Robert Fisk: A Nato-led force would be in Israel's interests, but not Leba

[mom cat]

Robert Fisk: A Nato-led force would be in Israel's interests, but not Lebanon's
Published: 01 August 2006

Every foreign army - including the Israelis - comes to grief in Lebanon.

So, how come George Bush and Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara - after their inevitable disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq - believe that a Nato-led force is going to survive on the south Lebanese border? The Israelis would obviously enjoy watching its deployment - it will be time for the West to take the casualties - but Hizbollah is likely to view its arrival as a proxy Israeli army. It is, after all, supposed to be a "buffer" force to protect Israel - not, as the Lebanese have quickly noted, to protect Lebanon - and the last Nato army that came to this country was literally blasted out of its mission by suicide bombers.

How blithely the US and British governments have erased the narrative of the old Multinational Force - the MNF - which arrived in Beirut to escort Palestinian guerrillas out of Lebanon in August of 1982 and then, after the massacre of up to 1,700 Palestinian guerrillas at the Sabra and Chatila camps by Israel's proxy Lebanese militia, returned to protect the survivors and extend the sovereignty of the Lebanese government.

Does that sound familiar? And they also came to train the Lebanese army - one of the missions being foisted on the new Bush-Blair army - and they failed. Blown up by suicide bombers at their Beirut headquarters with the loss of 241 American lives, the US Marines retreated into the ground, digging earthworks beneath Beirut airport.

And there they lived until the newly-trained Lebanese army broke apart in February 1984 - at which point, President Ronald Reagan decided to "redeploy" his troops offshore. Like other famous historical redeployments - Napoleon's redeployment from Moscow, for example, or Custer's last redeployment - it represented a national disaster, a colossal blow to US prestige in the region and a warning that such Lebanese adventures always end in tears. The French left shortly afterwards. So did the Italians. A company of British troops had been the first to scuttle out.



http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1207612.ece

[Redstone]

1. 241 American Marines, I might add, blown up by those lovely folks

of Hezbollah. How soon people forget.

Redstone

[kenny blankenship]

2. Did you forget that they went in as "neutral" forces & promptly took sides

in the middle of a shooting civil war, to prop up the minority Christian gov't installed by Israel?
--a behavior most strange for so-called "peacekeepers"

How soon people start rewriting history to support their genocidal bullshit.

(At least Reagan's people had enough sense to 'cut and run' when they discovered the magnitude of their fuckup.)

[JackNewtown]

3. Is this true?

I wasn't even born then so I don't know.

[Selatius]

6. The civil war started over demographic changes

By the end of the 1960s, there were more Muslims and others than Christians in Lebanon, but the parliament rules guaranteed a Christian majority. The Maronite Christian leadership didn't want to cede power to the Lebanese National Movement made up of secular leftists to Sunni and Shi'ite groups to make reflection of the government more in line with demographic reality by taking a new census. The last one taken was in 1932. The result was the civil war when the Maronite leadership refused.

[JackNewtown]

9. thanks for the history lesson

:toast:

[springhill]

8. Yes, it is true.......

Anyone can find out if they really want to.

[GAPeace]

5. Try stationing foreign troops on our soil

And see what happens.

Not sanctioning violence but I am making a case for not blind demonization.

[Ms. Clio]

4. 1982 -- why, that's ancient history

don't bother these good people with facts, sirrah.

[magellan]

7. And these forces will be armed

...unlike the "neutral" NATO forces that went in last time. It's going to be another disaster.