Which begs the obvious question, why are U.S. taxpayers shelling out over a hundred millions dollars a year to station them there?
Via FDD:
The Iranian-spawned terrorist group Hezbollah is smuggling advanced guided-missile systems into Lebanon, according to a report last week in The Wall Street Journal. This development highlights the failure of the United Nations peacekeeping operation in Lebanon, and raises urgent questions about whether the U.N. should continue to be entrusted with this job.
Known as UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon), this U.N. peacekeeping mission is hardly interim. It has been in place for more than 35 years. Set up in 1978, UNIFIL expanded greatly after the brief 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel that began with Hezbollah attacking an Israeli patrol, killing three Israeli soldiers and kidnapping two others (their bodies were ultimately ransomed by Israel after the U.N. failed to recover them).
Under terms of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, prompted by the 2006 war, UNIFIL was to be part of the U.N. effort to ensure that Hezbollah did not rearm, and that southern Lebanon, bordering on Israel, would be, “an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons,” apart from those of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and UNIFIL itself.
Since 2006, billions of dollars have been spent on UNIFIL, with more than one-quarter of the funding coming from U.S. taxpayers. Currently, UNIFIL has an annual budget of more than $492 million, and employs well over 10,000 troops and almost 1,000 civilian staff.
UNIFIL contingents provide services to the local community, such as computer training, and free dental, medical and veterinary care. UNIFIL also provides training in bread making, yoga, knitting and taekwondo, and last year tried to enhance its image with a “Women of UNIFIL” calendar.