Murder of Peacekeepers Raises Stakes in Lebanon
At last it happened. Every one predicted - not least the United Nations officers on the team - that the international UN peacekeeping army in southern Lebanon would be attacked by a Sunni Muslim group attached to al-Qa’ida, and yesterday afternoon three Spanish and three Colombian soldiers paid with their lives for the fulfilment of this prediction.
A roadside bomb between the villages of Marjayoun and Khaim, only six miles from the Israeli border, exploded next to two UN armoured vehicles, killing five UN soldiers and wounding at least four others. Three of the injured were from Spain. The road was at the centre of fierce fighting between the Israeli army and Hizbollah last summer and it is possible - although highly unlikely - that the bombs were munitions left over from those battles. But the straight and remote road between the two villages has been cleared by de-mining officers in the months since the war, and the Lebanese army discovered months ago that Sunni groups around Tripoli had put together maps of southern Lebanon which showed UN patrol routes, including those of the Spanish army.
The Spanish suffered severely for their support for George Bush in the Iraq war, and now, it seems they are paying the price for being part of an expanded UN army in the south of Lebanon, one which was put in place with the encouragement of George Bush and Tony Blair to secure Israel’s northern border after last summer’s conflict. It is an international army commanded by four Nato generals, and many Lebanese regard it as an extension of Nato rather than a UN peacekeeping mission.
Lebanese fire brigade units as well as neighbouring UN contingents rushed to the scene of the attack, but elsewhere in Lebanon an almost equally dangerous outbreak of violence was taking place in the northern city of Tripoli. Here, Lebanese troops were forced to storm an apartment block in the Abu Samra neighbourhood after guerrillas from the Fatah al-Islam group - which the army has been fighting for at least 33 days in the Palestinian camp of Nahr el-Barad - took over the building. At least 10 of the armed men were killed when the soldiers burst into the building - only to find that the fighters had apparently murdered a young Lebanese policeman in front of his wife and young daughter.
At least 62 soldiers and 32 members of Fatah al-Islam - along with 30 civilians - have been killed in the camp, fighting that Lebanese Defence Minister Elias Murr rashly claimed last week to have ended in a Lebanese army victory. Yesterday violence in Tripoli was clearly intended to humiliate him.
Previously, the UN has come under attack from Israeli forces, pro-Israeli guerrillas in southern Lebanon and, occasionally, from Palestinian and Hizbollah fighters. But the Hizbollah has been at great pains to try to protect the new UN force because they fear that just such an attack as occurred yesterday will prompt the US to claim falsely that it was their organisation - which is supported by Iran - that was responsible. In fact, intelligence officers from the French, Spanish and Italian embassies met secretly with Hizbollah officials in Sidon more than three weeks ago to seek assurances that Hizbollah would do their best, as the local armed militia, to protect the international force. The Hizbollah men agreed that they would do their best, but warned that al-Qa’ida-type groups in the Sunni areas of northern Lebanon may well try to breach their security. We shall now find out if America believes this - and it is the truth - or whether Western governments decide to blame Iran by claiming Hizbollah was behind the bombing of the UN troops.
The attack now raises serious questions about whether the enlarged, 11,000-strong UN army - originally placed in the south of the country in 1978 - can fulfil its duties as peacekeepers. Once a peacekeeping army’s soldiers are assaulted, their first priority immediately becomes their own protection rather than that of the civilians around them, or the international Lebanese-Israel border which they patrol. Already massive concrete walls surround the various Nato contingents of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, since their officers have long feared just such an attack.
Lebanon therefore now descends into another, even more serious crisis involving not only their own semi-al-Qa’ida satellite groups, but Western armies as well. Whenever Nato has been involved in Lebanon in the past, it has always been attacked - most devastatingly when US Marines and French paratroopers were assaulted by suicide bombers in Beirut in 1982 at a cost of almost 300 lives. Scarcely an area of Lebanon has not been involved in violence in the past 12 months and each crisis has been worse than the previous crisis, so, as the Lebanese say, here we go again.
Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent for The Independent.
© 2007 The Independent/UK
Just another sorry chapter in the UN peackeeping saga. These forces have proven less than useless in the past. Local thugish movements or governments know that they will do nothing to protect the local populations, are either not armed or lightly armed, and will withdraw if attacked. This leaves the local population at the mercy of the attackers. Look at Bosnia, the Sinai, Rwanda, Lebanon, Somolia, ect. In all cases, the “command by commitee” approach has resulted in more people killed or terrorized.
What tangled webs we weave..
When humans forced to live desperate lives are confronted with injustice that spans generations and ongoing campaigns of lies–the human despair –while the powerful wail that they are the victims of terrorism.
Fisk offers such excellent analysis– the perspectives of Lebanon really are in his writings– even as he is lambasted by those who don’t want to hear anything but the US/UK/Israel position.
Good to remind us of the bombing of barracks back in 1983. People in the US tend to forget about the 58 French paratroopers killed along with the 241 US marines.
Fisk notes something that many tend to overlook; the Lebanese perspective on the UN forces: Lebanese see the peacekeepers as NATO. An issue of concern raised by Fisk –US might blame Iran for the bombing. I realize this is a legitimate concern, especially in the light of open hostility towards Iran. The US blames Hezbollah and Iran for the ‘83 barracks attack. Let’s not forget that the owner of Blackwater had previously offered to send a force of around 1200 soldiers to fight Hezbollah last summer. It is that I’ve really never been convinced the US is interested in full fledged military campaign against Iran. I think the US wants to run a road through Syria.
“On July 10, 2002, [Richard] Perle invited a former aide to Lyndon LaRouche named Laurent Murawiec to address the Defense Policy Board. In a briefing that startled Henry
Kissinger, Murawiec named Saudi Arabia as “the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent” of the United States.
Washington should give Riyadh an ultimatum, he said. Either you Saudis “prosecute or isolate those involved in the terror chain, including the Saudi intelligence
services,” and end all propaganda against Israel, or we invade your country, seize your oil fields, and occupy Mecca.
In closing his PowerPoint presentation, Murawiec offered a “Grand Strategy for the Middle East.” “Iraq is the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot,
Egypt the prize.” Leaked reports of Murawiec’s briefing did not indicate if anyone raised the question of how the Islamic world might respond to U.S. troops
tramping around the grounds of the Great Mosque.
What these neoconservatives seek is to conscript American blood to make the world safe for Israel. They want the peace of the sword imposed on Islam and
American soldiers to die if necessary to impose it. …”
from here:
http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html
Worth repeating:
“Iraq is the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot,
Egypt the prize.”
and, that all roads go through Damascus, Syria
As John Perkins, the former Economic Hit Man, has said, Israel was (although willingly) put in the center of the Middle East as much due to the western powers wanting a base of control in the Middle East as anything else. When “empire” ceases to be a thing of value, we will all live safer lives.
srelf @June 25…
wrote: “…Israel was (although willingly) put in the center of the Middle East as much due to the western powers wanting a base of control in the Middle East as anything else. When “empire” ceases to be a thing of value, we will all live safer lives.”
Yup, tis the way I see it too. Hear, hear!
Peace ever’body
Peacekeeping missions are perceived as being nothing but shills for the US military.
Which is a correct perception.
The U.S. needs to withdraw all troops from UN sponsored “peacekeeping” missions. The missions are not worth the life of even one american soldier.
“The U.S. needs to withdraw all troops from UN sponsored “peacekeeping” missions.”
Probably withdraw from other UN organizations as well or at least some of the funding. The UN is not in the best interests of the United States. As long as we sit on the Security Council with a veto, it is probably worth staying, and since that will never change as we have the veto, :] , then we can block the worst moves out of the UN as necessary. Peacekeepers in Lebanon are a bad idea and we should work to get them out to safety.
The UN is a tool of the globalists (aka the Empire Loyalists), of which the US is the leading member and has the ultimate, final say on what gets approved and what doesn’t. The UN also functions as a soother to pacify people and give them false hope; meaning it exists to be regarded (by naive or ignorant people) as a political body which publicly aims to improve international relations, and to protect and preserve basic, and essential human rights. It’s really effective, huh? Yeah, we’ve come a long way baby. NOT!
“The UN is not in the best interests of the US.” Hello! The UN is not in the best interests of any country/people, except for the globalists mentioned above: the internationalists, elites, warmongers, banksters, profiteers, etc…The UN does the bidding of those mo’fos. Everything else is a smokescreen.
As for this comment: “The missions are not worth the life of even one american soldier.” I’d agree with that sentence, only if it didn’t sound so goddamned exclusive, superior, etc. Soooo fondisblue, are you implying that the life of “one american soldier” is worth more than that of any other person on this planet? I sure hope I’ve misread that sentence, else you need to remove the batteries from yer head and yer head from yer butt.
I feel quite strongly that the UN should be dismantled. It’s a complete sham, a scam, a farce. And even dismantling that one internationalist tool wouldn’t do much good. Do y’all actually think that the Empire loyalists would actually stop fucking with other people if the UN were gone tomorrow? Please.
Richard Posner,
“Copy it; write your own, whatever. Just keep sending it every day and get everyone you know to do the same. NO LETUP! CLOG THEIR SERVERS! TIE UP THEIR EMAIL! EVERY DAY!”
With all due respect, that’s a waste of time, they’re laughing at you and yours, dream on…
btw, don’t you think that they have public (access) servers for their public email, etc. and other servers for their real business? Think about it.
Sincerely,
annemarie j
Sooo annemarie
I enjoyed your hate- filled response. You must be a lot of fun at parties. Every other person on earth is not serving with the U.N. peacekeeping force. The U.S. has the ability to withdraw AMERICAN soldiers from the force. That would be a good place to start. Unless you think, because they are “american” soldiers, they deserve to die before everyone else. Other countries can follow suite if they wish.
p.s. my head and my butt are fine, thank you.
US peacekeeping —–just the phrase is a sick joke.
fondisblue,
My response wasn’t hate-filled. It was actually perturbed, frustrated, confused, irritable.
I’m sorry that you took it the wrong way though. Tis partly my doing. (words don’t always work the way they’re intended) I mean you no harm.
And good to hear that yer head and butt are fine
Ya know, if there were more peace makers (everywhere) there’d be no need (anywhere) for peace keepers.
Peace!
annemarie
wise words. I have six kids,(three teenagers) so I have a very thick skin. no offense taken. Peace.
fondis,
thank you