What is this strange and unfamiliar feeling I'm having? Could it be respect ... for France?! My world has been turned upside down.
This is really good news. France plans to pony up over 1,000 additional troops for eastern Afghanistan, meaning the requirements set out in the Manley Report are almost completely satisfied based on their contributions alone.
CNN:
French President Nicolas Sarkozy plans to announce that France will send 1,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, a British newspaper reported Saturday.
The Times cited unnamed senior ministers as saying Sarkozy wants to demonstrate his commitment to the NATO alliance's Afghan mission during his two-day visit to London next week, which begins Friday.
One minister was quoted as saying that Britain's Defense Ministry had made a working assumption Sarkozy would announce that "slightly more than 1,000 troops" are to be deployed to eastern Afghanistan.
The monumental failure of so many NATO allied countries (most notably Germany, Italy, and Spain) to show any kind of commitment to bringing democracy to Afghanistan is demoralizing. But France has really stepped up here. This will revitalize the mission and should also take some pressure off Harper who has a lot at stake politically in the Afghanistan mission. Good on you, Sarkozy.
Posts
|