Posted on 07/28/2006 6:44:57 AM PDT by IrishMike
The United Nations has decided to remove unarmed observers from their posts along the Israeli-Lebanese border, moving them in with the peacekeeping force in the area, a spokesman said today. The decision came after one of the posts of the observer force, known as UNTSO, was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike earlier this week, killing four.
These are unarmed people and this is for theirprotection, said Milos Struger, a spokesman for Unifil, the peacekeeping force whose 2,000 members have light weapons for self-defence.
Earlier, Israels UN ambassador has ruled out major UN involvement in any potential international force in Lebanon, saying more professional and better-trained troops were needed for such a volatile situation.
Dan Gillerman also said Israel would not allow the United Nations to join in an investigation of an Israeli airstrike that demolished a post belonging to the current UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.
Israel has never agreed to a joint investigation, and I dont think that if anything happened in this country, or in Britain or in Italy or in France, the government of that country would agree to a joint investigation, Gillerman said yesterday.
Gillerman, who spoke at an event hosted by The Israel Project advocacy group and later inside the United Nations, gave a heated defence of Israels two-week campaign against Hezbollah militants. He said some diplomats from the Middle East had told him that Israel was doing the right thing in going after Hezbollah.
His refusal to conduct a joint investigation will be a slap to UN officials, who have specifically sought to partner with Israel to investigate the bombing.
Gillerman was highly critical of the current UN peacekeeping force, deploye in a buffer Zone between Israel and Lebanon since 1978, saying its facilities had sometimes been used for cover by Hezbollah militants .
(Excerpt) Read more at breakingnews.iol.ie ...
Isn't this about 2 weeks late in coming?
War is not played in accordance with such civilized rules. In war, when you lose, the world is much better off if you're dead so that you can't keep returning to do it again.
So what's the point of having them if they're only present when everything's A-OK?
...Isn't this about 2 weeks late in coming?
The UN Peacekeepers didn't do $hit for 18 years & 2 weeks.
There is the right way and the UN way.
Hopefully, "Koffeee's " rush to condemnation in shouting the Israel deliberately [ oh, excuse me "apparent" deliberate" - killing of these men that he left there in harm's way, will become a "hoisted by is own petard" incident///.......
(You gotta love his trying to squirm outta accusing Israel with deliberately targeting the post with his 'correction' that to say he said "deliberately" was taken out of context - that he said only "apparent" deliberate. That's supposed to fool who? "apparent" = "clearly seen or understood". I'd say Kofffeee's accusation was a "clearly-apparent accusation"
It is way past time for this cancerous growth to be gone
Indeed...the second I hit post I knew I'd see a response :)
Peacekeepers' war
http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/peacekeepers-war/2006/07/28/1153816381168.html
ON WEDNESDAY, as an international summit in Rome discussed putting a United Nations force into Lebanon, the killing of four peacekeepers by an Israeli bomb reminded the world of something it might have forgotten: the UN is in Lebanon already.
Peacekeepers arrived in 1978, supposedly for a few months, and have stayed so long some soldiers have married local women. Now numbering 2000 troops, including Chinese, Irish, Ghanaians and French, they are supposed to enforce UN resolutions by helping Lebanon's army take control of southern Lebanon and disarm the militant Shiite group Hezbollah.
They have done no such thing. Instead, they have been scorned by Israel and shelled by Hezbollah. Under their watch, Hezbollah built up its rocket stores and command posts, enabling it to fire rockets at will into Israel in the past few weeks and before. More than 250 peacekeepers have died since 1978, the greatest casualty count in the history of UN peacekeeping. The UN admits the mission has been a disaster.
But it isn't fair to blame the peacekeepers. Rather, their failure reflects confusion over the goals of their mission, divisions on the UN Security Council over how to reinforce its own resolutions and the declining authority of the world body itself.
To American author David Rieff, who has written widely on peacekeeping, the morass of Lebanon exposes the malaise of the world order. "You have the UN marginalised as never before and at the same time being asked to decide on questions of war and great power," he says. "It comes up against the hard political reality the international system is bust."
This week Rome fiddled while Lebanon burnt. The peace conference in the Italian capital agreed to the formation of a peace-keeping force under a UN mandate but little else. No demand for a ceasefire, no details of which countries might contribute troops, not even a date for when talks will resume probably at the UN next week.
On one side, the UN, France, Germany and a range of Arab countries pushed for an immediate ceasefire. On the other, the US and Britain backed Israel's vow not to stop until it had gravely weakened Hezbollah. Do the groupings sound familiar? Think of March 2003, just before the Iraq war. The comparison isn't exact, yet the word "Iraq" hovered over Wednesday's failed meeting.
Ouch! That's gonna leave a mark. Seems like the UN jobs program has been unmasked.
That's a bingo for me.
The UN post was perched high on hill overlooking the Israeli border ON THE HESSIE SIDE- to keep any eye on the Israelis??? rather than the Hezzies...
So they lived among the Hezzies for 28 years = are we supposed to think the Hessies didn't 'integrate' them, that they just ignored them? That tower on the hill - what a perfect spotting post - for the benefit of the Hezzies. Is this why Kofffeee wouldn't get these men out of harms way?
A definition can be found here.
http://www.smallarmsnet.org/definition.htm
Handguns, rifles, even light machine guns are small arms.
Light weapons include heavy machine guns, rpgs, grenade launchers, small mortars, and anti-aircraft missiles.
High volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. also
2006israelwar or WOT
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Great! Thanks.
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