Thy sword and thy shield

Guest post by Capt. Fogg

"What I can tell you is this. We have on a daily basis had numerous occasions where our position has come under direct or indirect fire from both (Israeli) artillery and aerial bombing. The closest artillery has landed within 2 meters of our position and the closest 1000 lb aerial bomb has landed 100 meters from our patrol base. This has not been deliberate targeting, but rather due to tactical necessity.

"What that means is, in plain English, 'We've got Hezbollah fighters running around in our positions, taking our positions here and then using us for shields* and then engaging the [Israeli Defense Forces].'"

**********

These words and more were e-mailed just last week (July 18) by Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, one of the UN observers killed this week by Israeli artillery to CTV, the Canadian Television network. Of course, and as I have stated repeatedly, belief that Israel deliberately kills innocent people will continue to prosper amongst people who have a political and ethnic reason to believe it. If there could be humor in horror, it would lie in the fact that the notion is used to excuse and defend people whose entire lives revolves around killing innocent people – although, of course, they maintain that it’s impossible for even an Israeli infant to be innocent.

Although the official U.N. position as set forth by Kofi Annan is that there was no Hezbollah activity in the area and that the shelling was "apparently deliberate," Kruedener reported before his death that the post gave the observers a view of "Hezbollah static positions in and around* our patrol Base."

Cited in the Ottawa Citizen yesterday, Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie, who was the first U.N. commander in Sarajevo during the Bosnian civil war, said it's a tactic he's seen in past international missions: Aside from snuggling up to U.N. posts, fighters would operate near hospitals, mosques, and orphanages in order to maximize civilian casualties.

Of course, this is not the opinion of one man. Killing innocent civilians to make your enemy look bad is a tactic of terrorist groups almost universally. The only thing more disgusting than such inhuman slaughter is the fact that the ploy works so well in generating support for the two-legged vermin that use it.

(*bold italics mine)