Quote Originally Posted by WyrreJ
choose to ignore that these cowards choose to place their bases amongst innocents so that they may then ask for intervention by third parties;

Have you heard any lebanese complaining about such tactics? You would think these innocents would be pretty damn pissed about being used that way.
I concur with most of your statements, but I have to interject on this one. When bad men come to your village or town and recruit a handful of your most able-bodied men, it's very easy to control the entire village. Especially when there is an absense of anyone else (i.e. policemen, soldiers) to prevent it from happening. When half the policemen and soldiers are also corrupt, it makes resistence for those villagers nearly impossible. Besides, the situation looks very different from the outside looking in. We can sit here and talk about how the "innocent" should kick all the bad people out of their villages, but the immediate reality to them is that there is very little incentive for putting up a fight and the best stance to take from their point of view is neutral or indifferent.