900 French troops, tanks due in Lebanon mid-September

[tocqueville]

1 hour, 57 minutes ago

PARIS (AFP) - A 900-man French battalion equipped with 13 tanks and heavy artillery will arrive in south Lebanon by September 15 to beef-up the international force there, the military said.

Part of France's 2,000-strong overall contribution to the UN force, the battalion is equipped with 13 Leclerc armoured tanks, the most powerful in the French military, a spokesman for the armed forces chief of staff said Tuesday.

It will include two mechanised infantry units, two artillery units and a logistical supply unit, equipped with 155-millimetre canons, a short-range anti-aerial defence system and a Cobra radar, he said.

Due to travel to Lebanon by sea, it is the first of two extra batallions pledged by President Jacques Chirac last week to reinforce the 400 French troops already serving in the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060829/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictfranceforce

[Capt_Nemo]

1. Good news

Well, after these news I'm starting to believe that this force will stand a chance of success:
"You target (by mistake, of course :sarcasm:) the UN posts and you'll get hit by 155 mm shells", is a good idea.
It could have spared the life of 4 UN peacekeepers last month.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/auf1.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/leclerc.htm
Now some Rafales, Eurofighters and AWACS for air cover and air support would make it a little more
credible, but nevertheless its much better than the current state of affairs...

[ShockediSay]

2. AND I hope they can shoot down offending aircraft nt

[Igel]

3. I'd settle for

"You set up shop near an apartment building or UN facility, or threaten a UNIFIL member in the commission of his duties, and you get raked with automatic machine gun fire."

Won't happen, though. You don't piss in your own well.

[Capt_Nemo]

4. "You set up shop near an apartment building or UN facility"

Yeah... right... The standard "she made me rape her, because of the way she was dressed" excuse...
How typical...

[Igel]

5. However, it happened.

My roommate tried that kind of thinking on me once. My response was that if Julia Roberts walked through the roughest part of town at 11 pm on a Saturday night, simple respect would entail that she receive not so much as a wolf whistle. But if she did it in January and caught pneumonia and dies, she gets no sympathy from me. But it's a poor argument.

In this case, the UNIFIL folks knew that Hezb was setting up shop, and they were to stay put. Poor use of human shields. And the dead had foolish orders; they should have been told to bug out. However, had UNIFIL been given the authority--and balls--to pull out their own AKs and hurl a few hundred rounds at the Hezbites in their vecinity, with tank and artillery backup, things would have gone much differently, esp. if it was known that they would do so routinely.

UNIFIL came under Hezbollah fire during the latest conflict. One seriously wounded, and he would have died if the Israelis hadn't hauled him to an Israeli hospital. Others were wounded, and more shot at, by Hezbites firing small arms that had no excuse for not knowing that they were shooting at UN folk. Some mortars and the occasional rocket landing in or at a UN bunker or facility--had it been a bigger missile, the result would have been the same as from the Israeli missile. Knowing that AK or artillery fire would be forthcoming in response might have stopped some bloodshed.

Things would also have gone differently in 2000, when Hezbollah kidnapped 3 Israeli soldiers. When UNIFIL was returning the cars to the Israelis the day of the kidnapping, armed Hezbites stopped the UNIFIL folk and wouldn't permit them to return the vehicles. UNIFIL decided that saying pretty much anything about the kidnapping to the Israelis would constitute non-neutrality. Having just had their men on the ground threatened with gunfire for the non-neutral act of returning the Israeli vehicles to the Israelis perhaps taught them the 'true' meaning of neutrality. The authorized use of AKs or M16s might have ended that situation a bit differently.

[Capt_Nemo]

6. Nope, even if it had happened that way

it just shows poor tactical and strategic judgement.
To go ahead and atacking in those conditions just to show off how ruthless you are to your enemy
results in the following:
1) Hand him over precious propaganda points.
2) Doesn't guarantee that he is neutralized (air power and artillery strikes against mobile
weapon platforms and infantry has been proved ineffective time and again).
3) reveal to your enemy how limited your options are.
The right decision would have been to call off the attack.
Indeed this could be said of the whole military campaign.
Israel started from a position, right after Hezbolah's provocative kidnapping of soldiers, where it
could have shrewdly manouvered politicaly in order to shore up support in some Lebanese factions
in order to rein in Hezbolah's power, while it would make token strikes at a few Hezzbolah
strongholds, just to show they meant business. This clever powerplay worked in getting out the
Syrians and could have been made to work again.
But no, Israel had to go in with the collective punishment strategy, that proved so persuasive with the
palestinians, scaled up to Lebanon size.
Obviously this turned everyone in Lebanon against Israel, even the Maronites.
When it failed it was disguised as a strategic air campaign to wipe out Hezzbolah which by the
very nature of this group's forces was bound to fail. Then they sent in the ground troops to
achieve in a few weeks what Israel failed to do in more than a decade. Indeed looking up to the Sun Tzu
definition, the retreat from Lebanon in 2000 was the first victory of an arab force against Israel.
It was obvious from the begining that the only possible result of this Israeli strategy was defeat.
More than that, the only way for Israel to destroy Hezbolah by pure military means is to
exterminate the shias from southern Lebanon.
Halutz sold Olmert and Peretz a strategy that was unwise, unworkable and immoral. Olmert and Peretz
bought it because they wanted to look tough in the absence of military background (which played a
part in making them believe Halutz's neo-con fantasies).
What is mindblowing to me is how anyone that considers to be a supporter of Israel can defend these
dangerously counterproductive actions...

[bemildred]

7. Yes.

Lot's of KoolAid being drunk in the Israeli government. If the last 60 years have not convinced the Arabs that Israelis are big swinging dicks, one more little war isn't going to put you over the hump. Militarily stupid, politically stupid, morally bankrupt, and getting short of money too.
:thumbsup:

[Capt_Nemo]

8. Oh, I forgot that one...

...the whole fiasco was bloody expensive (pun VERY intended!)

But don't mind, bemildred, american taxpayers will pay the bill...