Sunday, August 13, 2006

Answers do happen

Sometimes you ask the question never expecting an answer, like the oft asked; where are the Lebanon UN troops coming from?


Now, with a resolution forthcoming, but more on that after our answer:


France and Italy, along with predominantly Muslim Turkey and Malaysia, signaled willingness Saturday to send troops for a beefed-up U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, but consultations are still needed to hammer out the force's makeup and mandate.

New Zealand and Ireland were among smaller nations saying they might contribute peacekeepers.


Back to the drawn out negotiations between France and the US where we get an interesting insight into the stalling tactics of the latter.


As France had argued for, the resolution strengthens the existing U.N. force in southern Lebanon — UNIFIL, which now has 2,000 soldiers acting as observers and has been in place since 1978.

Washington has been concerned over UNIFIL's ineffectiveness in containing violence along the Israel-Lebanon frontier and it originally pressed for the deployment of a new international force separate from UNIFIL.


What a crock of transparent bullshit! Washington were staqlling but their justification just doesn't hold water. I'm not really sure 15,000 troops will make a difference, but 2,000 simply represents an observer group.

3 comments:

Praguetwin said...

I've heard there will be an additional 15,000 Lebanese, but it seems like 30,000 is still going to be insufficient. Do you think Hezbollah is just going to volutarily disarm?

romunov said...

From what I recall, Ireland will not be sending troops in, because Israel already fragged a few of them.

Cartledge said...

Ireland will not be sending troops in,
So spoil a perfectly good story :)
I guess we'd better dredge Eastern Europe.