Now We Know Why The French Like The United Nations
It is because they mirror one another so much, that is my assumption, and today's news from the WaPo's morning edition confirms that:
France on Thursday rebuffed pleas by U.N. officials to make a major contribution to a peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, setting back efforts to deploy an international military force to help police a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, according to U.N. and French officials.
French President Jacques Chirac said Thursday that France would contribute only 200 additional troops to the U.N. operation in southern Lebanon, which the Security Council wants to expand from 2,000 troops to 15,000. Chirac said that a force of about 1,700 French troops and crew members on warships off the coast would provide logistical support.
Senior U.N. peacekeeping officials said they had hoped France would send thousands of troops, forming the backbone of a large and robust mission that would spur other countries to join. Under a Security Council resolution adopted last week, the U.N. force is to help 15,000 Lebanese soldiers take control of southern Lebanon as Israeli soldiers withdraw.
The French decision on troop levels, reported Thursday in the Paris daily Le Monde, sent U.N. officials scrambling during a meeting here to find countries willing to fill the void.
At the meeting, several governments, including Indonesia, Nepal and Bangladesh, committed to send a total of nearly 4,000 troops, while Britain, Denmark and Germany agreed to send warships to patrol Lebanon's Mediterranean coast for arms smuggling. The United States pledged to provide logistical support, but not ground troops.
Germany's U.N. ambassador, Thomas Matussek, said that pending parliamentary approval, his government would also provide customs officers and specialized police to help Lebanon monitor its border with Syria, a key transit point for Hezbollah's arms supplies.
But there were no firm commitments to contribute personnel for a crucial, well-equipped spearhead force of 3,500 troops that the United Nations is trying to get into southern Lebanon within the next 10 days, according to India's U.N. ambassador, Nirupam Sen. The United Nations had hoped that the mission would be made up largely of forces from advanced military powers, including France, Italy, Spain and Turkey, whose troops and firepower could deter challenges.
Typical French. They are willing to speak up and even interfere with another nation's sovereign right to defend itself, but when it comes time to pony up they back out. They raised a stink over Israel going into its fourth week of engagements with Hezbollah, decried the collateral damage being caused by Israel (try again, surrender monkeys as Israel did not place those people in the target area; complain to Hezbollah about their civilin dead), and proclaimed that if Israel were left on its own that their war would destabilize the region.
As if the Middle East were ever truly stable in the first place, right?
France must think that the rest of the world lives in a box. Here in America, we gave Israel their wide latitude, and in the end it was a dovish prime minister who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory because he did not want to really engage his enemy. And the Israeli people know this; that would be why there is talk of removing Prime Minister Olmert within the Knesset.
But after all that whining and crying by the French, now they do not want to commit troops. We could have seen that earlier this week with the news this week that the French are hesitant about sending ANY troops because there is no clear mandate from United Nations as to what their role will be.
If this is the case, and the force itself is going to be a bare-bones minimum, then why did anyone get involved in the first place? We--the world--should have let Israel continue. And rather than pushing them to end this war, we should have encouraged Prime Minister Olmert to really cut the IDF loose, and let them fight Hezbollah. See, part of this failure lies at his feet. He held back. When he called up the reserves, he waited another ten days before committing them. And whiule an air campaign is nice to soften up an enemy, it cannot be the only tactic utilized. Furthermore, it does not help your cause when you are warning you enemy you are about to bomb a region.
This peacekeeping mission is already on fire, and it does not appear to be getting any better. And unless the French change their minds, making a force of equal size to help the Lebanese army patrol the southern region of Lebanon is looking more bleak by the day.
Marcie
It is because they mirror one another so much, that is my assumption, and today's news from the WaPo's morning edition confirms that:
France on Thursday rebuffed pleas by U.N. officials to make a major contribution to a peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, setting back efforts to deploy an international military force to help police a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, according to U.N. and French officials.
French President Jacques Chirac said Thursday that France would contribute only 200 additional troops to the U.N. operation in southern Lebanon, which the Security Council wants to expand from 2,000 troops to 15,000. Chirac said that a force of about 1,700 French troops and crew members on warships off the coast would provide logistical support.
Senior U.N. peacekeeping officials said they had hoped France would send thousands of troops, forming the backbone of a large and robust mission that would spur other countries to join. Under a Security Council resolution adopted last week, the U.N. force is to help 15,000 Lebanese soldiers take control of southern Lebanon as Israeli soldiers withdraw.
The French decision on troop levels, reported Thursday in the Paris daily Le Monde, sent U.N. officials scrambling during a meeting here to find countries willing to fill the void.
At the meeting, several governments, including Indonesia, Nepal and Bangladesh, committed to send a total of nearly 4,000 troops, while Britain, Denmark and Germany agreed to send warships to patrol Lebanon's Mediterranean coast for arms smuggling. The United States pledged to provide logistical support, but not ground troops.
Germany's U.N. ambassador, Thomas Matussek, said that pending parliamentary approval, his government would also provide customs officers and specialized police to help Lebanon monitor its border with Syria, a key transit point for Hezbollah's arms supplies.
But there were no firm commitments to contribute personnel for a crucial, well-equipped spearhead force of 3,500 troops that the United Nations is trying to get into southern Lebanon within the next 10 days, according to India's U.N. ambassador, Nirupam Sen. The United Nations had hoped that the mission would be made up largely of forces from advanced military powers, including France, Italy, Spain and Turkey, whose troops and firepower could deter challenges.
Typical French. They are willing to speak up and even interfere with another nation's sovereign right to defend itself, but when it comes time to pony up they back out. They raised a stink over Israel going into its fourth week of engagements with Hezbollah, decried the collateral damage being caused by Israel (try again, surrender monkeys as Israel did not place those people in the target area; complain to Hezbollah about their civilin dead), and proclaimed that if Israel were left on its own that their war would destabilize the region.
As if the Middle East were ever truly stable in the first place, right?
France must think that the rest of the world lives in a box. Here in America, we gave Israel their wide latitude, and in the end it was a dovish prime minister who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory because he did not want to really engage his enemy. And the Israeli people know this; that would be why there is talk of removing Prime Minister Olmert within the Knesset.
But after all that whining and crying by the French, now they do not want to commit troops. We could have seen that earlier this week with the news this week that the French are hesitant about sending ANY troops because there is no clear mandate from United Nations as to what their role will be.
If this is the case, and the force itself is going to be a bare-bones minimum, then why did anyone get involved in the first place? We--the world--should have let Israel continue. And rather than pushing them to end this war, we should have encouraged Prime Minister Olmert to really cut the IDF loose, and let them fight Hezbollah. See, part of this failure lies at his feet. He held back. When he called up the reserves, he waited another ten days before committing them. And whiule an air campaign is nice to soften up an enemy, it cannot be the only tactic utilized. Furthermore, it does not help your cause when you are warning you enemy you are about to bomb a region.
This peacekeeping mission is already on fire, and it does not appear to be getting any better. And unless the French change their minds, making a force of equal size to help the Lebanese army patrol the southern region of Lebanon is looking more bleak by the day.
Marcie
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 9:29 AM
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