British envoy says mission in Afghanistan is doomed

 Britain’s Ambassador to Afghanistan has stoked opposition to the allied operation there by reportedly saying that the campaign against the Taleban insurgents would fail and that the best hope was to install an acceptable dictator in Kabul.
Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, a Foreign Office heavyweight with a reputation for blunt speaking, delivered his bleak assessment of the seven-year Nato campaign in Afghanistan in a briefing with a French diplomat, according to French leaks. However sources in Whitehall said the account was a parody of the British Ambassador’s remarks.
François Fitou, the deputy French Ambassador to Kabul, told President Sarkozy’s office and the Foreign Ministry in a coded cable that Sir Sherard believed that “the current situation is bad; the security situation is getting worse; so is corruption and the Government has lost all trust”.

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Pat Robertson: Nuke strikes in US after the election

Christian Broadcasting Network co-founder Pat Robertson, in a new update to his Web site, states that, "we have between 75 and 120 days before the Middle East starts spinning out of control."

The 700 Club host is convinced that Israel will attack Iran's nuclear energy facilities shortly after the US presidential election, triggering a series of "dramatic events" that conclude only once "God has rained fire on the islands of the sea and on the invading force coming against Israel."

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Brussels in stand-off with Russia on Georgia

European Union monitors were due to start a delicate mission in Georgia today aimed at helping to restore the country's fragile stability, with arguments between Brussels, Tbilisi and Moscow about the scope of the deployment still unresolved.
Under the EU-brokered ceasefire agreement that ended the brief summer war between Georgia and Russia, both sides are committed to withdrawing their forces to pre-conflict positions once international observers are in place.
But, far from pulling out of the separatist Georgian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russia has recognised the enclaves as independent states and announced plans for the long-term stationing of 8,000 troops. Moscow has also refused to allow the EU monitors access to the two regions, even though they are mandated to work throughout Georgia. "We have a clear stand - off here and I do not see how immediately we will get out of it," said an EU diplomat in Tbilisi.

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Confronting Taliban, Pakistan Finds Itself at War

 An estimated 250,000 people have now fled the helicopters, jets, artillery and mortar fire of the Pakistani Army, and the assaults, intimidation and rough justice of the Taliban who have dug into Pakistan’s tribal areas.
About 20,000 people are so desperate that they have flooded over the border from the Bajaur tribal area to seek safety in Afghanistan.
Many others are crowding around this northwest Pakistani city, where staff members from the United Nations refugee agency are present at nearly a dozen camps.

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Japan Reports Rare Trade Deficit

 Japan, a nation that rode exports to become the world's second-largest economy, posted a highly unusual trade deficit in August.

It was an alarm signal for the country's already shrinking economy and yet another worrisome indicator for troubled global markets. The August figure was Japan's first monthly trade deficit in 26 years, excluding the atypical month of January, when exports here always drop for the holidays.

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2008 Vice Presidential Debate - A Foreign Policy Breakdown

The first and only 2008 Vice President Debate is over, and between Governor Sarah Palin’s “shout out” to third-graders from a particular elementary school and imploring “Joe Six-packs” and “Hockey Moms” to band together or Senator Joe Biden’s quip about the “ultimate bridge to nowhere” and comments about how much time he spends at the Home Depot in Wilmington, Delaware the two actually spent quite a bit of time discussing their respective positions on foreign policy.


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Can We Surge in Afghanistan?

The dialog between McCain and Obama in the presidential debate was mind blowing. Both are in full agreement on the need to increase our troop presence in Afghanistan. However, neither of them offer any firm plan to cut troop levels in Iraq -- something necessary to surge in Afghanistan. Regardless of policy positions being crafted by their staff and advisers, this issue is defining itself with the increasing strain on our military that continues to suffer the pain of continued deployments.

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