claims were not substantiated by the local police, who had no information suggesting the family targeted was anything but a random family.

The killings spawned a major public protest in the city of Taloqan earlier today, with over 1,500 protesters reportedly turning out. They marched on the nearby German military base before being attacked by police. 12 protesters were killed and 50 others wounded.

Speaking today after an EU summit, French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned every single Arab ruler, which is to say, a decent chunk of the planet, that they face Libya-style intervention if they crack down on protesters.

Sarkozy insisted that no democracy could ever support a nation whose security forces shoot live ammunition at protesters, and suggested that Libya would be a model for future “intervention” in nations that react that way to protests.

This doesn’t exclusively apply to the Arab world, either, as Sarkozy said that the Ivory Coast was “next” on the list of UN mandated wars. Other officials have also pointed to the violence in Syria, with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman demanding “Libya-style” war there. Though it has been the site of some extremely violent clampdowns on protesters, key US-ally Bahrain does not appear to be on the agenda.

Not everyone is on board for a planetwide series of open-ended French and US-led wars, however. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle insisted that “we do not see it as a solution that we threaten every Arab leader with military intervention.” When it comes to a UN Security Council vote, however, the Libya precedent suggests Westerwelle’s voice may be in the minority.

But while some speculated that this would reduce tensions among alliance members, much of the damage is already done, particularly after NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s chiding led to a French and German walkout on Monday.

And the fallout is already being felt, with Germany announcing Tuesday that it is pulling out of all NATO operations in the Mediterranean, saying again that they wanted no part in the ongoing attacks on Libya.

Turkey likewise has been loudly condemning the attacks on Libya. Though Turkey eventually gave up on the idea of blocking NATO’s involvement, the move may further estrange NATO’s third largest member from the alliance.

The attack was the first such incident near the base in nearly a year, following an April, 2010 attack by German soldiers against Afghan troops which killed at least six of them. The German troops defended that attack, claiming they thought the Afghan soldiers were “civilians.”

German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who is in the midst of a scandal related to plagarizing his doctoral thesis, shrugged off today’s killings, saying that the partnership with the Afghan Army was “successful” and that questioning it because of the killings that crop up once in awhile “would only serve our enemies.”

The deaths will likely add another flurry of calls to withdraw from the war in Germany, where voters were assured by the government that Afghanistan wasn’t technically a war for years before the death toll started rising and Guttenberg conceded it was “warlike.” Germany’s constitution forbids them explicitly from offensive wars like the occupation of Afghanistan.

Merkel insisted that the governent was entirely candidate, and that the public “was made adequately clear that there had very probably been civilian victims.” Though it had been reported by the media that this was the case, the Defense Minister at the time, Franz Jung, publicly testified that not a single civilian had been killed, and that everyone was a terrorist. Merkel and others likewise chastised the media for its coverage of the killings, and for the suggestion that they killed large numbers of civilians.

The scandal, beyond the fact that Jung flat out lied to the German public, was that the September 9 massacre, which killed some 100 Afghans, came just two and a half weeks before the German national election on September 27, and the government was insisting on the “appropriate” nature of the killings and the lack of civilian deaths until after the vote.

Jung was reassigned after the vote, but was forced to resign in November 2009 because of his role in the coverup. The head of the German Army was also forced out at roughly the same time, as were some other Defense Ministry officials, for keeping the facts of the killing secret from the broader parliament and the German public.