I highly doubt there were 25000 vacationers in Lebanon. Many I presume were there for educational and humanitarian purposes as well as diplomatic reasons.

I agree with Sard that we are not obligated but certainly it is the right thing to do and I personally would expect the government to try to help. I would feel differently if it was 10 citizens but 25000 is a hard number to foresake.

As the one and only superpower in the world I think it is embarrassing how slow our response was in comparison to other countries with foreign nationals in Lebanon. Maybe my expectations of our government is to high, at least to high after other recent events.

I believe the actions by Isreal to be to severe but have a hard time seeing how the US can assert itself on Isreal to do anything less. I mean Christ, Hezbollah IS a legitimate immediate threat to Isreal. The US set the standard that all you need to do is think/sell that there is an immediate threat and that qualifies for invasion.