Israeli airstrike hits U.N. observer post

From CNN courtesy of AlterNet:

An Israeli airstrike hit a United Nations post in southern Lebanon late Tuesday, killing at least two of the agency's observers, according to the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon.

The U.N. initially reported that four peacekeepers were dead, but later said there were two dead and two missing.

And

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was "deeply distressed" by the "apparently deliberate" strike.

"This coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long-established and clearly marked U.N. post at Khiyam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that U.N. positions would be spared Israeli fire," he said in a statement.

"Furthermore, General Alain Pelligrini, the U.N. force commander in south Lebanon, had been in repeated contact with Israeli officers throughout the day on Tuesday, stressing the need to protect that particular U.N. position from attack."

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It's REALLY difficult for me to believe that Israel didn't deliberately target this UN outpost. Here's some context. Traditionally, the UN, which has issued resolution after resolution for years in condemnation of the Jewish state's heavy-handed tactics, is not considered by Israel to be much of a friend. Fortunately for them, their best buddies in the world, the United States, have used their coveted seat on the UN Security Council, again and again, to quash by veto any real action that would give those resolutions any teeth. Nonetheless, I think there is definitely a perception among the Israeli political elite that the UN is on the side of the Arab world. Like what appears to be the deliberate targeting by the American military of journalists in Iraq perceived as hostile to US interests, it strikes me that it would be hard for IDF commanders to resist using the chaos of war to "accidentally" hit non-combatants who seem to stand in the way. Throw in the numerous reports that Israel is targeting fleeing civilians and Red Cross vehicles, while overall, apparently, doing very little damage to Hezbollah's fighting ability, and also consider that Israel is essentially tearing Lebanon's physical infrastructure to pieces, and it becomes excruciatingly clear that this invasion doesn't have a damned thing to do with rescuing those two captured soldiers. I'm not really sure what their real motives are, but my best guess is that they're trying to achieve a "final solution" for the Lebanon problem: ethnic cleansing. I think they're simply trying to turn their northern neighbor's southern half into a permanent wasteland.

And our tax dollars are funding the entire operation.

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