Mere Rhetoric: Again With the Idiotic French Self-Congratulation On How Their Soldiers Haven't Disobeyed Basic Instructions

We talked about this yesterday morning, where the French are congratulating themselves for not losing their nerve and firing on Israeli jets during IAF flyovers. And this morning, they're making the same stupid argument:

The head of the French-led UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon called on Israel to cease its "dangerous" mock air raids, but said Israel has said the flights would continue as long as two kidnapped Israeli soldiers were not freed. Incidents have been avoided only because of French military restraint, Gen. Alain Pellegrini said in an interview on the Internet site of the French conservative daily Le Figaro on Friday. "I call on Israel to end them," he said of the flights over southern Lebanon, where UN peacekeepers and Lebanese troops have been stationed since the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah militants. "I have a hard time understanding them ... This is dangerous."

OK, let's go over this very slowly: it is not "restraint" when you don't do something that you aren't supposed to do. France has no mandate to fire on IAF planes - that's why they keep talking about how they need the Secretary General to change their rules of engagement to fire on IAF planes.

Listen, it's not like this is debatable or something. UNIFIL's rules of engagement do not allow the French to fire on the IAF. If the French fired on the IAF this would be a violation of their rules of engagement. That would be a breakdown of military discipline more or less equivalent to a soldier failing to obey a lawful order. So the French are congratulating themselves for their military being able to not actively break military discipline. For the French, we suppose, this counts as progress.

This part is awesome:

Pellegrini had another version. "They want to see our activities on the ground and at sea. They don't trust us," he said, according to Le Figaro. He also said, however, that Israel "told us they will continue overflights as long as they haven't recovered their two soldiers kidnapped by the Hizbullah."

Now whyever wouldn't Israel trust a French-led UNIFIL? Why could that ever be?

You know what, we're not even going to go through the motions of cutting and pasting in the UNIFIL-conspires-with-Hezbollah-to-murder-and-kidnap-Israelis links. We have more respect for you than that.

Previously: Election Loss Means Chirac Has Nothing To Lose By Talking To Jews Again, AP Identifies Root of Muslim Violence in France: Non-Muslims!, Iran Might Not be a Stabilizing Force in the Middle East After All

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Omri Ceren is a PhD student studying Rhetoric at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. He lives in downtown Los Angeles.
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