Thats not what he originally said, that was his explanation after he realised that he had fued up.
His words (paraphrasing here) were "NATO doesn't do COIN ops because it doesn't train or equip for them."
1. He is fundamentally correct. NATO as an organization doesn't do that. It also wasn't chartered to do that.
2. He put out clarifying remarks after some individual NATO members took offense as did some here on pprune.
3. So he didn't say what you implied and he clarified afterwards just to ensure no one took offense.
And yet he's still wrong. Very conveniant position you take.....