47 may sound a small number of casualties for some countries, but on a per capita basis 47 is greater than all the US losses for the past 4 years in Iraq. This may sound ridiculous, but let me explain why it is true.

The population of USA is 300 million, which is 75 times the population of Lebanon (4 million).

The number of US casualties stands at 3,500 as of yesterday.
The number of Lebanese casualties stands at 47 as of yesterday.
Now in order to scale the Lebanese Army casualties to America's population, multiply the total number of Lebanese casualties (47) by the population factor (75) and the result is 3,525.

Given the current total U.S. casualties in Iraq (3,500), in comparison Lebanon lost 25 more men in three weeks than America in 4 years of war on per capita basis.

Lebanon cannot afford to lose its bravest men in a battle with evil terrorists who crossed the Lebanon-Syria border equipped with heavy arms and ammunition in order to take on our nation's army.

It is time for the UNIFIL forces to station themselves along our borders with Syria to monitor border crossings and prevent arms smuggling. Predictably Syria will be furious and shut down its border, a move that will ultimately hurt the Syrian regime more than the Lebanese government. Syria after all does not recognize Lebanon, so perhaps UNIFIL presence will pressure Syria to agree to border demarcation, which will finally articulate the legal borders to enable proper monitoring by the Lebanese Internal Security Forces.

The terrorists of Fatah al-Islam have arrived from Iraq and Syria, and are not Palestinian Fatah. In fact very few of the Fatah al-Islam terrorists are Palestinians. These are mercenaries from all over the region, from Syria to Bangladesh in the east, and from Somalia all the way to Algeria in the west. The "real" Fatah organization declared that there is absolutely no connection between them and Fatah al-Islam.

Lebanon's prime minister Fouad Siniora called Fatah al Islam "a terrorist gang that has nothing to do with the Palestinians or Islam... They came to Lebanon to kill and this is not Islam." An intriguing fact about this terrorist organization is that they came loaded with lots of money, which usually translates to, at the very least, financial backing from a state.

Prime minister Fouad Siniora pointed his finger at Syria today, based on the evidence received from interrogating 30 Fatah Al-Islam detainees.

In America the people are outraged about the number of US casualties in Iraq.

We should be more outraged in Lebanon about our losses in such a short period.

Lebanon can longer afford to lose its bravest men under the tyranny of Syria's hegemony.

Picture: Lebanese soldiers carry the coffin of one of their fallen comrades. Lebanon so far has lost 47 of its best men in less than 3 weeks in this war against terror.