NATO Summit Debates Afghan Drawback

World leaders at a NATO summit in Chicago will enter their second day of talks Monday, with an end to the war in Afghanistan first on the agenda. While the United States has endorsed a graduated withdrawal of troops to be complete around 2014, new French President François Hollande said France’s soldiers will leave by the end of 2012, calling it “a question of French sovereignty.” Fifty leaders from the 28 NATO countries are attending the summit, including Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. Protests continued in the city outside the talks, including one in which dozens of post–Sept. 11 U.S. military veterans discarded service medals, calling them “representations of hate” and “cheap tokens.”