Stand alongside Hizbullah, Lebanon's army tells troops

And as Bush continues to insist that only time will prove how Hizbullah have lost the war against Israel, the Lebanese army continue to show that they have not received the memo by issuing a statement that orders Lebanese troops to continue to stand "alongside your resistance and your people who astonished the world with its steadfastness and destroyed the prestige of the so-called invincible army after it was defeated".

There are rumours that there is a tacit agreement between Hizbullah and the Lebanese army that, as long as Hizbullah do not flaunt their weaponry, the Lebanese army has no intention of searching for it.

Retired general Nizar Abdel-Kader, a former deputy chief of staff for army personnel who is in close communication with the army command, told the Guardian: "The army knows there is a gun in every household, they are not going to go out and look for them ... What we are concerned about is the launchers. There is an agreement with Hizbullah that any weapons that are found will be handed over." A mutual respect and cooperation exists between the army and Hizbullah, according to Gen Kader. "They are two very separate entities but they cooperate on security issues," he said, adding that many of the army's troops were from southern Lebanon.

One defence analyst who asked not to be named said that, in the south, the army often acted as a subordinate to Hizbullah's military apparatus. "All intelligence gathered by the army is put at the disposal of Hizbullah but Hizbullah does not offer the same transparency to the army," he said. "In a sense, military intelligence in the south is operating on Hizbullah's behalf."

Another retired general, Amin Hoteit, now a professor at the Lebanese University, said: "The army sees Hizbullah as a group that is defending the country and so assists them as best it can."

Speaking last year, the Lebanese army chief of staff, General Michel Suleiman, said: "Support for the resistance is one of the fundamental national principles in Lebanon and one of the foundations on which the military doctrine is based. Protection of the resistance is the army's basic task."

It's hard to portray that as a victory when the people you've sent in to disarm Hizbullah say protecting them is their basic task.

And this is going to be the problem Bush faces trying to internationalise the forces being sent there. What exactly is their mission supposed to be? Do they observe or do they attempt to disarm?

I strongly suspect that having just seen Israel ignominiously kicked out of the country, no international force is going to be willing to attempt to do Israel's dirty work for them. After all, outside of Bush's rabid little inner circle of neo-cons, very few people see Israel's battles as part of the larger war on terror; most accept that Israel is opposed by country's who's land she has snatched. No other nation will offer their young to die so that another country can hold on to someone else's land.

Of course, this is a distinction that the Bush administration fails to recognise, which is why they will always find the attitude of the rest of the world towards this conflict baffling.

Tags: Bush, Israel, Lebanon, ceasefire, UN, forces, disarm, Hizbullah