Fly, Meet Ointment

This has to be one of the most disturbing paragraphs, on multiple levels, that I've read in a long time. The soldier being interviewed is a member of the Lebanese Army who is involved in the fight against Fatah al-Islam near Naher al-Bared:

"Ranger Rommel can't say how many people he has killed in the past few days. 'It must have been a lot,' says the 27-year-old, whose parents named him after the German Field Marshal who commanded the Nazi Afrikakorps. 'At first it was a shock to be in a real battle after all the training,' Rommel says. Later, he adds, it was like being in a movie. 'A drunk state in which you don't care whether you're shooting at children, the elderly or militants.'"[emphasis mine]

Where to begin? Mr. Rommel may think he received a lot of training, but if that is his reaction to being in a combat situation, he certainly did not receive enough. I am sure that the Lebanese Army is doing in best, and the mere fact that it can function at at all given the sectarian divisions of Lebanon is impressive. But it suffered from decades of neglect and underfunding when Syria was calling the shots, and quotes like these show that it has a long way to go. Their ability to decisively defeat Fatah al-Islam, while keeping civilian casualties to a minimum, is a major test to determine how far it has come.