UN Observers Attacked Two More Times - Kofi & MSM Yawn

That's interesting. Two attacks on UN Observers are a snooze fest, yet a third one is worthy of cable "newz" outlets breaking into regular programming to alert their viewers & the MSM was all a twitter for the next two days.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was hopping mad. Within minutes of learning about an Israeli airstrike that U.N. observer post on the border in southern Lebanon, killing three Observers, Annan angrily issued this statement:

"I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces of a U.N. Observer post in southern Lebanon,"

So why do all we hear are chirping crickets with the other two attacks on UN Observers in southern Lebanon?

One unarmed UN military observer, a member of the Observer Group Lebanon (OGL), was seriously wounded by small arms fire in the patrol base in the Marun Al Ras area yesterday afternoon. According to preliminary reports, the fire originated from the Hezbollah side during an exchange with the IDF. He was evacuated by the UN to the Israeli side, from where he was taken by an IDF ambulance helicopter to a hospital in Haifa. He was operated on, and his condition is now reported as stable.....

This morning, Hezbollah opened small arms fire at a UNIFIL convoy consisting of two armored personnel carriers (APC) on the road between Kunin and Bint Jubayl. There was some damage to the APCs, but no casualties, and the convoy was obliged to return to Kunin.

Hmmm.... UN Observer is shot by Hezbollah. He is rescued & operated on by Israeli's. A UN convoy is shot up by Hezbollah. Not so much as a tisk tisk from Kofi to the Hezbollah "guerrillas" (musn't call them what they really are now). And the MSM? All we get are chirping crickets. However, an Israeli airstrike hits a UN Observation post & we get an immediate allegation of "deliberate targeting" from the Secretary General of the UN. Within hours there are tens of thousands of reports* of the incident unquestioningly quoting Annan's outrageous allegation.

Adding insult to injury, it now seems that Kofi was not just over zealous in making his immediate & unsubstantiated "deliberate targeting" allegation against Israel. Now it seems Kofi knew or should have known that Hezbollah was to blame.

A UN Oficial has reported that the UN Post hit Tuesday sent an e-mail warning of Hezbollah engaging the IDF near their position. Also, the UN Report on the pathetically incompetant UNIFIL mission in Sothern Lebanon shows that UN Observers there watched as Hezbollah built & reinforced their positions, often very near to UN observation posts. In other words Hezbollah also used UNIFIL as human shields just like they do with civilians. And they have a handy propaganda tool if Israeli forces fire on Hezbollah but hit a nearby UNIFIL post just as happened Tuesday. (Hat tip to Captain Ed)


* A Google search of, "Annan" & "deliberate targeting", currently returns 92,100 hits less than three days after the incident. I tried several combinations of keywords to isolate the number of stories on the two Hezbollah attacks on the UN Observers, but each one came back with most of the stories relating to the Israeli airstrike.