There is nothing strange about that. In every country, there is a different standard you can appeal to backed by some way of enforcing it. Hezballah has a slice of Lebanon’s authority for the same reason that Lebanon’s government or most any government has a slice of it: force, persuasion, money, popular support, international recognition etc. etc. It uses this to impose domestic and foreign policy. It’s the same game in a multi-player variety.

This has a strange relationship to the airplane discussion: What the Lebanese military’s job? Doesn’t seem to be any agreement on that either. In fact, there seem to be very opposing views.

QN mentions “Lebanon’s security needs.” Defining those is the interesting excercise. Choosing planes is trivial by comparison. Am I missing something?

Ok I understand that but with Ahmadinijad in Syria, Lebanon would have been high on the agenda. Isn’t it better that someone was there representing Lebanon? Or to put it another way, if there was no one from Lebanon there the complaint would be why not?

And so back to square one. Who of any consequence would be willing to endanger his or her relationship with the west and political future to appear with those two?

I don’t get your point.

The FPMers who were uncomfortable with the visit didn’t wish that Sleiman went along. They were offended by Nasrallah appearing as the representative of Lebanese foreign policy.

But if the actions are totally unaccountable, what do you believe the article is refering to with the word tribunal?

And so yes, you gotta hope. And judge by actions.

But no resistance movement has ever succeded without the support of its contituents.

“it seems that quite a few FPMers were put off by Nasrallah’s visit to Damascus, for the same reasons as AIG.”

Erm, straw poll QN, how many Lebanese leaders that could have realistically acted as a “fig leaf” would have wanted to appear in the same photo as them in the world press? Lets face it, that was some serious street cred in that picture…:)

Ragarding the National article, the tone betrays just how woefully we’re off the mark. Its assumption is that since the Lebanese Army was told by an armed group it should stay clear of a certain area, the responsibility of the death of an airman shot down while exercising his duty rests on the Army. Do you realise how ludicrous that is?

Even if you unconditionally grant Hezbollah the prerogative to arbitrarily cut off certain areas from the State’s reach, the article should have should have raised the exact opposite question: what did Hezbollah, knowing that a Lebanese Army helicopter was repeatedly seen in a certain area close to their guard posts, do to alert their men on the ground of precautions that should be taken? How does this affect the much-vaunted cooperation between Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army?

There are lots of other issues that are really shady in this story. The official story that it was supposed to be a warning shot, but the armor plating on the helicopter was too thin are equally cock-eyed. Warning shots directed AT the intended vehicles are completely unheard of and if the “kid” did suspect an Israeli plane that could withstand his “warning shot” why not hit it with something heavier? Was he trying to get a message across to the Army? Was he simply nervous and unfit for duty? How far up his chain of command did the decision to fire go?

All questions that would make the difference between malicious foul-play, criminal negligence or just a blameless accident. Unfortunately, we will never get answers to these questions as Hezbollah’s actions aren’t subject to scrutiny by a military court. And that is the difference between a militia and an army, and between accountability and hope.

The Syrians, Iranians and Hezbollah have clearly told Lebanon and the Lebanese that Lebanon is a Bantustan without any ability to determine its own foreign policy.

By the way, that has been the working premise of Israel all along. Does any one out there still believe Hezbollah is in the process of blending into Lebanese politics and becoming just one of many political parties? If yes, I have a couple of great bridges to sell you. One even connects lower Manhattan to Brooklyn.

So our best bet is to hope that the ‘militia’ doesn’t spread its hegemony all over the institutions. So now we are in a situation where instead of institutions and some sort of process – not necessarily democratic – we rely on hope (the ancient Greeks considered hope as a vice).

Johnny,
It’s futile to ask how they can declare certain areas off-limits. After last weeks tripartite Damascus summit, not only foreign policy is off-limits, but also the the Presidency and the premiership.
What’s left of the Lebanese state (if ever there has been one)?