Beirut

Before and after.
This picture was headline in one of our major newspapers today.
This is criminal!!

Understand, I dont condone Hezbollah firing off their wildly inaccurate rockets into built up civilian areas even though I do realise this is almost the only card they have to play... A crime is a crime is a crime whether you are a state or a terrorist/resistance organisation. In fact, being a state makes it worse.

Qana

There is nothing to be said in the face of such an atrocity, that does not sound flip.
I am sick to my stomach.

Bush wont condemn.
Blair wont condemn.
The EU wont condemn with one voice.

IDF says cease fire and commences with a renewed push into Lebanon.
Bombs a few trucks, blows up some more of the Lebanese army.
Strange cease fire.

There is simply no excuse for this.

Bullseye!

Odd, eh?
That the IDF accidental hits (ambulance, UN bunker) are such stellar bullseyes!

No 72 hour truce to collect the dead, because

"We cannot accept a ceasefire with Hezbollah because this terrorist organisation would exploit it to gather civilians to use them as a human shield in the combat zone," Gideon Meir, a senior foreign ministry official, said.
Source

Oh really....!!!

Turning Sourthern Lebanon into wasteland...

Looks like my speculation over the reason for the UN bombing might be right - it does look as if the IDF is planning to destroy the region and wants no nosy outsiders around to count the dead, observe the killing.

The Israeli Justice Minister, Haim Ramon, told Israel Army Radio yesterday that the residents of southern Lebanon have been given ample time to leave and that all those remaining must be considered "terrorists". He went on, chillingly, to call for all villages in the region to be flattened by the Israeli air force.

Source

When you call TEN times

to ask the IDF to stop shelling your building, and the bombing carries on till four peacekeepers die in a direct hit,
it's not a mistake any more
it's wilful
or, the IDF doesnt know what it's doing any more
i dont know which option is more scary.

UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon contacted Israeli troops 10 times before an Israeli bomb killed four of them, an initial UN report says.

The post was hit by a precision-guided missile after six hours of shelling
Source

and then, the un resolution condemning this, is blocked by the US.
surprised? nah.
I have yet to see them let a resolution on Israel pass the gauntlet.

Israel insists it was an accident. I dont know, I'm not convinced. They are having major difficulties, it seems a PowerPoint presentation is a lot easier than the reality.
Perhaps they would like to go in with all guns blazing and bunker-bust the entire geography of the region into a new design? Both the US and Israel insist there will be no cease-fire and a return to the way things were. Now, how else would they get Hezbollah completely out of the picture...?? I see no way other than empty to the region from civilians and then carpet-bomb or nuke it out of existence. Which to me looks like what they want to do. Not so easy to do with foreigners and peacekeepers sticking their nose in, observing and reporting... right?

Captured in Lebanon or Israel?

Someone sent me this link to an article in Forbes, July 12:

"The militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes Wednesday across the border in southern Lebanon, prompting a swift reaction from Israel, which sent ground forces into its neighbor to look for them.

The forces were trying to keep the soldiers' captors from moving them deeper into Lebanon, Israeli government officials said on condition of anonymity.

The Israeli military would not confirm the report."

So, the initial reports all said the soldiers were captured in Lebanon. Then the story switched to capture in Israel, without any explanation that I could find, and this was the truth from there on out.

I am not a conspiracy theorist kind of person, but here I smell a rat.
I wonder why no journalists have remarked on it, this is of significant import because this completely undermines the reasoning behind this fine little war.