So Encouraging, This Int'l Force Thingee

One of the major elements of the "disengagement-convergence-realignment concessionist camp" in Israel, and their supporters abroad, is that (a) once we retreat, the world will love us; (b) the Arabs will then also love us; (c) and if they don't love us, with their full support and appreciation, we can then kick the sh*t out of the Arabs.

And Jews really believe this.

Anyway, here's more encouragement for those living in cloud-cuckoo-land:-

In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme, General MacKenzie [Lewis MacKenzie, a former Canadian general who headed the UN Protection Force in Bosnia during the early days of the siege of Sarajevo] said that he expected it to take a year before the UN force was operational - and it would be hamstrung by a mandate, under Chapter 6 of the UN Charter rather than the more robust Chapter 7, that would allow it to use lethal force only in self-defence.

"We all understand that what comes out of the Security Council is the lowest common denominator for the best-case scenario. What will happen is the worst-case scenario and the UN will be ill-prepared to cope with it," he said.

"I understand that the UN commander will have to get approval from the Lebanese chain of command before he can use deadly force. I mean, it's a recipe for disaster."

General MacKenzie also warned that the lack of a proper mandate could see a repeat of the tragedies of Rwanda or Srebrenica, where UN commanders lacked the authority to prevent atrocities.

He said: "What will happen is that the UN commander, much like General Dallaire in Rwanda, will come back to the UN for permission to intervene and use force, and the UN will turn him down, and then the international community will condemn the commander for not doing what the international community thinks he should be doing.

"But if they read the fine print of the resolution it will be quite clear that he does not have does not have the authority to proceed."

Okay, who didn't read the fine print?

Still not convinced?

Read Fisk:-

Now you see them, now you don't. Hizbollah weapons? None to be seen. And none to be collected by the Lebanese army. For when this august body of men crossed the Litani river yesterday, their officers made it perfectly clear that it would not be the army's job to disarm the Hizbollah. Nor was anyone in Lebanon surprised. After all, most of the Lebanese troops here are Shias - like the Hizbollah - and in many cases, the soldiers who crossed the Litani are not only from the same southern villages but are related to the guerrillas whom they are supposed to disarm. In other words, a typical Lebanese compromise. So whither UN Security Council Resolution 1701?

And this:-

It looked good on television, all those clapped-out Warsaw Pact T-54 tanks and elderly Panhard personnel carriers on flatbed trucks, supposedly returning to the far south for the first time in 30 years. Of course, it wasn't true. Though not deployed on the border, thousands of Lebanese soldiers have been stationed in southern towns since the civil war, dutifully turning a blind eye to Hizbollah's activities, providing none of their fighters were rude enough to drive a truck-load of missiles through their checkpoints.