Harper doubts UN post deliberately targeted

[daleo]

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he doesn't believe Israel deliberately attacked a United Nations post in southern Lebanon in a bombing that killed four UN observers, including a Canadian.
...
Harper confirmed in a statement later that Canadian Forces member Maj. Paeta Derek Hess-von Kruedener, who was serving with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) mission in South Lebanon, is missing and presumed dead.
...
Harper pointed to the fact the government of Israel has been "co-operating with us in our evacuation efforts, in our efforts to move Canadian citizens out of Lebanon, and also trying to keep our own troops that are on the ground involved in the evacuation out of harm's way."

He said he wants to find out why the UN post was attacked, but also why "it remained manned during what is now, more or less, a war."

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2006/07/25/un-lebanon.html
------------

Umm...Harper, he was your soldier, so you ought to know why he was manning the U.N. post.

[Kagemusha]

1. This story's big around the world. Huge PR cover to Israel.

Hope he's happy.

[saigon68]

11. HARPER is the Chimp's Butt Boy

He will do anything for his master.

He takes orders very well

[Little Star]

2. Harper should read this July 19 Reuters article and get a clue

Israeli suspicion of UN clouds Lebanon force plan
By Adam Entous

ADVERTISEMENT

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli commander at the Lebanese border recalls peering through binoculars one afternoon to see U.N. peacekeepers sipping tea with Hizbollah guerrillas.


The officer's conspiratorial take on the meeting a few months ago underscores Israel's long-standing distrust of the United Nations force in Lebanon and its reluctance to see an expanded version as a way to end the current conflict.


"I want to be cautious on this issue," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said of proposals for a beefed up international force that are now taking shape with support of U.N. envoys.


"It appears to me that it is too early to discuss it," Olmert said.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/19072006/6/n-world-israeli-suspicion-un-clouds-lebanon-force-plan.html

[Amonester]

16. Why would it be 'suspicious' to drink cups with one of the 'sides'...

and try to talk to them in a manner that could 'influence' them for (hoping) they should stop wanting to wage war on Israel?

Why do the sordid Neocons of Israel want to murder members of countries who want to help reduce their enemies' anger??

And why assasinate friends like these peaceful human beings before any proper investigation ever took place??

I think I'm about to scream!!

JUSTICE!! ALL STUPID LAWLESS NEOCON MURDERERS:
TO THE HAGUE!!

[iverglas]

3. I was just about to go looking for what Steve had to say

Thanks for saving me the bother. I mean, like I couldn't have written it blindfolded.

Ireland's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that a senior Irish soldier working in south Lebanon warned the Israelis six times that they were putting the lives of UN observers in danger with their air strikes.

"On six separate occasions, he was in contact with the Israelis to warn them that their bombardment was endangering the lives of UN staff in south Lebanon," said a spokesperson for Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs.

... Ireland has filed an official protest with Israel. China has also demanded that Israel apologize for the attack. Austria's foreign minister, Ursula Plassnik, told her Israeli counterpart by telephone that the bombing was unacceptable and urged Israel to stop its attack on the area.

And Canada has said, er, "bring 'em on"?

He said he wants to find out why the UN post was attacked, but also why "it remained manned during what is now, more or less, a war."

Well gee, Steve, why don't you ask your fucking Minister of Defence, for starters, given that there was a Canadian officer there?

What, you weren't micro-managing that situation?

[w4rma]

4. Ah, Bush's mini-me from Canada. (nt)

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

5. "It looks like a baby!"

[sueragingroz]

6. dammit!

I can't find the picture of Harper and his man boobs.


:(

[MrPrax]

7. Hey Steve...

How many more Canadians are you going to let Israel kill in self-defense? Was Maj. Paeta Derek Hess-von Kruedener supporting Hezbullah?

You going to stand up for Canada or Israel, Steve?

[leesa]

8. Well, isn't he the little tool! Isn't that their job to observe what's

going on? One would think Israel doesn't WANT the UN to know what they're up to.

There is no way in hell that was accidental. Not with conversations all day long between them with the UN asking them to stop and Israel promising they would. It is not possibly a mistake so quit playing these Neocon games.

[gula]

9. Does he really think he is representing Canadians?

What a sniveling piece of turd. At least here in Québec none of his sucking up to Bush and Israel is going over well, quite the contrary.

[Amonester]

20. If he was not so pathetic, we would all be laughing at this clown...

Instead, we can only feel like crying (non-stop).




(Hi! gula: bonjour!) :hi:

[AnOhioan]

10. Bush, Blair, Harper, Olmert.......

Right wing fascism at it's best.

[Amonester]

21. + Howard The Aussie - eom

[Spazito]

12. Here's a peacekeeper that ACTUALLY served there that

disagrees with harper and agrees with Annan:

Harry Bloom, eastern vice-president of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry Association, spent a year in the early 1970s patrolling the exact terrain where Hess-von Kruedener served.

Bloom, now retired at 66, said he wasn't surprised by news that an Israeli bomb had hit the post - and he doesn't believe it was an accident.

"I agree with (UN Secretary General) Kofi Annan's comment that it seemed to be an intentional hit. It would have to be. The outposts are so well-identified with blue and white paint and flags. A pilot cannot mistake that outpost for anything else."

Bloom described repeated "altercations" with Israeli forces when he was stationed there.

more

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=7eb2c665-888b-4025-8975-f405d1237e0e&k=7216&p=2

[goforit]

13. Awe come on, it was just a little favor from John Bolton.

[CHIMO]

14. Canada Won't Join Peacekeepers

But apparently overlooked by most of the world amidst the scramble to evacuate foreign nationals from Lebanon and desperate calls for restraint or a ceasefire are the 2,000 UN peacekeepers caught between Hezbollah and Israeli Defence Forces since the conflict began.

There are currently three UN peacekeeping missions in the region: The UN Disengagement Observer Force that was established in 1974 in the Golan Heights, located along the Syria-Israel border, and comprises 1,033 peacekeepers, including two senior Canadian officers; the UN Truce Supervision Organization, established in 1948 is the first and longest running UN peacekeeping operation, with 154 military observers, including eight Canadians, based in Jerusalem but rotated around the region; and the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), established in 1978 and based in south Lebanon, made up of 1,990 peacekeepers monitoring Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon.

Since the fighting erupted two weeks ago, this third force has been caught in the middle of the fighting and has suffered casualties.

http://www.embassymag.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=/2006/july/26/peacekeepers/

Yep. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Kofi Annan Could Have Ordered Peacekeepers to Leave

Haifa, Israel (CNSNews.com) - The four United Nations peacekeepers killed in an Israeli attack on their outpost were required to stay at that post "until they were ordered by the secretary general to withdraw," said a member of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization on Wednesday.

But the peacekeepers apparently never received such an order, despite the fierce cross-border fighting that erupted in southern Lebanon two weeks ago.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/viewstory.asp?Page=%5CForeignBureaus%5Carchive%5C200607%5CINT20060726c.html

So the song book is now out and all can sing the same tune.

[daleo]

15. It is blame the victim time

They will blame these guys' mothers next.

[LeftistGorilla]

17. I feel sick...

I could choke this guy....

[Writer]

18. Right.

Sustained, day-long shelling (21 bombs) is "accidental."

[IndianaGreen]

19. Harper is Bush's Canada gander

He and the Poodle make a nice pair of losers!

[HuffleClaw]

22. harper should shut the hell up

or maybe not. he's doing himself and any chances of reelection some real damage with his recent stance regarding this war. what an idiot. the public is NOT going to be the least bit happy with his pooh-poohing of this senseless slaughter, particularly in light of the fact a Canadian got killed. oh, and since the military managed to expose it was the PMO that put a stop to the press being present when the bodies of fallen canadian soldiers arrive home, that policy has been reversed.

[nebula]

23. All witnesses to the bloodbath

(especially the official ones), must be eliminated.

[nebula]

24. It wasn't the first time

" On April 18, 1996, Israeli Armed Forces shelled a United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) Compound in Qana, Lebanon killing 106 civilians and wounding hundreds of others. The shelling marked one of the bloodiest massacres in Lebanon’s modern history. Israeli and American pressures shelved a UN investigation, but legal actions are now being taken in an effort to redress this injustice."


link

Shocking to say the least.