'A Voice From The Grave'

"Tête Raphaëlesque éclatée (Exploding Raphaelesque Head)" by Salvador Dali 1951

 

An apparent discrepancy in the portrayal of events surrounding the deaths of four unarmed U.N. observers in Lebanon threatens to unravel Secretary-General Annan's initial accusation that Israel "deliberately" targeted the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon.

A Canadian U.N. observer, one of four killed at a UNIFIL position near the southern Lebanese town of Khiyam on Tuesday, sent an e-mail to his former commander, a Canadian retired major-general, Lewis MacKenzie, in which he wrote that Hezbollah fighters were "all over" the U.N. position, Mr. MacKenzie said. Hezbollah troops, not the United Nations, were Israel's target, the deceased observer wrote.

This is clear evidence Hezbollah was using the post as a "shield" to fire rockets into Israel, which despite being an allusion to their tactics, is nothing unusual for an army of terrorist thugs. What is unacceptable is that a UN post repeatedly allows such clear violations to take place, endangering the lives of their men, despite obvious and repeated warnings from their forces.

The outrageous claim made by Kofi Annan that the Israeli bombing of a UN post, which resulted in four UN officials being killed, was "apparently deliberate", is simply preposterous. As I have said before, it defies all reason, how a UN official of Annan's standing dares to make such an open accusation. It seems to me that even more outrageous is the fact that despite clear evidence to the contrary as shown above, and Annan's attempt to backtrack, his spokesperson Marie Okabe claims he is defiantly standing by his accusation, and will not be retracting his assertion that Israel deliberately targeted the post.

What is not very helpful, but in this instance actually irrelevant, is the apparent tainted reputation of General Lewis MacKenzie, who was accused of raping four Bosnian women (scroll down for the full story) held by Serbian forces in a prison camp in a Sarajevo suburb, during his command as Canadian head of the UN peacekeeping force in Bosnia-Hercegovina.

Can we lose any more respect for this organization whose mission is to revive, spread and fuel rabid anti-Semitism? I guess we can.

Comments

[Alexandra]

Ghost,

In case you are looking for your comment, I re-posted it on the 'Grapes of Wrath' Revisited thread, to which you were responding.

[Kenny Pierce]

I can answer that question about Hezbollah's readiness to disarm.

Are they still alive?

Then there you go.

[Dave]

Ghost, You insist that there must be peace for the UN to keep quote Springsteen, Fallaci and Mier regarding war and I no lover of conflict, can not follow your logic. I apologize, my knowledge of such things is limited. Does the Nation of Israel seek and promote the destruction of anyone? Do their leaders speak of wiping nations from the maps of the world?
Above you ask me to discern if hisballa is ready to disarm. I can not answer that as I can not imagine the hatred that lives in their hearts.

[Ghost Dansing]

I didn't paraphrase Golda Meir well...my recollection clouded the renditions so I went back and looked up the quote:

At a 1969 press conference in London, she said: When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.

Also in the 1972 interview with Oriana Fallaci, she could reflect: There’s no difference between killing and making decisions by which you send others to kill. It’s exactly the same thing. And maybe it’s worse.

After Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol received criticism for the way he delivered a speech before the 1967 War, Golda said: A leader who doesn’t hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader. Similarly, in 1973, she reminded us: A man who does not hate war is not fully human.

[Ghost Dansing]

Richard Perle is a neocon idiot.

Doing the same thing again and again expecting different outcomes is the definition of insanity.

"By removing swift and devastating war, you insulate people like the Lebanese and Gazans from the consequences of their choices. Essentially for those folks, thanks to the UN, endless warfare has no downside. The UN has preverted the basic principles of war. The UN stands for endless trench warfare. I sometimes think the right place for UN "peacekeepers" was the Somme. Perfect, endless stalemate."

That about sums-up the cartoon-like understanding of war that I was referring to.

Here's a fact for you... The Israeli military machine cannot defeat hisballa militarily... there is some possibility that a UN or NATO sponsored multinational force could disarm hisballa...pursue the implementation of the UN resolution...but there are no guarantees, and the price is ALWAYS weighed.

There is no such thing as absolute war...there is no such thing as perfect victory...even in the best circumstances...each great war has sewn the seeds of the next...to some degree the Cold War even planted the seeds of the situation we see today.

You, and the Israelies, have no choice but diplomacy...probably with a UN or NATO sponsored miltary force in the mix...

This is the modern world...not the crusades...and the cartoon logic was not even operant in the crusades.

"I got my finger on the trigger...I don't know who to trust...when I look into your eyes...there's just devils and the dust...we're a long, long way from home, Bobbie...home's a long, long way from us...I feel a dirty wind blowing...devils and dust... got God on my side...and I'm just trying to survive...what if what you do to survive...kills the things you love...fear's a powerful thing, baby...it can turn your heart black you can trust...it'll take your God filled soul...and fill it with devils and dust...I dreamed of you last night...in a field of blood and stone...the blood began to dry...the smell began to rise...well I dreamed of you last night, Bobbie...in a field of mud and bone...your blood began to dry...and the smell began to rise...now every woman and every man...they wanna take a righteous stand...find the love that God wills...and the faith that He commands...
I've got my finger on the trigger...and tonight faith just ain't enough...when I look inside my heart...there's just devils and dust..."
Bruce Springsteen

Regardless of how righteous the Israeli cause, no matter how great the justification for military response, there are always the facts on the ground, and the political context for the operations.

And for the poor SOB's that have to pull the triggers, it's always the same.

Golda Meir once said she could forgive the Palestinians for killing her children...but she could never forgive them for making her children killers.

Meir was present at Ben Gurion International Airport in the fall of 1977 when President Anwar Sadat of Egypt arrived for a state visit, and greeted Sadat.

Meir is the only former American citizen to become Israeli Prime Minister, (Benjamin Netanyahu was never an American citizen; his family moved to the United States from Israel in his early teens and he moved back to Israel after graduate school).

Meir was the first female head of state, or head of government, to oversee a nuclear weapons programme. She was later followed by Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher and Benazir Bhutto.

Israel is a nuclear power...perhaps they should just nuke Lebanon?

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

Ghost,

You seem to have a fetish for the UN. Here is an uncomfortable fact: "war has a better track record than social work" (Richard Perle, I think).

But I digress, here is what Einstein would have called a "thought experiment": How exactly would an organisation like the UN have enabled the world to defeat Fascism in WWII? Especially if the Germans had a veto!

You keep crying out for solutions, and demanding that we provide a replacement for the UN. I'm sorry, Danser, but a replacement is exactly what we don't need. Democracy took root, and the world flourished, long before the UN. It will flourish long after the UN is relegated to the dustbin of history, along with legwarmers and poofy 80's hairdo's.

What the UN was was yet another attempt to "legislate" good will toward men. Such social engineering projects always fail, for at the end of the day what keeps men and nations in line is fear of the consequences of bad choices. By removing swift and devastating war, you insulate people like the Lebanese and Gazans from the consequences of their choices. Essentially for those folks, thanks to the UN, endless warfare has no downside. The UN has preverted the basic principles of war. The UN stands for endless trench warfare. I sometimes think the right place for UN "peacekeepers" was the Somme. Perfect, endless stalemate.

Read "Paris 1919" to understand what happens when a people believe (rightly or wrongly) that sinister "international conspiracies" robbed them of their rightful victory...

[Kenny Pierce]

Ghost,

Here's something that most members of the U.N. stubbornly refuse to see:

The only time that "keeping the peace" does not involve "killing the bad guys" is when your organization has already earned a reputation for killing any bad guy who doesn't stay peaceful and do what he's told.

You can only keep peace by making war occasionally. How can it be possible for any person to look at human history and not see this truth emblazoned across the pages of the human story in garish flashing neon? There will always be bad guys who are bent on killing others and who will keep killing until they are killed themselves; and those people must be killed. There will also always be bad guys who have things they want and will readily kill people as long as they think killing people will get them what they want; and those guys must be made to believe that killing people will get them dead, not get them what they want. And the only way to get them to believe that, is to kill people occasionally. I am sorry that this is true and wish it were not; but reality has no interest whatsoever in what we wish were true.

The first question that must be asked of any organization that is to be entrusted with keeping peace -- be it the U.S. Marines, the blue helmets, or the Democratic Party -- is simply this: how good are they at making war? For the fundamental truth that the blindness of pacifists cannot take in, is that very often the only road to true peace, is the road that leads through the Valley of the Shadow of Violent Death. When there is no way around, then you must go through.

So, how good is the United Nations at making war and killing bad guys...AAUUUGGGGHHHH [choke choke]! ....

....

....You'll have to excuse me, I just snorted my morning Scotch out my nose...oh, Lord, that hurts...will have to wait until the tears clear before I can post anymore...back later...

[Kenny Pierce]

Ta-da! Got it posted.

Okay, it seems that one cannot refer to the innocent pasttime of "imposing corporal discipline upon a diminuitive beast of the equine persuasion," nor to the name of a certain vendor of intimate apparel best known for a highly popular catalog.

Learn somethin' new every day, that's my motto.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled conversation about terrorist depravity and the Useless Natterers.

[Kenny Pierce]

Let's try again my response to Crusader's hilarious complaint about Kofi's der Stuermer behavior, and see if this morning it can post.

Oh, and Jess -- "United Nathans"...that's my morning's first chuckle.

Okay, here we go:

!@#$!#@$!

Hmmmmmmmmmmm...okay, now I'm more interested in the spam detection engine than I am in the whole boring inconsequential Israel/Hezbollah thing...(I'm a software guy after all)...

[passage of time in deep thought]

Ha! I bet I know. Let's try this:

!@#$!#$!!!

Perhaps this:

Crusader,

LOL. I also would like to object to Kofi's apparent practice of celebrating the first of each month by playing [phrase that I think is alarming the filter] with the ambassador of Chadguay while wearing only a [notorious brand name that the spammer probably doesn't like] silk corset, Land's End hiking boots, and an expression of pensive concern for the plight of the world's poor.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

[jess1dering]

AntiMedia,
I'm still stuck on Kojo and that whole scene. How on earth did that whole situation go so gently into oblivion ?? Unbelievable, isn't it?

[jess1dering]

Mac,
You post that piece here and , for what it's worth , I'll get copies and hand it out to everyone I know asking them to do the same. I'll also send it to the editorial pages of news papers. I think it's a SPLENDID idea.

[Ghost Dansing]

The UN doesn't have "teeth" unless the members give it "teeth"...and of course there are only a few members that can do that. The UN is not the perfect "war making" organization...everyone else seems to fill that role quite well.

The problem is that if you deploy a "peacekeeping" force, you have to have some sort of "peace" to begin with. Oberservers simply keep the diplomatic pressure on by documenting stuff that happens...on both sides. They also get to know everybody because they are sitting right in the middle of the mess.

For more than two weeks,Dubya has been playing for time, declining to join calls for an immediate cease-fire so that Israel can continue its military actions.

Israel and the administration are right to argue that a cease-fire alone cannot provide a lasting solution. But if Washington is now prepared to exercise diplomatic leadership on behalf of Israel’s security, rather than simply run interference for Israel’s military operations, a cease-fire now could become the first step to a more lasting solution.

The obvious flaw in the administration’s logic, and those here who entertain bellicose, comic-book military solutions, is that there is no way that even weeks of Israeli airstrikes can eliminate more than a fraction of the 12,000 rockets Hezbollah is believed to have in Lebanon.

More weeks of television screens filled with Lebanese casualties, refugees and destruction would be a propaganda bonanza for the Hezbollahs and the Hamases, and a mounting political problem for the Arab world’s most moderate and pro-Western governments.

Whatever a major Israeli ground offensive might achieve in military terms would have far too steep a political and diplomatic cost. Israel’s 18-year occupation of Lebanon brought no lasting gains, and few Israelis are eager for a repeat.

What is needed, as almost everyone now agrees, is a strong international force, including well-armed units from NATO countries, to move into southern Lebanon as quickly as possible.

Its mission would be to disarm hisballa in accordance with U.N. resolutions, thereby reasserting the sovereignty of the Lebanese government and preventing further attacks against Israel. An immediate internationally imposed cease-fire would spare Lebanese civilians from further suffering...or at least we think so.

Now please note the "mission"...it is quite different than a typical UN mission...it is more like IFOR/SFOR type forces in the Balkans.

The wild card is hisballa...if hisballa doesn't agree to disarm, and resists, the multinational force, regardless of its "teeth" is going to be in the same type of fight the Israelis are now...entrenched, defensive positions in largely urban environments with all kinds of potential for killing civilians...not "air war" material.

It would not be a "peacekeeping" force at all, but a "peacemaking" or warring force...the international community making war on hisballa in order to enforce UN resolutions to disband.

There are implications to that as well...we'll see if hisballa is ready to disarm.

discern that

[mac Brachman]

"United Nathans!" Good one, Jess1dering! I've been writing (mostly inside my mind but also my offline word processing program) an open letter to those who portray themselves as "moderate Muslims" promulgating a "moderate Islam." I hope to post it here soon. It will be essentially a challenge to the Muslim world to live up to its/their portrayal of themselves as "the religion of peace." Long live this blog and SITE, MEMRI, and Internet Haganah, and all those exposing the lies and hypocrisy of the Muslim world and the indoctrination of Muslims from babyhood on with Jew-hatred and the willing, knowing complicity of "world opinion." Long live Bob Dylan and his clear-sighted view of the absurdity of the world (shaped in part by being skinny little Jewish boy Bobby Zimmerman growing up in distinctly non-Jewish, mocking Hibbing, Minn.) and his wonderful song "Neighborhood Bully." Shalom to all.

[antimedia]

The UN is a toothless, worthless organization that is thoroughly and completely corrupted. We should get out while the getting is good and kick them out of our country.

[Dave]

GhostD,
Ive read your lines and between them but I am unable to discern your alternatives....

"At the request of the Government of Lebanon, the Security Council has regularly renewed UNIFIL’s mandate, which is currently set to expire on 31 July 2006. Over the past six years, the Security Council has deemed that UNIFIL’s presence has been helpful in promoting stability."

"Promoting stability" while allowing a terrorist organization to establish an extensive reinforced bunker systems and stockpile missles within the UN's area of operation. Was that reported to the "securtiy" council?

"however, it is not the UN that is the problem"

The UN's inability to enforce the mandates and accomplish it's mission compounds the problem(s) for those Nations seeking to further the existence of the civilized world by eliminating terror and those that practice it.

[liquid]

---I'd love to know what percentage of the UN is manned by members of the "Religion of Peace"

I think that would be a great thing to investigate, but already got a bad feeling it's a high percentage!

BTW...don't know if anyone is watching what is going on in Seattle....but looks like a pakistan man has done some jihad at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle
Read about it HERE

[jess1dering]

I'd love to know what percentage of the UN is manned by members of the "Religion of Peace".
BTW. My son David Nathan had a best buddy in High School named Nathan Hale. We used to call them the united Nathans :)

[Ghost Dansing]

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, is one of the UN’s oldest peacekeeping operations. Its nearly 2,000 troops and 50 unarmed military observers are tasked with seeking to maintain a ceasefire along the 70-mile (121 km) United Nations “Blue Line” between Israel and Lebanon, by patrolling, observing, reporting violations and liaising with the parties.

UNIFIL was established in 1978 by the United Nations Security Council (Resolution 425). The Council authorized “a United Nations interim force for Southern Lebanon for the purpose of confirming the withdrawal of Israeli forces, restoring international peace and security and assisting the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area….”

The Council’s action followed years of tension along the Israeli-Lebanon border, a March 1978 attack in Israel by Palestine Liberation Organization fighters coming from Lebanon and a subsequent Israeli invasion of south Lebanon.

Cross-border fighting continued, Israel did not completely withdraw, and the authority of the government of Lebanon was not restored in the south. Under these circumstances, UNIFIL could not fulfil its responsibilities under 425.

In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon and subsequently established its own security zone inside the country, which remained until they withdrew in June 2000. Nevertheless, the Government of Lebanon, which did not extend its authority to the south, requested that UNIFIL remain in order to pursue implementation of 425. Throughout these years, the Security Council regularly renewed UNIFIL’s mandate.

With the departure of the Israel Defence Forces, the UN established the “Blue Line,” conforming to the internationally recognized boundaries of Lebanon, to be used to confirm the Israeli withdrawal. UNIFIL moved southwards and deployed along the Blue Line as Lebanese authorities took control of some of the area vacated by Israel. At the same time, Hezbollah militia also entered the area, exerting de facto control along the Lebanese side of the Blue Line.

In January 2001, the Secretary-General determined that: "Of the three parts of its mandate, UNIFIL has essentially completed two. It has confirmed the withdrawal of Israeli forces and assisted, to the extent it could, the Lebanese authorities as they returned to the area vacated by Israel. UNIFIL functions in close cooperation with those authorities and no longer exercises any control over the area of operation. UNIFIL cannot, of course, compel the Lebanese Government to take the last step and deploy its personnel down to the Blue Line."

UNIFIL was to remain focused on “restoring international peace and security” with the functions of an observer mission.

At the request of the Government of Lebanon, the Security Council has regularly renewed UNIFIL’s mandate, which is currently set to expire on 31 July 2006. Over the past six years, the Security Council has deemed that UNIFIL’s presence has been helpful in promoting stability. Although punctuated by frequent ceasefire violations and occasional serious incidents from both sides of the Blue Line, relative calm existed until 12 July 2006 (when full-scale hostilities erupted).

Oh...UNIFIL probably isn't the problem...nor is Kofi Anan...actually, the UN isn't the problem either.

The UN isn't the biased, anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic organization that is being suggested here either.

UNSC Resolution 1655 (2006) is the latest mandate for UNIFIL and the perspective is pretty even-handed:

"Gravely concerned at the persistence of tension and violence along the Blue Line, including the hostilities initiated by Hizbullah on 21 November 2005 and those triggered by the firing of rockets from Lebanon into Israel on 27 December 2005, which demonstrated once more that the situation remains volatile and fragile and underlined yet again the urgent need for the Lebanese Government to fully extend its authority and exert control and monopoly over the use of force throughout its territory, as outlined in the Secretary-General’s report of 18 January 2006 (S/2006/26), and concerned also by the continuing Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace..."

"4. Condemns all acts of violence, including the latest serious incidents
across the Blue Line initiated from the Lebanese side that have resulted in deaths and injuries on both sides, expresses great concern about the serious breaches and the sea, land and the continuing aforementioned air violations of the withdrawal line, and urges the parties to put an end to these violations, to refrain from any act of provocation that could further escalate the tension and to abide scrupulously by their obligation to respect the safety of UNIFIL and other United Nations personnel,
including by avoiding any course of action which endangers United Nations
personnel..."

It isn't very clear how the whole situation would be much better with out UNIFIL...it's value has been affirmed and re-affirmed by the UN Security Council (last time I looked that included the United States, Great Britain...etc.) and it is quite possible things would be even worse with NO international forum in which to exercise diplomacy...

The anti-UN hyperbole simply uses the UN as a whipping boy while offering no alternatives except cartoon-like visions of total military victory on one side or the other.

Perhaps this too may eventually come to pass...however, it is not the UN that is the problem.

[Kenny Pierce]

!@#$! Alexandra, your comments filter, in its infinite wisdom, has suddenly decided I can't post a response to Crusader because it thinks that comment looks like "comment spam." What's up with that?

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

I suggest that Kofi was afraid the UN post would be overrun by Israeli soldiers, and they would find all kinds of documents implicating the UN in Hizb'allah's arms build-up, you know, much like the French not wanting Saddam to blow the whistle on their role in undermining UN sanctions against Baathist Iraq.

Kofi left those men to die along with the records, or at least to deflect so much attention onto Israel that no-one would ever pay any attention to what actually happened.

The UN did the same thing with the Jenin Libel.

I nominate Kofi Annan for a "der Stuermer" award.

Well, OK, I admit I have no real evidence of this, and it is a preposterous and baseless allegation, but hey, if this kind of behaviour is OK for the UN chief, why not for me?

[Montey Pieathon]

Thanks to Kenny for the above tip on linking.

Here's the link for the UN story above (hope it works):

Hezbollah's little helpers.

[Montey Pieathon]

Great post. Lest we forget the terrible Hezbollah attack of Oct 7, 2000 - when they disguised themselves as UN and kidnapped and killed 3 Israeli soldiers.

http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060717-084229-3601r.htm

I'd say Israel had every right to bomb the target - even though they say it was unintentional. The place was swarming with terrorists. It was tragic, yes. But war is hell.

Love your blog,

Montey

[FlooseMan Dave]

Mwaa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!
Actually, he has been hanging his own name out there for the job for quite some time. I don't know who would be worse.

Yikes.

[liquid]

FlooseMan Dave--liquid, I nominate Elmer Fudd.

Isn't that some type of secret code for Bill Clinton? LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

[FlooseMan Dave]

liquid, I nominate Elmer Fudd.

[liquid]

That youtube of the UN doesn't suprise me one bit! Like I have said before...the UN with Kofi running it shouldn't be in charge of a canned food drive!

Won't Kofi be giving up his position at the end of this year? Isn't it getting time to elect a new Secretary General? If so...we should all be praying for a 'God fearing person' that won't be bought off or intimidated by sinister bullies!

BTW...who would you guys suggest as a new Secretary General?

[FlooseMan Dave]

Kofi al Annan's accusation definitively proves his pro-Hezbollah/anti-Semite position. Not only that, but he decided to use the same shield tactic by allowing the deaths of his people to occur. He did not order his forces out of there when hostilities started. They were, after all, unarmed.

So the blood of his dead peacekeepers is on his hands. He did not value the lives of his people by getting them out of there.

And where is the Canadian government? Why aren't they up in arms because of how Annan refused to protect their people?

I would like to know. Anybody else interested?

Kofi Annan: Worst Diplomat Ever. Prove me wrong.

[Kenny Pierce]

Yeah, Dave, I saw that too, last night. And my instant response was, "Yeah, and if you dropped a rocket on it, ten minutes from now CNN would be featuring pictures of how the IDF had targeted 'a UN ambulance,' exactly the way yesterday they were drooling over their footage of a Red Cross vehicle with great big IDF-custom-installed holes in the middle of the cross. One has to keep that in mind when the media is carrying on about all those "civilian" casualties.

Here's your link.

(To do that, by the way, type <.a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqGjz7iJTns&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efriendsofmicronesia%2Ecom%2Farchives%2F001394%2Ehtml">Here's your link.<./a> without the periods in front of the a and /a.

[Dave]

sorry forgot the hat tip to Israellycool.

[Dave]

I guess there is a market for their used equipment and vehicles. I do hope that UN staff arent driving these vans around Gaza

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqGjz7iJTns&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efriendsofmicronesia%2Ecom%2Farchives%2F001394%2Ehtml

sorry Alexa that I dont know how to code the hyper link...yet.