UNIFIL - Complete Waste of Time

So the foot dragging continues and the ceasefire keeps being bumped around. Israel's incursion into Lebanon seems to only receive condemnations with not even the slightest attempts to verify if Hezbollah is in fact receiving weapons from Syria. Just another indication of how utterly useless the UN and their resolution is. The US has done Israel a massive disservice in this.

Then there is the squabling over the make up of the UNIFIL upgrade.

France, which has agreed to lead the peacekeeping force, called Sunday on European countries to declare quickly the number of troops they will commit.

"We are asking that Europe express its solidarity towards Lebanon as rapidly as possible," the French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, said on French radio, adding that he had requested Finland, which holds the European Union's rotating presidency, to arrange a summit of EU foreign ministers within a few days to determine "what the different European partners plan to do concerning Lebanon."

Douste-Blazy suggested that France could enhance its current offer of 200 troops, once the UN countries establish clear rules of engagement.

"We want to obtain clarification from the United Nations about the mandate of Unifil, about the chain of command, how it is going to be organized, how it should report actions and to whom, and also the rules of engagement," he said.

Another complication in building the force is Israel's insistence that no troops participate from countries with which it has no diplomatic ties.

Malaysia and Indonesia - nether of which has relations with Israel - have both said they would be willing to send troops, although with conditions.

Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, has volunteered to send 1,000 troops. But a top Indonesian official said disarming Hezbollah militiamen could not be part of the arrangement.

"It is sensitive to disarm Hezbollah troops," Juwono Sudarsono, the country's defense minister, was quoted as saying Friday by the Antara news agency.

Israel has a valid point in demanding that the UNIFIL troops be made of countries that recognize their sovereignty. I'd also argue that Indonesia should be disqualified just for the reason that they refuse to perform part of the resolution that is central to the peace, disarming Hezbollah.

Israel won't have any choice in the make up of the UNIFIL troups having some Muslim soldiers, but they certainly have a point that the make up shouldn't have solid blocks of soldiers from countries with strong partisan feelings against Israel.

Then you read things like this:

Bangladesh and Pakistan, traditionally the world's most generous contributors of troops to UN peacekeeping efforts, said they were wary of any deployment to Lebanon that would involve the use of force.

Tasnim Aslam, spokeswoman for the Pakistani Foreign Office, said in a telephone interview Sunday that a traditional peacekeeping role would be more palatable to Pakistani public opinion than a "peace enforcement" role involving skirmishes with either Israeli troops or Hezbollah militants.

"If peace enforcement involves disarming Hezbollah, subsequent to 1559," she said, referring to the UN resolution that called for the disbanding of Lebanon's militias, "is that something that is to be settled by the Lebanese government, or do the UN peacekeepers go in and start taking that role?

"That is something that would make a lot of countries uncomfortable," she said.

Makes it easy to understand why UN forces are generally such a waste of time. If they are wary about using force, why are they involved in a military unit? Is this attitude typical of most UN peace keeping ventures? It certainly appears that way to me.

Of course with diplomats like Mark Malloch Brown running the choice system for the UN, I'm guessing that the force will be primarily made up of those unwilling to fight or just wanting to fight Israel.

Mark Malloch Brown told reporters in New York, "The final word on what is acceptable is ours, and these troops are deployed in Lebanese territory, not Israeli territory." Israel has said it will not accept the participation of Indonesia and Malaysia which do not recognize Israel.

Apparently Brown has missed what the cease fire and the resolutions are about. Maybe he's had his head up his backside for the past couple of months, for he certainly has missed that the whole issue relates to Hezbollah attacking Israel and the reaction to that attack.

The sad thing is that the UN is again proving what a joke it really is.