Is Hezbollah Folding?

This is truly bizarre. According to this report, Hezbollah politicians have agreed to some pretty startling concessions to end the war.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Hezbollah politicians, while expressing reservations, have joined their critics in the government in agreeing to a peace package that includes strengthening an international force in south Lebanon and disarming the guerrillas, the government said.

The agreement — reached after a heated six-hour Cabinet meeting — was the first time that Hezbollah has signed onto a proposal for ending the crisis that includes the deploying of international forces.

The package falls short of American and Israeli demands in that it calls for an immediate cease-fire before working out details of a force and includes other conditions.

But European Union officials said Friday the proposals form a basis for an agreement, increasing the pressure on the United States to call for a cease-fire.

President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday they too want an international force dispatched quickly to the Mideast but said any plan to end the fighting — to have a lasting effect — must address long-running regional disputes.

"This is a moment of intense conflict in the Middle East," Bush said after his meeting with Blair in Washington. "Yet our aim is to turn it into a moment of opportunity and a chance for broader change in the region."

By signing onto the peace proposals, Hezbollah gave Western-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora a boost in future negotiations.

Going into Thursday night's Cabinet session, Hezbollah's two ministers expressed deep reservations about the force and its mandate, fearing it could turn against their guerrillas.

"Will the international force be a deterrent one and used against who?" officials who attended the Cabinet meeting said in summing up Hezbollah cabinet ministers concerns. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the debate.

But afterward, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi announced that the package had been agreed on by consensus in a rare show of unity by a divided administration.

While all sides seemed to be looking for a way to stop the fighting, details of plans taking shape on all sides were still fuzzy. And it was not at all certain Hezbollah would really follow through on the Lebanese government plan that would effectively abolish the militants' military wing. It may have signed on to the deal convinced that Israel would reject it.

If true, this indicates how bad a situation Hezbollah is actually in. If they thought they were winning, there is absolutely no way they would agree to any of these terms. Period. I suspect their miscalculation here was of epic proportions and they know it. I also suspect Israel is very close indeed to a total crushing of Hezbollah.

Shootings At Jewish Federation Of Seattle

Via Powerline, there have been shootings at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. At least two people injured and one person taken into custody. Very little is known other than the flash traffic.

SEATTLE (AP) — Two people were wounded in a shooting Friday at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle and one person was arrested, police said.

The extent of the victims' injuries was not immediately known. A SWAT team was searching the downtown building for any other possible victims or shooters, police spokesman Rich Pruitt said.

"People got shot, some of our co-workers," Patti Simon said in a phone interview, her voice shaking. "I just got back from Israel and made it out of there a half hour before the rockets started."

Simon, who sells advertising for the federation's newspaper, was working on the first floor when she heard screaming, shots and what sounded like furniture crashing on the floor above.

Simon called up to her co-workers on the second floor, but got no answer, so she called the police and fled the building.

One person shot in the abdomen and another shot in the arm were being taken to Harborview Medical Center, KING-TV reported.

Will update - I'm trolling the web right now.

UPDATE: This is bad folks. Five shot, one killed by a gunman police describe as "Upset with the situation in Lebanon Israel".

At least five people were shot - one fatally - this afternoon at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle by a man a witness said was upset about "what was going on in Israel."

Police spokesman Rich Pruitt said there was one shooter, who was apprehended without incident outside the Jewish Federation Building located on the corner of Third Avenue and Virginia Street. Pruitt said there were at least two victims on the third floor of the building.

Police got reports of shots fired shortly before 4 p.m.

Early reports were that the victims were shot in the stomach.

The alleged shooter was taken away in a patrol car after being handcuffed on the sidewalk outside the building. Pruitt could not immediately say what motive the alleged gunman had.

One witness, who declined to give her name, said a man walked into the Jewish Federation building with a gun, said he was upset about what was going on in Israel, then opened fire. After the shootings, the man said to call 911, the witness said.

Will continue to update.

UPDATE: Seattle TV stations here.

UPDATE: Still worse. Shooter identified as a 31 year old Pakistani.

Sources told KING 5 the suspect is a 31-year-old Pakistani man with a criminal background. He is from the Pasco but his citizenship is unknown. Officials are on the way to the Pasco to interview his family.

According to the Seattle Times, a man got through security at the Jewish Federation and told staff members, "I'm a Muslim American; I'm angry at Israel," then began shooting, according to Amy Wasser-Simpson, the vice president for planning and community services for the Jewish Federation.

A Harborview Medical Center spokesperson said five women were brought in, and three of them are in critical condition. Two of them are in their 20s. One 43-year-old woman was reportedly shot in the abdomen while another who's 17 weeks pregnant, was shot in the arm. Another person has a knee injury.

The victims have not yet been identified.

A joint terrorism task force joined SWAT teams and a bomb disposal unit at the scene. The suspect's vehicle, a pick-up truck was in a nearby garage in the Bed, Bath and Beyond building, at 1930 Third Ave. Police cordoned off part of the garage before they determined there were no explosives.

UPDATE: Would someone, please, tell our American media to stop playing for the wrong side? Please? (Via Michelle Malkin.)

UPDATE: American Digest, an essay interrupted. Pajamas Media full coverage. AJ Strata, warrior-cowards attacking all women.  Roger Simon, the world as a battlefield. STACLU, terrorist attack. LGF, definitely related. Captain's Quarters, nuts coming out.

An American Soldier’s Perspective On Israel

Some Perspective from my son, serving in Iraq.

Except for a few sideways references in the past couple of weeks, I've remained pretty quiet about the current situation in Lebanon. I figured it was time I put my two cents in.

I'm twenty-three years old, so I was a bit too young to remember or care about what happened the last time Hezbollah was feeling its oats. For me, in my cognizant lifetime, Israel has been a hotbed for suicide bombings, perpetrated by people whose actions have been guided by a twisted and evil interpretation of an otherwise normal religion. I don't remember the last time rockets were fired into Israel from Lebanon. I don't remember the bombing of the Marine barracks. However, I am a student of history, so when all this kicked off I started doing some research. And I started thinking.

I wonder what would happen in the United States if, say, Mexico began launching artillery rockets into Texas, if the images of destruction and death were coming not from Haifa, but from San Antonio? Would the left wing and the media be crying for moderation and peace talks? Would the world condemn us for taking the fight to them? Some would say that Israel is a contested territory, that hundreds of thousands of Muslims were forcibly removed from their homes, and for that reason, the analogy does not hold up. To those people I say you are wrong, because a large portion of Texas was once under the Mexican flag.

Since December 7, 1941, the world has known that the United States is a force to be reckoned with when it's attacked within its own borders. I think it's safe to say that that tradition would hold up, and the U.S. military would swiftly and violently punish those responsible. What do you expect the game plan would be? Precision airstrikes? Small incursions of infantry? Special Forces?

My point is this: Israel is a sovereign country. The Israelis have EVERY RIGHT to defend their own borders against foreign attackers. For decades they have endured the cowardly attacks of terrorists. They have turned the other cheek time and time again against these attacks. They have offered the olive branch many times and been spurned by radical Muslims. To accuse them of any wrongdoing because they have finally retaliated against these acts of aggression is pure lunacy.

Put yourself in their shoes, and realize if it was your country, your fellow citizens being murdered, you'd probably want something done about it.

UPDATE: Many thanks to the folks at Powerline for naming Blue Crab Boulevard Blog of the Week (or so) and thanks again for linking this post from my son. His other posts are under the 'Foreign Correspondence' tag on the sidebar should you be interested in reading them. Visitors, please do take a look around, and thanks for stopping by.

UPDATE: Commenters would do well to read the comment policy. Violating the rules gets you deleted, repeated attempts to post the same comment will get you an IP block as well.

Landis Denies Doping Allegations

American bicyclist Floyd Landis made a public appearance today and categorically denied using any doping in his Tour de France victory. He will undergo any testing necessary to prove any elevation of his testosterone level is natural and not do to any improper conduct.

MADRID, Spain - Floyd Landis said the high testosterone that showed up in a drug screening at the Tour de France is the result of his natural metabolism — not doping of any kind — and he will undergo more tests to prove it.

"We will explain to the world why this is not a doping case but a natural occurrence," Landis said at a news conference Friday, his first public appearance since the test result cast doubt on one of the most stirring comeback wins in Tour history.

Landis said in a Thursday teleconference that he had no idea what caused his elevated testosterone levels following the race's 17th stage last week, where he made his heroic charge into the Alps. But on Friday, he was adamant that the reading was the result of his natural physiology.

"I would like to make absolutely clear that I am not in any doping process," said Landis, wearing a baseball cap turned backward and a white shirt with the name of his Phonak team. "I ask not to be judged by anyone, much less sentenced by anyone."

Landis is still awaiting results from a backup sample, which will clear him if found to be negative. Switzerland-based Phonak said it would ask that the backup sample be tested in the next few days.

Landis's lawyer, Luis Sanz, said he fully expected the backup test to come back with the same result, since the elevated testosterone was produced naturally by Landis's body. The 30-year-old cyclist said Friday that he would undergo additional testing to prove it.

"I will procede to under go all these tests … to accredit that the levels that I've had during the Tour and all my career are natural and produced by my own organism," he said.

Until those tests are conducted, Landis said, "I ask not to be judged, or much less to be sentenced by anyone."

If ultimately proven guilty, he could be stripped of the Tour title and fired from the team.

It would be well to remember the charges leveled against Lance Armstrong as well. You know, the charges that turned out to be false? Earlier post here.

All The Nudes That’s Fit To Print

Well, it's time for a roundup of important nudes, er, news from all over.

Item: The world's largest strip poker tournament, which started as an April Fool joke by an Irish bookie, will actually be held next month.

Leading Irish bookmaker, the Paddy Power company, came up with the idea of setting a world record for the game as an April Fool's Day joke.

But it decided to stage the event for real and get into the Guinness Book of Records after receiving numerous phone calls and emails from curious punters.

Paddy Power, which has a reputation for publicity stunts and whacky wagers, has already received over 50 entries for the strip poker game planned for the Café Royal in London on August 19.

"People have entered from Ireland, Britain, Brazil, Australia and Germany. It is a good mixture so far," said Paddy Power, a spokesman for the company of the same name.

"We need about 200 but the way it is shaping up I'd say we might be extending it. The plan was to have 100 men and 100 women. But I'd say we might have to make it a bit bigger," Power told AFP Friday.

The Irish bookmaker aims to set two records — the biggest strip poker tournament ever and the first world strip poker champion.

Well, it's one way to get publicity.

Item: A group of some thirty tourists from Scandinavia, mostly women, scandalized a small town in Albania when they arrived at the beach and promptly lost a strip poker tournament, figuratively speaking. The tourists cheerfully stripped and went swimming and or sunbathing.

Edmon Gjoka, the mayor of Saranda, a picturesque coastal town some 300 kilometers (180 miles) south from Tirana, told AFP that a group of 30 tourists, mostly women, visited on a day trip from the neighbouring Greek island of Corfu on Tuesday a public beach popular with locals.

The police did not know how to react to the unusual behaviour by foreign tourists, the mayor explained.

"The situation was delicate: Albanian parents were pressing the police to prevent the Scandinavians from swimming nude in front of their children," Gjoka said.

But further incidents were avoided when a guide explained to the tourists that nude sun-bathing and swimming were not allowed in Albania, local media reported.

"It is forbidden to swim nude on public beaches as they are usually in the centre of the town, but the police did not intervene in order to avoid misunderstandings," said Saranda police chief Limoz Fallani.

One newspaper reported the police had been reluctant to react as they "spoke no English."

"It was a real topless parade and we had to leave the beach with our children," said 40-year old Frida Agolli.

Not everyone in town is upset. In the true spirit of I Love a Parade some people are suggesting it might not be a bad idea to designate a place where the topless parades can continue. Good for the tourist revenue, don't you know.

Item: A "gentleman's club" in New Braunfels, Texas is defying town officials who want to clamp down on wild river tubing parties. They are organizing a tube trip featuring strippers from the club. They swear the ladies will be properly attired.

Trey Maddox, a manager at Palace Men's Club, said Sunday's excursion — during which men can pay $25 to join the strippers — isn't meant to fly in the face of the city's new rules.

"We're not hookers, dope dealers or Mafia thugs," he said, noting that the strippers will be appropriately dressed. "We're just coming to have a good time."

City Councilman Ken Valentine isn't so sure.

"I'm really disappointed that this is going to occur on Sunday when people should be in church," he said. "I hope they behave themselves and keep their clothes on, but I'm not sure they will because strippers are trained to take off their clothes."

The New Braunfels City Council has been cracking down on rowdy behavior on the Comal and Guadalupe rivers in recent months, banning drinking devices known as beer bongs, increasing the maximum fine for noise ordinance violations and prohibiting sound amplification between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m.

A new ordinance banning containers with a liquid volume of 5 ounces or less — an attempt to ban Jell-O shots — will take effect after the next city council meeting.

One hates to think what the town fathers would do if a group of Scandinavian tourist was to drop by. For a poker game. Or something.

UPDATE: And yet more nudes in the news. Harry Potter to prance about on stage in his birthday suit. Well, ok, it's just the actor who plays Harry Potter, but he's going to star in a new production of the 1970's play Equus. He'll be doing a nude scene in the play, set to open in London next year. And I suppose the producers did the casting for completely altruistic purposes. Because they also hired the actor who plays Harry's Uncle Vernon in the movies to star.

The play delves into the psyche of a boy named Alan Strang who blinds six horses with a metal spike. The production is scheduled to open next March in the West End theater district, said spokesman Peter Thompson.

"It is an extraordinary play, and he's very much looking forward to the role," Radcliffe's spokeswoman, Vanessa Davies, said Friday. "He is maturing as an actor and beginning to take on new and challenging roles."

In one scene the actor playing Strang is required to simulate sexual ecstasy while riding a horse naked. But Davies said nudity was not the focus of the play.

Richard Griffiths, who plays Harry's Uncle Vernon in the films, is lined up to play the psychiatrist who interviews the troubled youth.

Cindy’s Sockpuppet

Oh my. This just keeps getting better! Via Hot Air, it appears that Cindy Sheehan used a front person to buy the land. According to the woman who sold the land, a man bought the land after telling a sob story about being a Katrina victim looking to make a new start.

Rumor has it that Cindy will be building a new theme park on the land which may be called Stalkerland or possibly Six Bags Over Crawford. Cindy celebrated the deal by making half a side of beef into a smoothie, in strict compliance with her fast.

Hat Tip, Confederate Yankee. (Damn, Bob, don't you need a license to carry a picture like that? It's lethal, man).

UPDATE: More on the pleasant treatment Cindy gives to people who do favors for her from the Dallas Fort Worth Star-Telegram. (Newspaper title corrected per comment)

The relationship began to sour somewhat, he said, when he recently learned on the group's Web site that protesters planned to return to Crawford in August. He said he did not agree to let them use the land at that time because it coincided with his family's plans to hunt doves. He said he also did not want Sheehan to use his property when Bush was at his ranch. "I just didn't want his vacation to be interrupted. It was out of respect for the president," Mattlage said.

He said he eventually agreed to let Gold Star Families for Peace use his land in August but only with the understanding that, because of the expected huge crowds, liability insurance costs were going to increase significantly to between $5,500 and $6,000. Mattlage said that, on the advice of his lawyer, he also told the protest group to sign a "hold harmless" agreement that would further free him of liability if something went wrong.

In a newsletter e-mailed to Mattlage and protest organizers on June 23, Sheehan told Mattlage, "I cannot in good faith accept the terms that you and your lawyers are holding us hostage with. … I fear we will have to find alternatives to using your land … "

Mattlage, in a phone interview, said Sheehan had initially agreed to pay the higher insurance costs. It made him mad, he said, when she later sent an e-mail to organizers suggesting he was holding her "hostage."

Mattlage sent his one-time friend an e-mail back that said, "You can go away now."

And Sheehan replied: "Okay. Bye."

New Opportunity For Beachfront Property

Some brand new prime real estate has just become available! Beachfront property on a lovely lake away from all the neighbors. Wear your snuggies though. The lake is made of liquid methane. The newly discovered lake is on Titan, one of Saturn's moons.

These are not bodies of water like those on Earth, but rather dark lakes of methane and possibly ethane. They are likely the source of the hydrocarbon smog in the moon's atmosphere that has long made it impossible to even see the surface.

Several dark patches, some with channels running out of them, were spotted near Titan's north pole during a July 22 Cassini flyby, NASA said in a statement yesterday.

"This is a big deal," said Steve Wall, deputy radar team leader at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We've now seen a place other than Earth where lakes are present."

This was Cassini's first look at the region. It's radar, which penetrates the smog, was used to find several dozen lakes ranging from less than a mile wide to one that is about 62 miles long.

"What we see is darker than anything we've ever seen elsewhere on Titan. It was almost as though someone laid a bull's-eye around the whole north pole of Titan, and Cassini sees these regions of lakes just like those we see on Earth," said Larry Soderblom, Cassini interdisciplinary scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, Ariz.

On radar, dark areas indicate smoother terrain. These apparent lakes are so dark that the scientists assume they must be liquid. Any water on Titan would be constantly frozen, however, so the assumption is these lakes are made of hydrocarbons, which can stay liquid at much colder temperatures.

The shapes of outflow channels strongly suggest liquid carved them, the researchers say.

In keeping with the spirit of American entrepreneurial ventures, We here at Blue Crab Boulevard would like to take this opportunity to announce the Blue Crab Solar System Real Estate service, Inc. For a modest fee (cash only, please) we will give you a clear title* to a piece of beachfront property on Titan! Sorry, you'll have to make your own travel arrangements.

*Written in disappearing ink, guaranteed to turn clear right after you receive it! (Here's a gallery of Cassini discoveries, by the way).

Hezbollah Rocket Hits Israeli Hospital

No injuries reported, thankfully. A Hezbollah rocket hit the top floor of the main hospital in the border city of Nahariya.

Later Friday, a Hezbollah rocket hit the top floor window of the main hospital in the Israeli border town of Nahariya, causing damage but no injuries, hospital officials said. The rocket shattered a window and scorched its frame.

A miracle nobody was hurt.

Whap!

John Bolton slaps Senator John "Cool Hat Luke" Kerry upside the head with the truth. Gateway Pundit has all the flips and flops all tied together in a neat little package.

Long Range Rockets Fired Into Israel

In what Ynet news is calling an escalation, longer range rockets carrying larger explosive warheads have been launched by Hezbollah into Israel. Fortunately, the five rockets hit empty fields. However, these are the first long range rockets seen thus far in the two week old war.

Police officials said that on Friday noon Hizbullah fired at Israel, for the first time since the fighting in the north began, five long-range missiles carrying a greater amount of explosives than the Pajar rockets of the type that has been fired so far. The missiles landed in open areas near Afula and in the area between Afula and Beit Shean. No injuries were reported in the attack.

A short while later sirens were heard in the Haifa and Krayot area and residents were ordered into shelters and protected areas. Some rockets landed in open areas near Haifa. In a separate barrage a rocket landed in Nahariya, hitting a vehicle that immediately caught fire. Another rocket struck a public building in town and damaged it. No injuries were reported in the attacks.

Up until today, in 17 days of fighting, dozens of 22o millimeter-diameter rockets were fired at Israel, including several Pajar-3 rockets. A police official said Friday that the missiles that landed in Afula today were "of an unknown type, something between the Pajar-3 and the Zilzal missile."

He added that sappers are currently working to identify the missile, and to establish the amount of explosives it was carrying and to what distance it is capable of reaching.

Ynet has learned that some of the rockets fired in the barrages on the Western Galilee on Thursday included 220 millimeter-diameter rockets. Up until now Hizbullah had launched these rockets only at Haifa. One of them had hit a train depot and killed eight employees at the place.

Here's a map so you can see the difference in distances. Afula has been Underlined:

(Note: The word Palestine that can be seen at the bottom of the picture refers to the West Bank area, not the map of Israel as a whole. The label Israel is cut off in this zoomed shot.)

On Moral Compasses

Charles Krauthammer has an outstanding piece up in the Washington Post. In it he poses the simple question: "What other country, when attacked in an unprovoked aggression across a recognized international frontier, is then put on a countdown clock by the world, given a limited time window in which to fight back, regardless of whether it has restored its own security?"

He is, of course, correct. There is an astonishing double standard in play here. There is a sickening moral equivalency being used to equate things that are not at all the same thing.

To hear the world pass judgment on the Israel-Hezbollah war as it unfolds is to live in an Orwellian moral universe. With a few significant exceptions (the leadership of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and a very few others), the world — governments, the media, U.N. bureaucrats — has completely lost its moral bearings.

The word that obviates all thinking and magically inverts victim into aggressor is "disproportionate," as in the universally decried "disproportionate Israeli response."

When the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, it did not respond with a parallel "proportionate" attack on a Japanese naval base. It launched a four-year campaign that killed millions of Japanese, reduced Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to cinders, and turned the Japanese home islands into rubble and ruin.

Disproportionate? No. When one is wantonly attacked by an aggressor, one has every right — legal and moral — to carry the fight until the aggressor is disarmed and so disabled that it cannot threaten one's security again. That's what it took with Japan.

Britain was never invaded by Germany in World War II. Did it respond to the Blitz and V-1 and V-2 rockets with "proportionate" aerial bombardment of Germany? Of course not. Churchill orchestrated the greatest air campaign and land invasion in history, which flattened and utterly destroyed Germany, killing untold innocent German women and children in the process.

The perversity of today's international outcry lies in the fact that there is indeed a disproportion in this war, a radical moral asymmetry between Hezbollah and Israel: Hezbollah is deliberately trying to create civilian casualties on both sides while Israel is deliberately trying to minimize civilian casualties, also on both sides.

Anyone who has read this blog since the war in Lebanon started knows that this has been my position all along. There is no equivalence here. If the world and the left would start denouncing what Hezbollah has been doing for years instead of blindly regurgitating Hezbollah talking points as straight fact, we might, just might, be able to start making some effective changes in the Middle East. Instead, we get Warren Christopher urging the same old failed policies and endless screeching about what Israel is doing. No condemnations of Hezbollah. There has been exactly one UN official (Egeland) who I have heard denounce Hezbollah for using civilians as shields. And that was one brief quote that has not been repeated to my knowledge.

Israel's response to Hezbollah has been to use the most precise weaponry and targeting it can. It has no interest, no desire to kill Lebanese civilians. Does anyone imagine that it could not have leveled south Lebanon, to say nothing of Beirut? Instead, in the bitter fight against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, it has repeatedly dropped leaflets, issued warnings, sent messages by radio and even phone text to Lebanese villagers to evacuate so that they would not be harmed.

Risking the lives of their own soldiers and pilots in an attempt to warn civilians. Not hiding rockets in homes, not putting fighters as close as possible to UN observer positions. Not roadblocking civilians trying to escape the fighting. Not launching unguided rockets at civilian targets intentionally.

There is no equivalence here.

UPDATE: Bruce Kesler has thoughts on this subject as well.

Dateline London

The police in England are in the news today. Item: Displaying a total lack of a sense of humor, London police have ordered a woman to take down a sign on her garden gate. The sign had been there for 30 years, ever since her husband put it there after two Jehovah's Witness missionaries knocked on the door of the house on Christmas day. The sign read, "Our dogs are fed on Jehovah's Witnesses".

Her late husband put the sign up more than 30 years ago when members of the church called at their house on Christmas Day.

But police were forced to act after receiving a complaint.

"We were informed by a member of the public who found the sign to be distressing, offensive and inappropriate," a police spokesman said. "Officers attended the address and the sign was voluntarily taken down."

There is no evidence the dogs were actually fed anything but kibble. But then, has anyone done a head count on Jehovah's Witnesses in the area?

Item: Here's a good one: the police in Sussex have arrested the police in Sussex for stealing candy from the police in Sussex. We begin to detect a pattern here.

An investigation was launched after "a significant stock loss" from the sweetshop at Hailsham Police Station, Sussex Police said on Friday.

The shop operates by officers helping themselves to the sweets and drinks before leaving money in a tin.

The two officers, who have since been released on bail, have been suspended while "a number" of other staff and officers have also been removed from frontline duty while the sweets-theft probe is carried out.

"The integrity of our staff is very important to us and when we identify problems such as this, we act swiftly and positively to resolve the issues," said Chief Inspector Tony Blaker said.

The force said replacement officers have been drafted in to ensure a normal policing service.

Good thing there weren't any sign complaints while they were short-handed.

UN Withdraws Unarmed Observers

Finally, after getting four of them killed, the UN has withdrawn the unarmed UN observers (UNTSO).

BEIRUT, Lebanon - The United Nations has decided to remove unarmed observers from their posts along the Israeli-Lebanese border, moving them in with the peacekeeping force in the area, a spokesman said Friday. The decision came three days after one of the posts of the observer force, known as UNTSO, was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike earlier this week, killing four.

"These are unarmed people and this is for their protection," said Milos Struger, a spokesman for UNIFIL, the peacekeeping force whose 2,000 members have light weapons for self-defense.

This should have been done earlier instead of allowing Hezbollah to use the UN force as human shields. Which they have done repeatedly.

What Does This Teach Us?

Warren Christopher pontificates in the Washington Post on his role in two ceasefires with Hezbollah that he helped negotiate. He misses completely the irony of that which he writes upon.

My own experience in the region underlies my belief that in the short term we should focus our efforts on stopping the killing. Twice during my four years as secretary of state we faced situations similar to the one that confronts us today. Twice, at the request of the Israelis, we helped bring the bloodshed to an end.

In June 1993, Israel responded to Hezbollah rocket attacks along its northern border by launching Operation Accountability, resulting in the expulsion of 250,000 civilians from the southern part of Lebanon.

After the Israeli bombardment had continued for several days, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin asked me to use my contacts in Syria to seek their help in containing the hostilities. I contacted Foreign Minister Farouk Shara, who, of course, consulted with Syrian President Hafez al-Assad. After several days of urgent negotiations, an agreement was reached committing the parties to stop targeting one another's civilian populations. We never knew exactly what the Syrians did, but clearly Hezbollah responded to their direction.

In April 1996, when Hezbollah again launched rocket attacks on Israel's northern border, the Israelis countered with Operation Grapes of Wrath, sending 400,000 Lebanese fleeing from southern Lebanon. Errant Israeli bombs hit a U.N. refugee camp at Cana in southern Lebanon, killing about 100 civilians and bringing the wrath of international public opinion down upon Israel.

This time Shimon Peres, who had become prime minister after the assassination of Rabin, sought our help. In response, we launched an eight-day shuttle to Damascus, Beirut and Jerusalem that produced a written agreement bringing the hostilities to an end. Weeks later, the parties agreed to a border monitoring group consisting of Israel, Syria, Lebanon, France and the United States. Until three weeks ago, that agreement had succeeded for 10 years in preventing a wholesale resumption of hostilities.

What do these episodes teach us?

From there Christopher just falls into the "honest broker" rhetoric. He's sees the US role to just step in and stop the fighting between the parties. What he completely misses is the glaringly obvious. The ceasefires do not work. They just provide a temporary lull until Hezbollah feels strong enough to start things up again. But in Christopher's world, the act of of the negotiation is, of itself, what is worthwhile. I agree with his last sentence, though:

It is time for the United States to step forward with the authority and balance that this moment requires.

But he wants the same old unworkable solution. I'd like to see the US step forward and change the equation by not doing the same old thing. Hezbollah badly miscalculated because they expected the same old tired Warren Christopher style failed solution. They have admitted that they were shocked when it didn't work the same old way. There are signs it is working in Gaza. By not doing the same failed diplomatic two-step, Abbas seems to be on the verge of pulling off a real ceasefire.

The Actions Of Barbarians

Two years ago, the Iranian clerical courts had a 16-year old girl executed. Her crime? She was raped by a 51 year old former Revolutionary Guard member. The BBC actually published this story, which surprises me. They did go to some tortured convolutions of language describing the girl and her rapist as having a relationship. Yeesh.

On 15 August, 2004, Atefah Sahaaleh was hanged in a public square in the Iranian city of Neka.

Her death sentence was imposed for "crimes against chastity".

The state-run newspaper accused her of adultery and described her as 22 years old.

But she was not married - and she was just 16.

Sharia Law

In terms of the number of people executed by the state in 2004, Iran is estimated to be second only to China.

In the year of Atefah's death, at least 159 people were executed in accordance with the Islamic law of the country, based on the Sharia code.

Since the revolution, Sharia law has been Iran's highest legal authority.

Alongside murder and drug smuggling, sex outside marriage is also a capital crime.

As a signatory of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, Iran has promised not to execute anyone under the age of 18.

But the clerical courts do not answer to parliament. They abide by their religious supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, making it virtually impossible for human rights campaigners to call them to account.

Read the whole thing. It's quite sickening. The most sickening thing? The execution was carried out in public. The authorities put a noose around her neck and hoisted her to the top of a crane. For those of you who do not understand this, this is slow strangulation and exceedingly cruel. These are the actions of barbarians.