“france always stood by lebanon…”
with french diplomats like fm couchner,you have got to read carefully between the lines.

mr couchner mentioned 2 things:

1- calling on all sides to respect 1701 un resolution.
all sides meaning israel, the lebanese government, hezballah, syria and iran. the 1701 mentioned stopping weapons smuggling to parties other than lebanese government .

this is appropriate in theory but on the grounds the only parties he should be talking to are hezballah and syria.

he should be talking first to syria which he did because no weapons from wherever they may be could reach hezballah other than via syrian borders, and secondly to hezballah being the weapons final destination.

the lebanese government top officials openly and fully support the 1701 resolution but in reality its internal security and armed forces turn a blind eye on any weapons transfer throughout the lebanese territories out of complicity and or out of fear of clashing with hezballah.

2- “kouchner highlighted the role of the united nations interim force in lebanon and its close cooperation with the army…”

the united nations force in lebanon has been reduced from an army fully equipped in charge of actively enforcing the application of 1701 throughout all lebanon to a bystanding good for parades military rag tag organization monitoring passively events unfolding around them while unable to stop weapons smuggling at all.

so mr kouchner mission started right in syria but failed to achieve any goals in lebanon. he is asking to strenghten the cooperation between the army and the unifil and he keaves the hezballah element of the equation unaddressed and unanswered.

Even Hizbolla supported 1701 during the war and they did agree to it otherwise the war would have never ended. Hizbolla needed 1701 during the 34 day war and the no longer need it now. The unifil force in Lebanon was reduced to a light infantry peace keeping force out of fear hizbolla or other elements like the Al-Quaida or Palistinians would attack them or clash with them using the heavy weapons are a reason to attack. Also when the war ended unifil and the army were really trying to keep the area south of the litani weapons free until hizbolla started killing the unifil and army and acting like it was an accident. Remember the spanish soliders that died in a IDE attack? Who can go that deep into the south and put an IDE and then sit around 1 km away for hours waiting for unifil to pass and then blow it. It has to be people from the area that know what times and routes the unifil patrols pass so that leaves us with hizbolla, Israel or the Army. The Army officer that was landing a heli in the south and was killed by hizbolla. I think these were messages to the army and unifil to stay away. Just after the war we would hear about a weapons shippment being stopped every other day and now thats stopped. Hizbolla accepted 1701 to get a cease fire and regroup. They could not last much longer because Amo always runs out, Food runs out and they had no clear supply lines still open to beirut. Now I think they have a lot more amo, food stocked up without supply lines neing needed. Iran has given them more weapons and money to stock up. In the past Iran would only allow hizbolla to have around 60 days fighting amo because syria was affraid of clashing with them and would not allow it. Now they have a 6 month supply. 1701 is the reason the war ended, the reason hizbolla are still around, the reason hizbolla are stronger and the reason we will have another war. Fance can not go on tv and say this stuff and to make the government look strong they hold talks with them and act like anything they talk about really matters when Im sure the real dealing is in syria and Iran. The government and hizbolla are not needed in these talks because they dont matter they just act like they talk to us out of respect and cant just go meet with nassrala and even if they could they could just meet his masters in iran and save a lot of time.

I wish france would just allow the army to get the weapons it needs. We dont need you visiting or going on tv giving speaches. Just give us what we need!