The LAF – Militarized Welfare

If you had a chauffeur driven car with free petrol, bodyguards at your side 24 hours a day, seven days a week, free babysitting and rides to school for the kids, as well as school fees for your children and health care for the family thrown in, you could be a Hollywood starlet; or, you could be a high-ranking officer in the Lebanese military cashing in on the regular package of benefits offered to you. Addressing the costs associated with this type of spending is but one of the tasks facing the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) on its path to reform. “The waste in the Army is not the [number of people in the] Army — the waste is in the five or six cars following a Brigade Commander and in soldiers driving kids to school,” complains former General Elias Hanna. The LAF is overseen by the Ministry of Defense,