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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: freelyhovering who wrote (130942)	5/2/2004 1:13:44 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

OK--What about Tom Friedman's idea for Palestine/Israel applied to Iraq. Bring in NATO and a Marshall Plan. That's real enough if we are willing to give up some control to other countries. But we have alienated our allies and now that it's gotten scary, they are reluctant to come in. Of course we haven't made a civil invitation as far as I can tell. Maybe you have more insight into it. You seem to keep up well with what's going on internationally You must have missed my posts where I described how insane I thought this idea. Of course, the Pals would welcome it, they've been trying to internationalize the conflict for years (more than it is already, I mean; if it were just the Israelis and the Pals involved, it would have been settled long ago). Bringing any kind of "peacekeeping" force into an active assymetrical war zone, that is, where you have a regular army on one side and bunches of terrorists on the other, is a huge boon for the terrorists and a surety of continued violence. And that's assuming that the peacekeepers are unbiased, a big assumption in Israel's case. Why? 1. Peacekeepers observe violations of the cease-fire. Which side is more observable, a regular army's patrols, or terrorist suicide-bomber infiltrations? 2. Peacekeepers report violations. Which side has a regular chain of command to report to, a regular army and government, or 17 terrorist cells with deniability and a leadership nobody holds responsibile for anything anyway? 3. Peacekeepers don't want to die for someone else's fight. So if terrorists threaten them, they tend to cooperate. Who are they gonna report it to? If a regular army officer threatens them, they can report it to his CO. 4. The regular army isn't supposed to shoot the peacekeepers, so they make great human shields for the terrorists, who are not limited by such rules of engagement. If the terrorists play their cards right, they can start a firefight between the regular army and the peacekeepers, in which their side can play the aggrieved innocents. These four rules hold true even when there is no bias at all, and of course when it comes to Israel, the UN does have bias, so all these problems have been even worse wrt UN peacekeeprs in Lebananon. For instance, Hizbullah has set up rocket launchers right next to UN bases and they never said anything. Hizbullah operatives have kidnapped and killed Israeli soldiers using UN uniforms and cars. Etc. But the 4 rules would all hold true even for NATO troops, esp. if you remember that Israel is held to a high moral standard while nobody expects anything of the Palestinians.