Hollande victory shakes up NATO's Afghan war plans

[rug]

By Laurent Thomet (AFP) – 12 hours ago

BRUSSELS — After pledging to speed up France's pullout from Afghanistan, incoming president Francois Hollande will soon have to reassure NATO allies about his decision to end combat earlier than planned.

Hollande made a campaign promise to start bringing 3,300 French soldiers home this year, ending his country's combat role two years earlier than NATO's carefully crafted plan to fully hand security control to Afghans by 2014.

"I believe that, without taking any risks for our troops, it is the right thing to withdraw our combat troops by the end of 2012," Hollande said last week.

The Socialist leader will bring this message to fellow NATO leaders when they meet at a summit hosted by US President Barack Obama in Chicago on May 20-21, just days after Hollande's oath of office.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iwccq1O1p3mQzDnyEJy63D4eyRvg?docId=CNG.6b175e9d892727e68165f36988be7403.861

There you go. That's how you do it.

[loudsue]

1. Hmmm. This is going to get interesting.

NATO hadn't planned on this, certainly.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Are you listening, Obama?

We lost. Get out. Get over it.

[movonne]

7. This might be a plan all along...things are changing

right before our eyes...countries turning left...and maybe Obama is part of it...just think how Obama spoke before all these countries when he was running for president...

[quinnox]

3. here come the French always surrender jokes

from the right wingers. I can see it already.

Anyway, if we don't fight them over there, we will have to fight them over here. Nope, this saying during the Bush admin still doesn't make any sense.

[datasuspect]

4. Vive La France!

this whole "terra," OBL, war, afghanistan, Iraq - the whole bloody lot - was all contrived nonsense and lies.

OBL goes from global enemy number one to basically being labelled a lone nutbar, isolated by al qaeda, and basically made ineffectual because he lost his mind.

What? because obama killed him?

OBL was never a threat, it was always PR and advertising, and a way to justify a permanent state of war with corresponding record profits.

bullshit. all of it.

[kenny blankenship]

5. Gee-guess there's no point in asking for an additional ten year committment

And there's nothing we could say to change your mind? I don't know why you would want to miss out on a sweet deal like ten more years of propping up the Karzai family, François, but if that's how you really feel then that's the way it is.

[bemildred]

6. I've always like Stan Goff's withdrawal plan:

Let me just say something about how to withdraw. This is my plan. Hey, if Tom Hayden is qualified to write up exit strategies, why not an old grunt like me, eh?

The Plan: The National Command Authority orders all US forces redeployed out of Iraq within one month and out of the theater in two months. Any commander that fails to meet the deadline will be summarily relieved, and replaced with a commander that will thereby be placed on a shorter timeline. I can promise anyone who has no experience of the military that this is perfectly feasible, and that with that kind of command emphasis, the mission can and will be accomplished.