Cox & Forkum: Disproportionate Response II

Cox & Forkum: Disproportionate Response II

AFP: European press warns French troop offer weakens UN force in Lebanon. (LGF)

France faced criticism in the European press for not offering more troops for southern Lebanon, which was seen as jeopardizing the UN force’s difficult task of imposing peace. …Despite expectations that France would provide the bulk of a planned 15,000 strong UN force, Paris said Thursday it would send 200 troops to reinforce the UN mission in Lebanon.

While it said France was prepared to command the enlarged force, it also called for safety guarantees for its soliders before making further commitments.

FoxNews: French Soldiers Among First Peacekeepers to Land in Lebanon.

Boston Herald: With doublespeaking France, honor gets lost in translation. (via InstaPundit)

In recent weeks, France stepped forward to act as a broker of peace in Lebanon. “Act” is the key verb in that last sentence, as it now would seem that the only other verifiable part of the sentence is “in recent weeks.”To correctly parse that sentence, one must understand that when France suggested it wanted to broker peace in Lebanon, it did not necessarily mean “broker” or “peace” or “Lebanon” in the way we might understand those words. The same is true when France further suggested it wanted to “lead” a “strong” “multinational” “force” there.

I don’t speak French, so I have no idea what the actual French words are for those concepts or what possible nuances there may be. I’ve been relying on news reports in English, which now inform me that the French do not intend to send any significant number of troops to what is supposed to be a force of 15,000 in Lebanon, like everyone thought they said they would.

The heady moment of peace brokering having passed, uponsober reflection, the French now say they already have a general and some staff in south Lebanon ordering about UNIFIL, the U.N. monitoring entity there. That’s plenty of leadership, the French suggested: All France needs to contribute now is another 200 combat engineers.

In tactical terms, when it comes to securing a Middle East conflict zone, that can be referred to as “squat.”

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 is a disaster for Israel and the United States.

Israel lost the war but the United Nations lost ALL of its credibility.

And France?

Who can ever depend upon the French for any negotiated agreement?

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