UN PeaceKeepers Meeting
"The U.N. announced Wednesday that it was again postponing a meeting of nations that could send peacekeepers to south Lebanon, saying talks about sending troops were pointless before there was progress on peace between Israel and Hezbollah."
--Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't there been UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon for two decades?  Aren't they the guys standing next to the guys with the green flags?  Yet more evidence the UN is absolutely ineffectual concerning the task it was formed for: to promote peace.  Notice the UN doesn't want to move more troops in until their job has been done.  How about the UN stays in Turtle Bay and does and says nothing for a year or so; we'll see if the UN actually makes any positive difference.

"The diplomats are debating a French draft resolution that would impose that framework for peace and lay the conditions for a peacekeeping force (italics added)."
--The French are so good at peace.  What's it called: unconditional surrender and collaboration?

And more from France:
"But France, considered a possible leader of a peacekeeping force, wants fighting to stop immediately, to create the political framework, and then to send the troops. France has refused to take part in a meeting of nations willing to contribute troops. That refusal has now led the U.N. to postpone the meeting twice.
Israel, with U.S. backing, has vowed to push ahead with its military campaign until the peacekeepers are deployed. The U.N. backs France's view.
"It's clear that it remains premature for such a meeting to be held because of the absence of an agreed political framework for ending the conflict," U.N. spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said. "If you don't have a mandate, how can you decide what kind of force you need?""
--I thought French troops were bogged down in Sierra Leone--all two dozen of them.  Again, with the need for peace to be established before the UN will even begin meeting on peace.  Do they no realize how stupid that sounds?