I speculated yesterday that Kofi was setting up the UNIFIL personnel so that Israel would either avoid bombing them and have to modify the intensity of its campaign, or would end up bombing them and get an international black eye. Perhaps "set up" is too strong, but certainly their safety didn't matter to the UNSG.
An Israeli reporter visits some Ghanian UNIFIL personnel at a UN post in southern Lebanon, and confirms how hapless they are:
The small group of Ghanaian soldiers manning UNIFIL Position 6-52, to the west of the village of Maroun a-Ras, less than a kilometer from the border, hasn't left its base in the last two weeks. "Those are the orders of our superior officers," explains one of them who presents himself as commander of the post, but refuses to give his name. "We have been visited by our officers three times since the fighting began and a supply truck arrives here every three or four days."On the wall nearest to the gate of the white-washed building is an "Alert State" board with the arrow pointed to black. But none of their information on the current situation has come from their own sources. "We know what's going on from the television," says the commander. Even the deaths of four UNTSO members on Tuesday night in an IAF bombardment, at a base not so far away, wasn't communicated to them from headquarters. That, too, they learned from TV.
The current contingent from Ghana has been in Lebanon for three months. The soldiers at the post are charged with patrolling and monitoring, with their single jeep, the area where the heaviest fighting has been going on for the last 10 days. The fact that Hizbullah has been well entrenched in the area ever since Israel's withdrawal six years ago - with hundreds of fighters, well stocked ammunition depots and extensive fortifications - seemed to have escape the Ghanaians notice. "I have never seen one of them," says the soldier. "You cannot easily identify them in the population."
The UNIFIL soldiers have "zero contact" with the Lebanese living in the surrounding towns and villages. All their supplies are brought by UNIFIL, and they never go out for recreation, aside from periods of leave in Beirut.
. . . . Hizbullah has been banished from this small part of Lebanon. IDF Merkava tanks roar through a nearby opening in the border fence. There isn't even a guard at the border and Israeli and foreign journalists pass in and out unhindered. The Ghanaian soldiers weren't even aware of the breach in the fence they are supposed to monitor, by mandate of the United Nations.
The soldiers at the post are charged with patrolling and monitoring, with their single jeep, the area where the heaviest fighting has been going on for the last 10 days.
Wait a second, "patrolling" means you're actively trying to prevent an intrusion upon a designated area. The connotation is that you will take steps to prevent such an incursion once you spot it. But "monitoring" means you're just passively taking notes on whatever happens, and refusing to get involved. I don't see how you can be said to be "patrolling" when all you're doing is watching events happen.
So is this charge actually their mandate, or just their unit-level orders? Because if all they're doing is acting as scribes or note-takers, I suggest we have people who are much better suited for that task.
Jim Dunnigan of Strategy Page on this issue;
"There isn't even a guard at the border and Israeli and foreign journalists pass in and out unhindered. The Ghanaian soldiers weren't even aware of the breach in the fence they are supposed to monitor, by mandate of the United Nations."
Never ascribe to conspiracy what can be explained by sloth, incompetence, or simple negligence.
Unfortunately, that describes many UN operations in both peacekeeping and non-peacekeeping fields. The deliberate tolerance of this kind of unprofessional behavior is a command decision by either senior UN military commanders or senior UN civilian managers.
I don't think we're seeing a deliberate conspiracy against Israel by the UN. Rather, we're seeing a deliberate tolerance of low performance, insufficient assertion of command authority, and intimidation of the local UN troops by Hizballah.
All of which has the effect of aiding Hizballah.
UNIFIL should not be dryed but burnt.
Now I'll be a softy. It is not the observers and troops that should take blame. Many good soldiers, some now needlessly dead.
It is their political masters - repeatedly sending too little, micromanaging, ignoring the mandate for the force.
UNIFIL was in Lebanon to demilitarize the southern border and disarm Hezbollah. Nothing was done. Nothing. Kofi and the bureaucrats made sure the troops lacked both means and political support.
It was just easier for the UN powers to worry about a new headquarters. If any nation mentioned the situation - well, headphones do turn off.