- On Lebanon: The U.S. has looked to our longtime European friends once again, after a go-it-alone period in the Middle East that went on far too long. Jose Manuel Barroso talks about diplomacy:
As European Union Foreign Ministers gather in Brussels on Friday, it is important to recall that the EU has been at the forefront of diplomatic efforts to bring an end to hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah and is playing a key role in support of the rapid implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
- From France will come 2,000 peace keepers to be deployed to Lebanon. Remember that is the same France whose fries were "black-balled" by the administration not very long ago.
French President Jacques Chirac said Thursday that France would commit 2,000 troops to a new international peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon. The decision breaks a stalemate that has held up the dispatch of soldiers seen by diplomats as crucial to maintaining the 11-day-old cease-fire between Hezbollah and Israel.
Chirac's announcement in a nationally televised address followed days of intense negotiations with the United Nations, Lebanon and Israel over European concerns that the force would have no clear mandate and inadequate rights to open fire in defense of itself or civilians.
- In Iraq: British Soldiers are still fighting in southern Iraq. They are now using a tried-and-true battle tactic from World War II. The Brits have really hung in there, despite all they have had to put up with from the Bush administration. To quote this Reuters story,
British troops abandoned their base in Iraq's southern Maysan province on Thursday, which has been under almost nightly attack, and prepared to head deep into the marshlands along the Iranian border to hunt gun smugglers. Soldiers of the Queen's Royal Hussars are to adopt tactics first pioneered by the famed Long Range Desert Group, a roving special forces unit that fought Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's German Afrika Korps in North Africa during World War Two.
The 600 combat troops are giving up their Challenger tanks and Warrior armoured fighting vehicles in favour of stripped-down Landrovers armed with machineguns. The units will remain constantly on the move and be resupplied by air drops.
- Re re Guantanamo - The U.S. requested that Germany take over a detainee released from Guantanamo, but he was completely freed instead. Germany is providing what we should have provided long ago for this detainee, freedom. According to a WaPo story,
A German native who was imprisoned by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was released Thursday, more than 18 months after a federal judge in Washington ruled there was insufficient evidence to detain him.
Murat Kurnaz, 24, a Turkish citizen who was born and raised in Germany, was flown to Ramstein Air Base in Germany and reunited with his mother, Rabiye Kurnaz, after spending more than four years as a prisoner at Guantanamo, according to his lawyers. . . .
Although Kurnaz grew up in Germany and was a legal resident here at the time of his capture, the German government at first declined to intercede in his behalf, saying he was not entitled to its help because he was not a citizen. But Germany changed its position last year and Chancellor Angela Merkel raised the case in meetings with President Bush, which led to a diplomatic agreement to release Kurnaz, German officials said.
Kurnaz's lawyers said U.S. officials had asked Germany to place Kurnaz under surveillance and open a criminal investigation of him as a condition of his release, but relented in the end. "There will be no criminal charges, no criminal investigation," said Azmy, the defense counsel. "He's a completely free man."
It is a good thing that we go back a long way with these old friends, and that they care enough about America to forgive our short-sightedness.
Tags: Europe Bush News news and politics Lebanon
My "creative post" today at Southwest Blogger is about a sandwich.
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