U.S. and France to settle crisis in Middle East. Whoda thunk?

Do you think Dubya will apologize over that whole 'Freedom Fries' thing while he's at it? I mean seriously, I don't think there are two other members of the security council more diametrically opposed to and intolerant of each other, are there? And I'm talking about a body that includes both China and Russia, people. And its not like the U.S. or France has any claim to non-partisanship in the conflict. The U.S. is the first and foremost international supporter if Israel, while France was home to Ayatollah Khomeini (the guy who gave all other Ayatollahs to come a bit of a radicalized reputation, and inspired Homer's 'Ayatollah Assa-Holah' t-shirt) during Iran's revolution and ousting of its Westernized leader, Shah Reza Phalavi, in 1979. Not to mention that whole rather unfortunate 'we were completely occupied by Nazi Germany in record time, not because we didn't want to fight or agreed with their governmental policies, but because it was so much easier at the time to just surrender' thing.

And in the meantime, both sides have cranked up the aggression factor to inflict as much damage as possible before a ceasefire is forced until place. The Israeli General in charge of the ground assault has been benched for not proceeding aggressively enough, while Hezbollah are now apparently in some sort of escalating-record-breaking-contest to see how many rockets they can actually launch over the border into Israel in a single day.

Which to me defeats the purpose of an imposed ceasefire. These guys still want to fight, civilian casualties be damned and get the whiners belowdecks. Its not unlike children fighting in a confined space when mom and dad walk in: the two superpowers say stop fighting, kiss and make up. And it works because neither participant really wants to incur that sort of wrath entailed with defying the parent. But the second mom and dad are out of the room again, it'll be on and as bad as before, worse maybe, since they've had a chance to catch their breath.

Does anyone think the US wants to leave troops to watch over the Israel/Lebanon border, with 60% of Americans of the opinion that the whole thing in Iraq is dragging on too long? Does anyone actually think France will station troops on the border? Or maybe the plan is to leave someone else holding the bag, like a slightly older, stable, but not quite parental sort of country who can be trusted to watch vigilantly but certainly not enforce house rules militantly? Sounds like a job for... CANADA! Oh, wait. Do we have any soldiers not currently engaged in being an extended holding action in another room with another pair of cranky combatants? As soon as this Afganistan things stops blowing up all over I'd imagine we'd love to move on over and sit on what might possibly be the most dangerous border since Checkpoint Charlie got dismantled.

Another happy message from
'jax