I JUST wrote a long post on Hezbollah, but mostly as a vehicle to express the view that international negotiators just keep talking because that is simply what they do. They don't solve problems, they just talk. And I am not exclusively blaming the Europeans.
Unfortunately the computer crashed and I lost the essay. Too lazy to repeat myself. An abbreviated version would include Condoleeza Rice's comment that to "have a ceasefire you have to have a plan." No kidding. And that her plan includes Hezbollah voluntarily disarming. Hmm. That indeed is a plan. A little more realistically is the latest "plan" by the Lebanese government in which the terrorists do not openly display their weapons. And best yet--this is all reported seriously by AP.
I started the deleted port with the comment that the arc of history is almost invariably visible in hindsight, but not so now. We can see the vapor trail already. We can see the explosion if we care to look. That most prefer not to is understandable. Why drive yourself mad worrying about something you cannot change. I don't blame them. But that won't stop the coming events.
An AP dispatch was a real howler today. Remember how the French were going to mount up and save the day? We'll D-Day has arrived as described:
The first
small contingent of reinforcements for the peacekeeping force - 49
French soldiers - landed Saturday in inflatable dinghies at the
southern Lebanese coastal town of Naqoura, with 200 more expected next
week.
So we got 49 French guys--the equivalent of a Seabee platoon--going in in their little rubber boats to setup tents for a vastly larger, huge deployment of a, uhh, company-sized contingent. Thanks France. One thing we can count on is France being France.
Also mentioned, though AP would rather not mention it at all, is that there were 2,000 U.N. "troops" in Southern Lebanon BEFORE the war. What were they doing? To hazard a guess the same thing Blue-Helmet guys do all over the world. In something like this order: Nothing. More nothing. Take bribes. Rape the indigenous women. But now things are going to change. Right.



