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...officer in Afghanistan, has said, "We're not going to win this war." At best, he says, international troops can hope to reduce it "to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat." U.K. ambassador Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, in a leaked diplomatic briefing with the French deputy ambassador, is said to have described the current situation in Afghanistan as "bad; the security situation is getting worse - so is corruption - and the government [of President Hamid Karzai] has lost all trust." The American strategy, he said, "is doomed to fail...
...want to tell our compatriots in all the countries of Europe that they can and should have confidence," declared French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who hosted the meeting since France now holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet echoed a nearly identical message of assurance. "The force of unity that we showed today," Trichet said, "is a fundamental element of confidence...
...their infinite wisdom, European governments have now decided that letting the state effectively get control of ailing banks is the way out the current financial mess. But the French government really messed up the last time it had control of a chunk of the nation's banking system. That was when President Francois Mitterrand nationalized banks in the 1980s. In fact, for a good part of the 1990s, the French budget was knocked sideways because of the losses incurred at just one state-run bank, Credit Lyonnais. The German state's track record in banking isn't much better. Regional...
Markets loved it, and have rebounded. And the Europeans are feeling pretty good about it all, especially French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who got the various governments to agree on a coordinated plan after two weeks of nasty bickering. Built into the European bailout is a subtle but unmistakable anti-American touch. For the Europeans are taking a very different tack from the U.S. in mounting their bailout, and quite deliberately so: they think U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson badly messed up his bailout...
Much of the griping has been taking place anonymously, so as not to cause political ructions. But not all of it. France's Finance Minister Christine Lagarde told French radio shortly before last weekends G7 summit: "As soon as you let one domino fall, the rest risk crashing down." She didn't exonerate Lehman - "there were certainly bad decisions taken by that bank, bad management," she said. But under the present panicky conditions, no bank should be allowed to go under. That's the motto the Europeans have adopted as part of their plan...