From America's wannabe equal: Sorry, barely holding it together at the airport cocktail lounge. All we can do to cope with the deployment of 16,000 photogenic peacekeepers worldwide. Really, it's quite a job.

FRANCE CANNOT HELP IN SOUTH AFGHANISTAN: MINISTER

PARIS September 21, 2006 (Reuters) - NATO's top commander of operations, James Jones, has requested up to 2,500 extra troops to combat fiercer-than-expected Taliban resistance in the south before the onset of winter in coming weeks.

Some analysts had speculated that France might help but Alliot-Marie told RFI radio that the French were already stretched leading the command of forces in Kabul.

"Today, the situation in Kabul is stabilized but extremely fragile. We are mobilizing all of our forces there. There is no question that we can take some of our forces away from Kabul to send them to the south of Afghanistan."

Alliot-Marie said France, which has some 2,000 troops [1,870, but who's counting?] in Afghanistan under different operations, was also participating in missions in countries like Ivory Coast and Lebanon. ... British, Dutch and Canadian soldiers are leading an alliance push into the south, the most lawless part of Afghanistan.

PFFT (What is this?): Overcommitted 1½ | Fully committed ½ | Rayonnement français 0