Georgia sends troops to Afghanistan

What do you know; there was me saying, that the extra troops going to Afghanistan, and extra troops are going, might not be the 40,000 that General McChrystal has been asking for but that it is going to be close be that number with most educated guesses hovering between 30,000 and 34,000 and in today's 'New York Times' we discover where General McChrystal's "missing" troops are coming from with the paper reporting that the United States is scrambling ot coax NATO to provide 10,000 to allow the hype man to come close to the 40,000 extra troops that are required for the surge.

However, with public support for the war at an all time low in Europe's capitals, it is not going to be easy for even the hype fellow to convince his NATO allies to send the required troops. Oh sorry, I almost forgot Tblissi is in Europe and we have the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili pledging between 700 and 1,000 soldiers to Washington's war. Well, those lads are really not to be envied and if Saakashvili doesn't get them killed by the Russians, then they might just forfeit life and limb in Afghanistan for a war that really has nothing to do with them.

Nevertheless, Saakashvili is nothing, if not a gambler and one wonders what the hype man might be promising him; NATO membership is, of course, on the agenda and, who knows, Mr fix-it Obama might even have promised to help him get into the EU. We don't know but what we do know is with demonstrations on the streets of Tblissi seven months ago and with a mutiny in the army as recently as May, "Uncle Sam's" new pal is himself just about as stable as Afghanistan and his country in the longer term could cause more trouble than he is worth.