- Israel's deliberate attack on a UN peacekeeping outpost
in southern Lebanon represents a new departure in Israel's war against
Lebanon. The attack is being called a mistake by the Israeli government
and its Bush administration patrons. Unconfirmed US ambassador to the UN
John Bolton is a known opponent of the UN system, having once called for
the destruction of the top ten floors of the UN Secretariat Building in
New York. The US and Israeli Missions to the UN, always working in complete
lockstep, are now spinning that the Israeli attack on the UN outpost was
because Hezbollah placed weapons near the facility.
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- The last time UN peacekeepers were deliberately targeted
was in 1994 when 10 Belgian blue helmets assigned to the UN Assistance
Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) were savagely murdered by rampaging Hutus after
the shoot down of the presidential aircraft carrying the Hutu Presidents
of Rwanda and Burundi by members of U.S.-supported Paul Kagame's Rwanda
Patriotic Army forces. In 2005, Congolese guerrillas killed nine MONUC
Bangladeshi and one Nepali UN peacekeepers in Ituri province. In 1976,
two US Army soldiers operating under UN aegis were hacked to death by North
Korean troops at the demilitarized zone's Panmunjom "truce village."
In none of these cases was it proven that the assaults on the UN troops
were carried out with the knowledge of the governments concerned.
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- As UNIFIL peacekeepers were assisting in the evacuation
of civilians from Lebanon, one of their headquarters in Khiyam, Lebanon
was bombed by Israel, killing four blue helmets.
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- The UN currently maintains peacekeepers around the world
who have not faced deliberate attacks by UN member states. These include
UN missions in Western Sahara (MINURSO), the Ethiopian-Eritrean border
(UNMEE), Liberia (UNMIL), Burundi (ONUB), Cote d'Ivoire (UNOCI), Sudan
(UNMIS), Haiti (MINUSTAH), Kashmir (UNMOGIP), Cyprus (UNFICYP), Georgia-Abkhazia
(UNOMIG), the Golan Heights (UNDOF), and Kosovo (UNMIK). UNOMIG is now
under threat by a Georgian invasion force, backed by U.S. "advisers,"
that entered the Kodori Gorge in Abkhazia. The Georgian military move,
condemned by Russia, follows by a few weeks President Bush's meeting in
Washington with Georgian neo-con President Mikhail Saakashvili. The Kodori
Gorge is only 20 miles from Sukhumi, the Abkhazian capital. Any further
movement by Georgian forces and their U.S. advisers risks a military confrontation
with Russian troops in Abkhazia.
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- http://waynemadsenreport.com
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