They have a Bone!!

A meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Friday (25 August) saw member states commit up to 9,000 troops to a UN force to oversee the fragile ceasefire in Lebanon. The agreement means that thousands of UN troops will be deployed to the region within as little as a week.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who also attended the meeting in Brussels, welcomed the EU pledges saying they amounted to over half of the total 15,000 troops envisaged under the UN resolution governing the ceasefire. "More than half the force has been pledged today. Not only troops on the ground but we also got naval assets as well as air assets and when you put it altogether Europe is providing the backbone to the force," he said.

But alas, the bone is weak.

The breakthrough came on Thursday when French president Jacques Chirac said he had received "guarantees" on the mandate which allowed him to commit 2000 troops instead of the previous offer of 200.

Referring to the unclear mandate, which had caused so many countries to hesitate, Mr Annan told foreign ministers that Hizbollah would only be disarmed as part of a political process, but that if UN troops encountered a situation on the ground, they would be able to act.

So they can ‘act’ if Hizbullah were to be ‘mean’ to them. I wonder what this ‘act’ means. Stand down if shots are fired, raise the white flag perhaps?

I wonder how exactly they would act when confronted with the following.

IDF forces from the Golani Brigade blasted open a Hizbullah bunker overnight Saturday some 400 meters from the security fence near Rosh Hanikra, it was reported on Sunday. The bunker was discovered a mere stone's throw from a UN post. According to Lt.-Col. Jassem Elian, a senior officer in the Golani Brigade, "Hizbullah dug a 40-meter by two-kilometer pit, in which they built dozens of outposts."

Elian added that the bunker had "shooting positions of poured concrete," and that the combat posts inside were equipped with phone lines, showers, toilets, air ducts, and emergency exits, as well as logistical paraphernalia for Hizbullah.

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