Speaking today in the wake of a high profile White House meeting, newly elected French President Francois Hollande insisted that his campaign promise to withdraw from Afghanistan had not changed.
“I reminded President Obama of the commitment that I made to the French people – the withdrawal of combat troops between now and the end of 2012,” Hollande said. Hollande defeated Nicolas Sarkozy in a run-off vote.
Obama, sitting next to Hollande during the comments, said that the two agreed on a “long-term” commitment to Afghanistan. France, as with the rest of NATO, is planning on funding Afghanistan’s massive military more or less forever.
But throwing money at Afghanistan and participating militarily in the occupation are two different things, and while both France and the US have seen polls showing overwhelming popular opposition to the occupation, France will be out at the end of the year. The US, by contrast, has a deal to keep troops in the country through at least 2024.
Good for France. Damn the world neoconnery, now I'm finding myself having to agree more with ugly Socialists than with the right.
La Gauche is not to be sneered at if they take the right decision.
To be socialist is not a bad thing per se. In the US, unfortunatley, the depth of knowledge about Socialism, Communism, etc is very shallow mainly because of the hysterics with anything that has to do with leftist ideologies. By the way, I'm not Socialist, let alone Communist.
I'll got further and say that a tad bit more socialism and social conscience wouldn't hurt America one bit. Individualism and liberty above all else is nice but is not without its drawbacks.
The masters of war will make him change his mind before then.
Hard for Obama to get his head around a world leader who doesn't put political expedience first. The Frenchman's doing what he got elected to do, unlike his American confrere.
Good start. When is Sarkozy going to be tried for Libyan atrocities?