Israel troops 'ignored' UN plea then bombed the UN observers

Samson · Jul 26, 2006

From the bbc;

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 nearby, diplomats familiar with the initial probe into the deaths say.

The news came as crisis talks seeking to end the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel ended in Rome.

They agreed immediate action "to reach with the utmost urgency a ceasefire".

The four unarmed UN observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, died after their UN post was hit by an Israeli air strike on Tuesday.

The UN report says each time the UN contacted Israeli forces, they were assured the firing would stop.

Israel is conducting an investigation into the deaths, and has rejected accusations made by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that the targeting of the UN position was "apparently deliberate".

In southern Lebanon, fierce clashes have continued between Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters around the town of Bint Jbail.

Reports say between eight and13 Israeli soldiers have been killed.

Israel has not confirmed any deaths, but says there have been 20 casualties.

My thoughts;

I can see that problems with information flow in a battle field could cause this, rather than intentionally ignoring the information. However I do not have the information avalable to Kofi Annan, so we shall have to wait for more information to come out.

Why the world is so much more concerned about these 4 who choose to put themselves in the battle zone rather than the 400 odd Lebaeze that had not option is beyond me.

I do wonder why the IDF have so little regard to world opinion as to not make preventing this sort of thing a priority. It is sure to harm their cause much more than help it.

Shelling an area for 6 hours, then a presision bomb on the UN post? Sounds allmost to deliberate, perhaps there is something we are not being told.

El_Machinae · Jul 26, 2006

Clearly people are now being killed who weren't supposed to die. Every artillery unit now should know this is a potential consequence of their actions.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but everyone should know that it's technically manslaughter to kill someone while doing something you know can easily accidentally kill someone.

tossi · Jul 26, 2006

Why the world is so much more concerned about these 4 who choose to put themselves in the battle zone rather than the 400 odd Lebaeze that had not option is beyond me.

Well atleast this will hopefully fasten the ending of this war. The UN and the EU will be even more engaged in forcing a cease-fire.

Moff Jerjerrod · Jul 26, 2006

Samson said:
From the bbc;

Why the world is so much more concerned about these 4 who choose to put themselves in the battle zone rather than the 400 odd Lebaeze that had not option is beyond me.

Because the UN does not march under a political slogan save that to bring peace to the world. Isreal attacked this post which was clearly marked and everyone knew it was there for years. This was a deliberate attack no matter what they try to tell you.

Unfortnately for Isreal, one of the observers was from China. It's not good to mess around with a country that has a population of over 1.2 billion. Not even might Isreal could stop the Chinese if they decided to punish Isreal for what it did.

Alpine Trooper · Jul 26, 2006

Moff Jerjerrod said:
Because the UN does not march under a political slogan save that to bring peace to the world. Isreal attacked this post which was clearly marked and everyone knew it was there for years. This was a deliberate attack no matter what they try to tell you.

Unfortnately for Isreal, one of the observers was from China. It's not good to mess around with a country that has a population of over 1.2 billion. Not even might Isreal could stop the Chinese if they decided to punish Isreal for what it did.

On the other side of the coin, a country with 1.2 billion people won't care about one Chinese soldier. The point stands though, killing foreign soldiers you're not at war with gets you nowhere fast.

Shaihulud · Jul 26, 2006

Why the world is so much more concerned about these 4 who choose to put themselves in the battle zone rather than the 400 odd Lebaeze that had not option is beyond me.

I think its because it reinforces the idea that Israel has "lost it". People are sad that such a tragedy has occured of course, but hopefully, U.S.A will wake up to the reality of the situation after this and rein in Israel.

El_Machinae · Jul 26, 2006

The IDF claims that these are precision strikes, designed to attack Hezbollah placements gleaned from adequate military intelligence.

Clearly they're wrong. So wrong, in fact, that despite numerous attempts by the UN's contact with the Isreali liason, the IDF had no idea of the consequences of dropping that bomb.

I expect Israel will be compensating Canada for their manslaughter.

Alpine Trooper · Jul 26, 2006

El_Machinae said:
The IDF claims that these are precision strikes, designed to attack Hezbollah placements gleaned from adequate military intelligence.

Clearly they're wrong. So wrong, in fact, that despite numerous attempts by the UN's contact with the Isreali liason, the IDF had no idea of the consequences of dropping that bomb.

I expect Israel will be compensating Canada for their manslaughter.

Interestingly, Canada has declared that it will not entertain any idea of sending peacekeeping soldiers to Israel. It wants the Middle-East to deal with itself.

Gladi · Jul 26, 2006

Alpine Trooper said:
On the other side of the coin, a country with 1.2 billion people won't care about one Chinese soldier. The point stands though, killing foreign soldiers you're not at war with gets you nowhere fast.

Bright day
You know maybe humans aren't ants (though with those slant-eye yellow monkeys you can never be sure

)? Though China cannot do anything to Israel save for ICBM.

But IDF needs to find scape officer ASAP.

Samson · Jul 26, 2006

Moff Jerjerrod said:
Because the UN does not march under a political slogan save that to bring peace to the world. Isreal attacked this post which was clearly marked and everyone knew it was there for years. This was a deliberate attack no matter what they try to tell you.

This is something I wonder about. One the one hand "Shelling an area for 6 hours, then a presision bomb on the UN post? Sounds allmost to deliberate". On the other, what could possibly be the motivation? It is easier for me to belive in gross incompetance than some senario where these UN observers where such a large part of the anti-IDF war effort that the political fallout is less than the damage they would have done if left alive.

Alpine Trooper · Jul 26, 2006

Alpine Trooper said:
Interestingly, Canada has declared that it will not entertain any idea of sending peacekeeping soldiers to Israel. It wants the Middle-East to deal with itself.

Israel calls for NATO troops along border:

Canada says hell no!

Rambuchan · Jul 26, 2006

Samson said:
My thoughts;

I can see that problems with information flow in a battle field could cause this, rather than intentionally ignoring the information. However I do not have the information avalable to Kofi Annan, so we shall have to wait for more information to come out.

Why the world is so much more concerned about these 4 who choose to put themselves in the battle zone rather than the 400 odd Lebaeze that had not option is beyond me.

I totally agree with all you've said above.

Samson said:
I do wonder why the IDF have so little regard to world opinion as to not make preventing this sort of thing a priority. It is sure to harm their cause much more than help it.

Whilst I share your view here, I think many in the IDF and also civilians community, take the position that the world's opinion is not worth listening to because the world has not brought them peace. I personally think they are doing themselves no favours to bring that about themselves. And neither have the powers that be.

Samson said:
Shelling an area for 6 hours, then a presision bomb on the UN post? Sounds allmost to deliberate, perhaps there is something we are not being told.

Whatever this is and whoever it values about anyone else, I hope it will be the staw that breaks this conflict's back. For good.

EDIT: Aside for my concern with this event, I am also gravely concerned with the fact that we have the US and UK selling more arms to Israel ("bunker busters") whilst it sends diplomats in to supposedly broker peace. I find it hard to understand and agree with that contradiction.

HannibalBarka · Jul 26, 2006

I still think this is an accident, at worse the action of one soldier and not the IDF commandement, because I don't see any benefit for Israel to do so. I am very critical of Israel and really don't like a lot of stuff it does, but Israel isn't a country that will commit atrocities if no political/military gain is behind.
Israeli should however pay compensation for killing those 4 peace keeping soldiers.

Moff Jerjerrod · Jul 26, 2006

Rambuchan said:
.

EDIT: Aside for my concern with this event, I am also gravely concerned with the fact that we have the US and UK selling more arms to Israel ("bunker busters") whilst it sends diplomats in to supposedly broker peace. I find it hard to understand and agree with that contradiction.

This is the problem a lot of people the world over are asking themselves too.

The US sends medical supplies to Beirut, and jet fuel and bombs to Isreal. So how is peace going to happen in this region?

El_Machinae · Jul 26, 2006

Alpine Trooper said:
Interestingly, Canada has declared that it will not entertain any idea of sending peacekeeping soldiers to Israel. It wants the Middle-East to deal with itself.

While Canada might not send peacekeepers, we'll continue to fulfill our UN obligations.

I guess it's now more likely the UN will send peacekeepers, so I guess Israel got want it wanted.

I think that reparations are in order, I hope they don't drag their feet.

Pasi Nurminen · Jul 26, 2006

As I said in the other thread, this is essentially an act of war against my country. I wish we had some way of dealing with it accordingly, but we don't. Our navy, while modern and well equipped, just isn't large enough to pose a significant threat to the Israeli government, and sortieing the fleet in its entirety would mean stripping us of our anti-smuggling and patrol capabilities at home.

El_Machinae · Jul 26, 2006

I think 'act of war' is a bit strong; this is easily resolved as a civil matter.

It just looks bad for Israel because: they want the UN to come and they claim that they're specifically targetting Hezbollah based on intelligence.

Gabryel Karolin · Jul 26, 2006

Yepp, definately makes you wonder how many other non-Hizballah targets/people have been blowed to pieces by flawed intel.

Pasi Nurminen · Jul 26, 2006

El_Machinae said:
I think 'act of war' is a bit strong; this is easily resolved as a civil matter.

It just looks bad for Israel because: they want the UN to come and they claim that they're specifically targetting Hezbollah based on intelligence.

It may be a bit strong, but they killed a Canadian military serviceman with the intent of doing so. It may only be one person, but where do you draw the line? There are conservative cheerleaders on these boards who emphatically state over and over that Hezbollah firing a single rocket into Haifa or Hamas capturing a single Israeli soldier constitutes an act of war; isn't logic supposed to be a two-way street?

MobBoss · Jul 26, 2006

Pasi Nurminen said:
It may be a bit strong, but they killed a Canadian military serviceman with the intent of doing so.

Please. You think they found out he was a canadian and then said "kill him, he is Canadian"? Hardly.

Their intent was to kill Hezbollah militia. Someone obviously thought these guys were not the good guys, but the bad guys. Hence their getting killed.

Friendly fire is a reality of war, even today. Does that excuse it? No. In fact, I heard on the radio in my car this morning that the Israeli PM had issued an apology for the deaths of the UN observers.

I cant help but partially blame the UN for this entire thing. Apparently the UN troops in Lebanon were not doing a thing besides collecting a paycheck. They most certainly never did anything to prevent Hezbollah from increasing its presence in Lebanon and taking action against Israel. What good is it to have troops there when those same troops dont do anything? Whats the point? Just another UN failure in my opinion.

It may only be one person, but where do you draw the line? There are conservative cheerleaders on these boards who emphatically state over and over that Hezbollah firing a single rocket into Haifa or Hamas capturing a single Israeli soldier constitutes an act of war; isn't logic supposed to be a two-way street?

Its not just logic, but also intent. Did Israel intend to kill that guy simply because he was Canadian? No. However, Hezbollah and Hamas do intend to kill and murder Israelis purposefully when they do those acts. Can you not tell the difference?

Israel troops 'ignored' UN plea then bombed the UN observers

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