Lebanese soldiers rode atop an aging American M113 armored personnel carrier. The aid to Lebanon is the first major American military assistance to the country since the 1980s. (Bryan Denton for The New York Times)U.S. Is Resupplying Lebanon's Military
-- International Herald Tribune
-- International Herald Tribune
BEIRUT, Lebanon: For years, the Lebanese military was ridiculed as the least effective armed group in a country that was full of them. After the army splintered during the 15-year civil war, its arsenal slowly rotted into a museum of obsolete tanks and grounded aircraft.
Now that is starting to change. At the gates of the military base in Karantina, just north of Beirut, groups of soldiers drive in and out all day in new American Humvees and trucks, some of them toting gleaming new American rifles and grenade launchers.
The weapons are the leading edge of a new American commitment to resupply the military of this small but pivotal Middle Eastern country, which emerged three years ago from decades of Syrian domination.
The new wave of aid, the first major American military assistance to Lebanon since the 1980s, is meant to build an armed force that could help stabilize Lebanon's perpetually fractured state, fight a rising terrorist threat and provide a legitimate alternative to the Shiite militant group Hezbollah. That organization, which controls southern Lebanon, has refused to disarm, arguing that it is the only force capable of defending the country against Israel.
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My Comment: Hezbollah is taking notice. They know that it is a question of when .... not if .... that the Lebanese Army is going to go after them.