The American Standard Bearer

As part of the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, French troops claim to have come within seconds of firing anti-aircraft missiles at Israeli fighter jets. According to Reuters, French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie charged that Israeli warplanes “adopted a hostile attitude” towards the French ground troops.

Then praising the courage of the French soldiers, Alliot-Marie declared, “A catastrophe was narrowly avoided by our troops. In legitimate defense, our soldiers removed the covers from the missile battery and were two seconds away from firing at the planes that were threatening them.”

Without knowing better, one might assume that the mission of U.N. peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon would be to prevent Hezbollah terrorists from resuming rocket attacks on innocent Israeli citizens. But that clearly seems not to be the case. In fact, it sounds as if these French troops are there to defend southern Lebanon and by default, Hezbollah terrorists, from an Israeli attack. Why else would the French have anti-aircraft missiles in place. Hezzbollah doesn’t have even a single jet.

Instead of keeping the peace, the U.N. forces in Lebanon seem to be aggravating an already tense situation and are in effect, an international incident waiting to happen.

By the way, it’s doubtful that Israeli warplanes had “adopted a hostile attitude” and were “threatening” the French position as Alliot-Marie suggests. If that had really been the case, there would almost certainly have been reports of fleeing French soldiers and waving white flags.