Once again after reading this article I pose the question of what good are UN peacekeepers?:

Last month, this reporter sat on a panel to discuss Hizballah at a conference hosted by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The other panelist was Major General Moshe Kaplinsky, the outgoing deputy chief of staff of the Israeli army. Before discussing Israel’s role, Kaplinsky offered up a series of recommendations that he believed would help neutralize and ultimately disarm Hizballah. They included strengthening the Lebanese army and expanding the mandate of the 13,300-strong United Nations peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, to areas beyond the south Lebanon border strip. UNIFIL, he said, should mount patrols in Hizballah’s new stronghold in mountains north of the Litani river, the limit of UNIFIL’s area of operations. He added that UNIFIL must deploy along the border with Syria to check the flow of weapons smuggled into Lebanon by Hizballah.

However, there is little chance of Kaplinsky’s wishes being fulfilled, analysts say. UNIFIL is under threat from groups inspired by Al-Qaeda - six members of the Spanish battalion were killed in June in a car bomb attack - and the peacekeeping force has no wish to make new enemies by deploying along the border with Syria and inside Hizballah’s military areas. [TIME]

"No wish to make new enemies?"  Then what the heck are they there for?  If the UN peacekeepers are not there to keep the peace by stopping weapon shipments going to Hezbollah to fire rockets into Israel than what use are they?  I suspected when the UN peacekeepers were sent to Lebanon that it was just a show and nothing would change.  Actually I’m wrong because things have actually gotten worse instead of not changing.  According to the article Hezbollah has more advanced weapons than ever now to attack Israel with all with the complicit approval of the UN. 

I predicted before the increased UN peacekeeping force in Darfur would do nothing to change the situation there, but by looking at the Lebanon model things may actually become worse there as well.

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