Friday, July 28, 2006

Lewis MacKenzie or the man's wife - who do you believe?

Lewis MacKenzie offered his interpretation of Major Paeta Derek Hess-von Kruedener's beliefs about the presence of Hezbollah militants using the UN post for cover - while failing to mention that he was the keynote speaker at a pro Israel rally the next day.

The Major's wife on the other hand, has flatly stated that she believes the assault was intentional. Israel is investigating the incident and refuses to allow the UN to be involved in the investigation.

Ireland's government has proven considerably less credulous than Canada's;
Defense Minister Willie O'Dea and Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern have made it clear they flatly don't believe the attack was accidental. Ireland has pulled back it's UN troops, as has Australia.

The four monitors, who belonged to the UN Truce Supervision Organisation, were not the first UN peacekeepers to die during Israel's bloody attempt to stop Hizbollah militants firing rockets across its northern border.
A Nigerian member of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) was killed in Housh, a suburb of Tyre, when his house was demolished by an airstrike.
But while the death of the peacekeeper in his home angered the UN, the attack on the well-known bunker marked clearly on military maps available to Israeli forces left peacekeepers seething.
The entire Unifil presence in Tyre has withdrawn to the force headquarters a few miles south along the coast at Naqoura but yesterday a few peacekeepers who used to be based in the city went to recover personal possessions. "The guys who died were my friends," said a Belgian captain. "The situation is crazy."

Australia's Deputy Prime Minister was even blunter:
Australian Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer, who served with the Australian Army in the Vietnam war, blamed rogue elements in the Israeli military for the escalation of violence.
"There is a rogue element in the Israeli military machine and it's about time the world called a spade a spade and recognised that that element has been there for several years and continues. "
In 1996 the Fijians, the poor old Fijians, maintaining a UN compound in exactly the same area, took a hit which killed 104 people sheltering in the UN compound."
Must be nice to have a government that stands up for it's people and stands behind it's troops.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You'd think ANY Prime Minister of CANADA would and could come out with "something" to say memorable about the death of the UN peacekeepers.
At the very least something remarkable about Canada's own...

Does anyone know BORG for "empathy?"
If so, please send the program/driver to SHARPER/ConsCanada.unoit.ca, please?

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