US Military Aid to Lebanon

I asked K.B. to analyze the report in An-Nahar about US military aid to Lebanon. He/she wrote me this:
""So I followed the link and landed on the front page of Al-Nahar to read of the new flow of "arms to the Lebanese Army," as the headline announced.
Four items attracted my attention: the provision of a single Cessna Caravan aircraft, and 20 air-to-surface HellFire missiles, the Raven, the unmanned aircraft and the10 M60 tanks. The aircraft is not a military item. In fact one can buy it in the open market, new or second hand. It is used mainly as an island commuter and a tourist plane. A military version, with 12 seats, and possibly a gun protroding from the cargo door, is available. Its main limited military was intended against drug smulglers in El-Salvador, but was rejected due to its extreme vulnerability to ground fire! Of course, the aircraft can be turned into crop sprayer, in which it proved to be so effective!
The air-to-surface HellFire missile is a laser-guided weapon, mounted on helicopters, the Apache or Blackhawk are typical slow speed launch platform. It requires a command and guidance unit in the platform. Since the Lebanese Army does not have (and will not be permitted to have) such a platform. Incidentally, Israel uses the missile to assassinate Palestinian Resistance leaders from Apache helicopters! Exactly why would the US bequeeth 20 missiles without the elaborate launch and guidance systems? And why should the US risk the missile falling into the hands of Lebanese and other experts, and hence potentially neutralize those used by Israel, is a secret the newspaper obviously did not disclose!
The delivery of 10 Raven Small Unmanned Aircraft System (SUAS) is actually comical. These are tiny aircraft, with wingspan just over 4ft long and weighing some 5lb. It is 'hand-launched' as I my son does with his model aircraft. Their flight lasts 80 minutes before the juice runs out. They require a command and guidance center as well as image processing equipment - which is where their strength lies. But given that they are very vulnerable to enemy fire, restricted by weather, interruptible comms with ground control, and of course limited protection in highly vegitated areas, one wonders in which clear weather, desert military theatre, with 'enemies' armed with bows and arrows would the Lebanese Army find this gem useful?
The 10 M60 tank is vintage tank based on modification to the Sherman in the Second World War. Production that started in 1960 and stopped in 1990. The US relegated the tank to the National Guard Reserves and have not seen action since. It came as a poor response to the Soviet T54 tank, in response to the Soviet T54 tank, despite a completely different tank warfare doctrine with the Soviets, and indeed, with the British AND the Israelis. It was replaced by the M1 Abrams. Incidentally, Israel, not unusually, 'acquired' the details of the British Chieftain tank (nodge, nodge, say no more!), and built an awkward and bulky tank powered by bits and pieces of components from the US, with a German Diesel (MTU) engine, and called it: the Merkava - to replace the M60 after its armour proved so poor in the 1973 War. The Merkava too is to be discarded due to its discredited performance on the hills of Lebanon's South in 2006, andbe replaced most likely by the M1 Abrams with the special coated armor - which Israel will soon analyze, give it a Hebrew name and sell it to potential US enemies - as it has always done! But for the time being it remains the weapon of choice against civilian targets, as in shelling homes and communities, a superiority amply demonstrated in December 2008 in Gaza.
These are the saliant gifts. It is possible that the US promised them, promised some of them or they were merely the subject of a merry conversation over a 12-year old Malt with a (junior) clerk at the State Department, probably the latter, but more likely they were picked thoughtlessly and in haste from newspaper clippings of weaponry used in fighting Resistance fighters, or civilians. For they offer no defensive capability to the Lebanese Army against its main enemy - which, contrary to the muddled-headed reporter, is still viewed as Israel, despite his wish, repeated on the rare and far between TV appearances in US, attacking his country's Resistance and siding with his country's enemies!""