I think there is something suspicious about the time of the strike and the time of the building collapse, but to speculate on what may have been
in the building at this point would be just that....speculation. Rest assured that Hezbollah will probably make it as difficult as possible to actually conduct a serious investigation. They have their new pic for their T-Shirts, and they won't jeopardize that.
Also on Qana-- Ralph Peters of the NY Post
has a good piece today on the failure of air war. It really is a crap shoot though, b/c if they use precision bombs sold to them by the U.$., well then they are trying to blow up children (gimme the logic in that sort of reasoning). If they send a massive ground offensive, go door to door, innocent people will die. The civilian casualties will go up b/c Hezbollah is hiding amongst them. More troops will also die.
No matter what the circumstances in Qana, it's horrible and tragic. But this doesn't change the fact that what at the very worst is a horrible, horrible mistake on the part of the IAF is not the norm in the way they have conducted this war. They have used targeted bombings that have now, according to reports,
disabled 2/3 of Hezbollah's rocket launching capability. Folks might want to keep in mind (b/c the media seems to be having a hard time with it) that this was
started by hezbollah, and if all that comes of this is a prisoner swap with a terrorist politcal party, than the tragedy in Qana will
really have been a tragedy.
The "question about terrorism," really being wouldn't you hurt innocent people if you felt cornered, is a moot one. Even though Hezbollah has limited capabilities (although not nearly to the degree often portrayed), they are trying their hardest to take out as many innocents as possible. They fill their rockets with
ball bearings and shrapnel, all with the intention of specifically TARGETING innocent lives in northern Israel. Israel has dropped fliers, alerted the press, made phone calls, and
given warnings days in advance.
Despite the way the enemy and our own shameful Left will paint this, this was
not an invasion on Israel's part. Israel will push back Hezbollah, and hopefully destroy them. As crass as it may sound, it isn't Israel's responsibility to care about what people in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, or even in the UN think of them. If they cared about those things, they would still find themselves engaged in perpetual war (since no condemnation of Israel ever seems to follow with a plan to deal with terrorism and acts of war against Israel).
one side gives warnings days in advance, and uses targeted bombings. The other loads sharp oblects and strip metal into their rockets in order to maximize suffering. That is your choice.