Retreating

Sebastian Mallaby, a Washington Post writer I have taken exception to before, has a column in Monday's WaPo. Ah, the parade of tired out clichés is quite enormous - and revealing:

The first lesson is that allies do matter, and so does the global public opinion that creates, or fails to create, a political climate in which governments feel able to work with the United States. The Bush administration has at times skated past this truth, correctly believing that doing the right thing can matter more than doing the popular thing. But it has learned, slowly and painfully, that doing right gets to be impossible if your unpopularity becomes toxic. To address any major foreign policy challenge, from Iran to North Korea to Darfur, you need international backing.

Ah, yes. And so Clinton's adventure into Kosovo should be denounced?

The second lesson is that, just because European diplomats inhabit a fantasyland, it does not follow that the opposite to European policy is sound. This truth was ignored in the run-up to the Iraq war, when the French and others called for diplomatic containment of Saddam Hussein even though they themselves had undermined the sanctions option. This infuriating hypocrisy, and its obvious uselessness in dealing with a threat that Western intelligence agencies believed real, allowed the alternative policy offered by the Bush administration to escape scrutiny. U.S. officials spent their time explaining why the French option was unworkable — an easy case to make. But they were not forced to answer enough questions about whether the intelligence on Iraq's weapons program was solid or whether they were prepared for the challenges of democratic reconstruction.

Oh, the tried and true WMD argument. Except that the failure of Iraq to meet the conditions of the ceasefire was always - always - sufficient grounds for going to war. Violating a ceasefire has always been recognized as such.

Which brings us to the third foreign policy lesson: Wars are more easily begun than won. It's not only Iraq that illustrates this; just look at Afghanistan, where the Taliban fights on. But the Bush administration, having apparently learned skepticism of military options since the Iraq imbroglio, veered back toward credulity when it came to Lebanon.

So, because it is not easy, we should walk away? Then how many domestic policies should we abandon because they are not easy?

Mallaby misses the obvious - should we go back to the same solutions? Again? The ceasefires that allow terror groups to expand and gain ever more dangerous weapons? Really, is that the retreat we must make, Mr. Mallaby?

John Randolph of Virginia once described a brilliant but corrupt colleague thus: He shines and stinks like a rotten mackerel by moonlight.

That describes Mallaby's ideas rather well.

IAF Suspends Operations For 48 Hours

The Israeli Air Force has announced it will cease operations over Lebanon for 48 hours or until a complete inquiry into the Qana incident is finished. They reserve the right to act if they determine attacks are about to be mounted on Israel.

Israel agreed to a 48-hour suspension of aerial activity over southern Lebanon after it bombed a Lebanese village on Sunday and a number of children died, a US official said.

The attack marred US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's weeklong mission to halt the fighting between Israel and Hizbullah.

The suspension of over-flights was announced by US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli. He said Israel has reserved the right to attack targets if it learns that attacks are being prepared against them.

"The United States welcomes this decision and hopes that it will help relieve the suffering of the children and families of southern Lebanon," Ereli told reporters traveling with Rice.

The Prime Minister's Office confirmed the report.

But the officials left open the possibility that Israel might hit targets to stop imminent attacks on Israel, and that the suspension could end sooner if the military completes its inquiry into the Kafr Kana tragedy in less than 48 hours.

Israel also said it would allow a 24-hour period where all residents of southern Lebanon who wanted to flee northward would be able to do so, in coordination with the UN.

A US State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity about the evolving situation, said Rice had been working on such an agreement for some time before the attack on Kana, Lebanon.

Ereli said that Israel will coordinate with the United Nations to allow a 24-hour period of safe passage for all residents of south Lebanon who want to leave the region.

"We expect that Israel will implement these decisions so as to significantly speed and improve the flow of humanitarian aid," he added.

There is a 24 hour safe passage window in place. Any civilians left in Southern Lebanon after this are either there by choice or are being held there as human shields. The world needs to pay attention to that fact.

The Blue Crab As Terror Fighter!

CS Scott at Security Watchtower passed this one along. A new nanosensor has been developed with the help of the humble blue crab!

A substance found in crab shells called chitosan has very useful properties. For example, it has been used in bandages to stop bleeding. But now, researchers at the University of Maryland have used the chitosan from blue crabs living in Chesapeake Bay as a component of a nanoscale sensor system which could save many lives in the future. These blue crab nanosensors will be used to improve security in airports, hospitals and other public locations by detecting tiny amounts of explosives or chemicals in air and water.

Never underestimate the Crabitat!

A Slam (De)Bunk

Gateway Pundit takes down that recurring meme the press keeps puking up about how Iraq is Vietnam all over again. The only resemblance is the media's alliance with the far left to paint positive developments as outright defeat.

And, as a Gallop poll showed yesterday, through continual bombardment of negative reporting from Iraq, the media is making gains in the propaganda front. In fact the work of the liberal media has been so successful that a majority of the American public is bamboozled into feeling like the the War in Iraq is a quagmire, a money pit, a complete failure, one of America's tragedies… when nothing could be further from the truth!

Despite the fact that a democratically elected government is in place, successful elections have occurred, rebuilding projects are in progress and completed, 14 out of 18 provinces see little to no violence, Saddam has been captured and tried, more terrorist goons are killed or captured every day, the main religious leaders are calling for peace and cooperation, etc…

"52% of adult Americans want to see all U.S. troops out of Iraq within a year, with 19% advocating immediate withdrawal. In the summer of 1970, Gallup found that 48% wanted a pullout within a year, with 23% embracing the “immediate” option. Just 7% want to send more troops now, vs. 10% then."

How the liberal media can compare Iraq to Vietnam is beyond logic or reason. Nothing could be further from the truth!

The unholy alliance of media and the left robbed an entire generation of it'shance to make a different outcome. That robbery led us directly to where we are now. If it happens again, the next time will be utterly appalling in it's outcome.

The left and their fellow travelers bring us closer to war, not further away from it.

A Bat Upside The Head

Last night, the battle of Pool Harbor turned strange. The family went over to have dinner with our future daughter-in-law's family. It's been miserably hot here, so they had cooked everything outside so as to not further stress the AC unit. We had a lovely evening but wanted to get home before it turned dark since it was the night we needed to add chemicals to the pool.

My wife wanted me to show her what needed to be done, so when we got home we gathered up the requisite magic potions and headed to the pool. First the weekly treatment went in. My wife asked what it was, to which I had to honestly answer that I had no idea. The instructions say two capfuls per week, but shed no other light on the subject. It could be alchemy as far as I know. But I dutifully dump two capfuls in every week.

Then we dumped in the flocculant. That I at least understood. It's something to make the really fine particles clump together so the filter could grab them. A sort of a grunge glue, if you will. Meanwhile, we are also mixing up the weekly chlorine shock treatment. This is a couple of bags of nearly insoluble powder that gets mixed with water, then dumped into the pool. It takes a number of times filling the bucket to dissolve it all. Well, not really 'all' per se. Just until you get fed up with mixing it and toss the remains into the pool.

All this fun - in high heat and humidity - is going on as it is growing dark outside. Somewhere along about the third addition of water to try to dissolve the shock, my wife remarked that the bats were out. This year we've had a couple of bats that have begun hanging around the place. We don't know where they spend their off-hours, although I suspect the old tree that has a hollow spot in it. But at dusk, they are out speeding and swooping in their silent way.

So I am standing there while my wife pours the latest bucket of chemical in and all of a sudden, "Whap" something hits me right in the side of the head. It didn't hurt, just startled me. I realized that one of the bats had just literally hit me in the side of the head. I made a rather emphatic announcement of that fact, too. My wife helpfully informed me that she'd never even heard of a bat hitting someone like that. Truthfully, neither had I, but it sure had. And I was watching every which way at once for the rest of the time we were out there.

So, next time I go out at dusk, I plan on being prepared. I'm carrying a tennis racket. We'll see how the bat likes a little love tap from that!

The kicker to it all is that this morning, the pool was a cloudy brown mess again (although not real bad compared to where I started). It seems we have a bit of iron in our well water. So I was out vacuuming before it got hot and have been playing chemist all day. And we get to shock the pool again tonight since most of the chlorine from last night got bound up with the iron. That's where the racket comes in!

Isn’t This Odd?

A few points to ponder:

Item: The village in Lebanon where civilian deaths occurred - many of them children - is the exact same village that forced a world outcry in 1996 and caused Israel to agree to a ceasefire.

Item: There are an astonishing number of dramatic photographs all over the web from Qana. It seems every media outlet has new ones all the time.

Item: There were an inordinate number of children inside a building, inside a village, that had been warned repeatedly that it would be a target because of the large number of Hezbollah rockets fired from it.

Item: I read on another blog that the excuse for the civilians being there was that the roads were impassible. But how does that gibe with the huge number of media cameramen who have e\been able to make ti there and take hundreds of pictures? And then get them out to the world?

Item: It turns out that there is something like a eight hour gap between the Israeli missile strikes and the building's collapse.

One has to ask the question here. Are we being exposed to Hezbollywood propaganda? Anyone else getting a weird feeling about this whole episode?

UPDATE: Flopping Aces has a lot of video up - something here appears to be wrong, not just to me.

UPDATE: Powerline has another oddity. A professionally produced 30 foot banner of Condi Rice that just happens to have the perfect lettering at exactly the right moment? Folks, something stinks out loud about this.

UPDATE: Confederate Yankee has some exceedingly disturbing pictures.

War Once Removed

Mark Steyn has a sobering opinion piece in the Chicago Sun-Times that should be required reading. He starts out tearing apart a commenter who threw the "chickenhawk" nonsense that the left is so fond of these days at Katherine Jean Lopez of the National Review Online. From there it progresses.

In fact, the notion that "fighting" a war is the monopoly of those "in uniform" gets to the heart of why America and its allies are having such a difficult time in the present struggle. Nations go to war, not armies. Or, to be more precise, nations, not armies, win wars. America has a military that cannot be defeated on the battlefield, but so what? The first President Bush assembled the biggest coalition in history for Gulf War I, and the bigger and more notionally powerful it got, the better Saddam Hussein's chances of surviving it became. Because the bigger it got, the less likely it was to be driven by a coherent set of war aims.

Nations go to war, not armies. That one insight may be what is, and has been, missing for so long in discussion of this war we find ourselves in. Not just the war in Iraq, but the ongoing war with those who would kill us all.

No one can argue with U.S. military superiority. America has the most powerful armed forces on the planet. The Pentagon is responsible for 40 percent of the world's military spending, and outspends the next 20 biggest militaries combined. It's responsible for almost 80 percent of military research-and-development spending, which means the capability gap between it and everyone else widens every day.

So why doesn't it feel like that?

In Iraq, the leviathan has somehow managed to give the impression that what previous mid-rank powers would have regarded as a little light colonial policing has left it stretched dangerously thin and bogged down in an almighty quagmire. Even if it were only lamebrain leftist media spin, the fact that it's accepted by large numbers of Americans and huge majorities of Europeans is a reminder that in free societies a military of unprecedented dominance is not the only source of power. More importantly, significant proportions of this nation's enemies also believe the spin. In April 2003 was Baby Assad nervous that he'd be next? You bet. Is he nervous now?

We approach war with one hand tied behind our back. At times it appears we tie them both behind us. We hobble ourselves while our enemies commit unspeakable acts of all out brutality. Our loud left makes sure the rules are applied differently to us as opposed to who we are fighting. The enemy gets a pass on the rules America is held to. And this encourages the enemies and make them think they can win in the end. But any realistic assessment, by any reasonable person would reveal the absurdity of that idea. They cannot win, we can only lose. There is a vast difference.

…As John Podhoretz wondered in the New York Post the other day: "What if liberal democracies have now evolved to a point where they can no longer wage war effectively because they have achieved a level of humanitarian concern for others that dwarfs any really cold-eyed pursuit of their own national interests?"

That's a good question. If you watch the grisly U.S. network coverage of any global sporting event, you've no doubt who your team's meant to be: If there are plucky Belgian hurdlers or Fijian shotputters in the Olympics, you never hear a word of them on ABC and NBC; it's all heartwarming soft-focus profiles of athletes from Indiana and Nebraska. The American media have no problem being ferociously jingoistic when it comes to the two-man luge. Yet, when it's a war, there is no "our" team, not on American TV. Like snotty French ice-dancing judges, the media watch the U.S. skate across the rink and then hand out a succession of snippy 4.3s — for lack of Miranda rights in Fallujah, insufficient menu options at Gitmo.

Our enemies understand "why we fight" and where the fight is. They know that in the greater scheme of things the mosques of Jakarta and Amsterdam and Toronto and Dearborn are more important territory than the Sunni Triangle. The U.S. military is the best-equipped and best-trained in the world. But it's not enough, it never has been and it never will be.

Have we lost the ability to carry on and win? I don't think so. But my fear is, and has been all along, that we will continue to hobble ourselves until we are forced to face the fact that we have let little monsters grow up to big monsters. Instead of stopping them easily when they are still small, we will have to pay a far greater price later. That is the fear I live with every day. You can see it at work in Israel right now. In the 70's Israel faced small numbers of terrorists killing their Olympic athletes. Now they face Hezbollah with rockets that can rain terror down on their cities. What do you think the outcome will be when one of those rockets contains something other than explosives laced with ball bearings?

We hobble ourselves at our peril. If we lose the ability to see ourselves as a nation at war, we will end up paying a larger bill later on.

Axis Of Egos

If one is paying attention to many things that are going on in the world all at the same time, certain patterns begin to emerge. Train bombings in Mumbai, war in Gaza, war in Lebanon, missile tests in North Korea, UN sanctions against Iran coming up for a vote.

Hugo Chavez threatening a cutoff of oil to the US.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Venezuela will cut its oil exports to the United States if Washington takes a hostile stance toward Caracas, Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez was quoted as saying by Iran's official IRNA news agency on Sunday.

The Web site of the U.S. Energy Information Administration says 11.8 percent of U.S. oil imports came from Venezuela in 2004. The United States is the main buyer of Venezuelan oil.

"Our policy is clear; if America wants to have a hostile policy toward us, we will stop exporting oil to that country," he said in remarks translated into Persian.

"If Iran were under attack, it would definitely act just like us," he added.

I believe we are seeing cooperation and coordination of the three leading egos in the world today. The presidents of Iran, North Korea and wannabe Hugo Chavez are working together to stir the pot. They slap one another on the back and pump up one another's delusions and they are deadly dangerous.

And the world better wake up soon. Our anti-war left is virtually ensuring a global catastrophe.

All Is Not As It Seems

Varifrank has a longish but fascinating speculation on what may actually be going on in Lebanon right now. It's quite interesting and would explain a few things, much as what Wretchard did at the Belmont Club. Many of the conclusions the two write about match up closely.

Here’s what I’m talking about. When you see news coming from Israel, its censored. That’s a good thing. I support that, its saving lives. When you see news from Beirut, its also censored. It’s also mostly propaganda. It’s a fact. I think were all over the age of 5 here, so I don’t think anyone who reads this blog is going to slap themselves in the head and shout “ Oh say it isn’t so!”

But knowing this simple set of facts, knowing that both sides want to put the best shine on their version of the story at all times, then ask yourself this;

“Why is it that stories coming from Israel this week are so damn pessimistic”?

Israel has press organizations, agents and other people to spin the story. They can put the proper pressure to ensure on the media to ensure that the story is told as close to the way they want it told. Yet, the stories coming from Israel seem to me to be bleak and nasty and full of fear and dissention, almost to the exception of any sort of good news.

Today, my "spider senses" started to twitch when I watched a news story told from a hospital from Israeli troops who had just returned from inside Lebanon. They were talking about the Hezbollah troops like they were 20 feet tall, each of which had 6 popeye sized arms with a .50 caliber machine gun and a full belt of ammo in each oversized hand.

I thought to myself for just a second, this doesn’t feel right. First, the only info that gets out is the info they want out, so why would Israeli government officials be so interested in letting this message get out? These are Israeli troops. These are not European conscripts. These guys know what defeat means. It means they will be feeding their families to the ovens of Hezbollah and the Iranians. They will fight to the death because failure means the end of everything. There is no line of retreat for Israelis. To Israelis there is no honor in losing, just death.

Israelis don’t talk like this in battle…so why are they and more importantly, why are we seeing it?

Shouldn’t the message being sent by the Israelis be “ We’re jubilant, we’re winning, we’re happy joyful fighters protecting our homeland, kicking the crap out of the Arabs again”? We’ve always seen that before haven’t we? even when they faced attacks by big armies from all three sides at once, they were cheery and happy in the face of battle. Defeatism and doubt are not things that you hear from the Israeli army.

Why send or allow to be sent, the exact opposite of that message?

One possibility is that things really are bad. Ok, I can accept that. But are they? Work with me for a second. Let’s ask ourselves the question again in a slightly different way;

“Why would any government be interested in sending a message of their own weakness at the beginning of a shooting war”?

Well, you do it because you want the enemy to commit…..

Like I said, fascinating read. Worth taking the time. Note also the update in which it is noted that a dog did not bark. Very interesting.

A Road Out?

Brent Scowcroft writes in today's Washington Post an outline for a plan for a comprehensive settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. On paper it would appear to be a reasonable plan. There are a number of compromises that would make everyone involved less than happy (Usually a good sign that the compromise is workable).

The outlines of a comprehensive settlement have been apparent since President Bill Clinton's efforts collapsed in 2000. The major elements would include:

· A Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with minor rectifications agreed upon between Palestine and Israel.

· Palestinians giving up the right of return and Israel reciprocating by removing its settlements in the West Bank, again with rectifications as mutually agreed. Those displaced on both sides would receive compensation from the international community.

· King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia unambiguously reconfirming his 2002 pledge that the Arab world is prepared to enter into full normal relations with Israel upon its withdrawal from the lands occupied in 1967.

· Egypt and Saudi Arabia working with the Palestinian Authority to put together a government along the lines of the 18-point agreement reached between Hamas and Fatah prisoners in Israeli jails in June. This government would negotiate for the Authority.

· Deployment, as part of a cease-fire, of a robust international force in southern Lebanon.

· Deployment of another international force to facilitate and supervise traffic to and from Gaza and the West Bank.

· Designation of Jerusalem as the shared capital of Israel and Palestine, with appropriate international guarantees of freedom of movement and civic life in the city.

These elements are well-known to people who live in the region and to those outside who have labored over the decades seeking to shape a lasting peace. What seems breathtakingly complicated, however, is how one mobilizes the necessary political will, in the region and beyond, to transform these principles into an agreement on a lasting accord.

The current crisis in Lebanon provides a historic opportunity to achieve what has seemed impossible. That said, it is too much to expect those most directly implicated — Israeli and Palestinian leaders — to lead the way. That responsibility falls to others, principally the United States, which alone can mobilize the international community and Israel and the Arab states for the task that has defeated so many previous efforts.

Scowcroft goes on to argue that the so-called Quartet should be the driving force behind the whole thing. The problem is, of course, that this has all been on the table before and the terrorists have refused the deals and just gone on doing what they do best - kill people and chances for peace. Maybe the answer this time is to do it differently. To go after Hezbollah so hard that they have to negotiate for real this time.

And maybe that's what Bush's strategy is this time.

Osama Bin Chicken?

A new documenary informs us that Osama bin Laden was noted for running away when the bombs started falling. That is according to a long-time associate and former ally.

Osama Bin Laden talks tough, but other mujahedeen laughed at him in Afghanistan because he would get scared and bolt when under fire, a new documentary reveals.

"When Bin Laden used to hear the explosions, he used to jump. He used to run away," his longtime friend Hutaifa Azzam says on "CNN Presents: In the Footsteps of Bin Laden."

Via Klein Verzet in The Netherlands (The blogosphere has many strange routes!).

Human Shields

In the third week of a war started by Hezbollah, after weeks of warning civilians to get out of Southern Lebanon, the Israeli Air Force Struck at a town that had been the launch site for hundreds of artillery rockets fired into Israel. At least 57 civilians were reported killed. 37 of the dead were children. The Prime Minister and the Defense minister of Israel have expressed their regret over the incident.

 Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that he needed 10 days to two weeks to finish the offensive in Lebanon, a senior Israeli government official reported Sunday.

Olmert met with Rice on Saturday night to discuss the 19-day-old offensive in southern Lebanon. Their meeting came before the IAF strike in Qana early Sunday.

Following the strike, Olmert and Rice scheduled a new meeting on Sunday evening.

Earlier, Olmert expressed deep regret for the harm inflicted on the civilians in Qana Sunday morning when at least 57 civilians - 37 of whom were children - were killed as the IAF fired missiles at a building in the southern Lebanese town.

"I express deep regret, along with all of Israel and the IDF, for the civilian deaths in Qana," said Olmert. "Nothing could be further from our intentions and our interests than harming civilians - everyone understands that. When we do harm civilians, the whole world recognizes that it is an exceptional case that does not characterize us."

"In contrast," Olmert said, "Hizbullah has launched rockets with the aim of murdering innocent civilians in northern Israel."

The prime minsiter vowed that the fight against Hizbullah would continue despite the Qana tragedy.

"Hizbullah, like other Islamic terror movements, threatens the entire civilization. When we decided to respond, we knew that we would need to be strong in the face of difficult situations," said Olmert.

Olmert said that the area was a focal point for the firing of Katyusha rockets on Kiryat Shmona and Afula. He said that from the outset of the conflict, "hundreds of rockets have been fired from the Qana area."

Obviously the death of children in war is a horrible thing. What has to be kept in mind here is one simple question: In the third week of a war started by Hezbollah, after weeks of warning civilians to get out of Southern Lebanon, what were children doing in that town in the middle of a war zone? There is only one answer, they were there specifically to create this kind of news event should Israel hit the village. This is the utter depravity of Hezbollah on display and the world should condemn it as such.

Obviously the death of children in war is a horrible thing. What has to be kept in mind here is one simple question: In the third week of a war started by Hezbollah, after weeks of warning civilians to get out of Southern Lebanon, what were children doing in that town in the middle of a war zone? There is only one answer, they were there specifically to create this kind of news event should Israel hit the village. This is the utter depravity of Hezbollah on display and the world should condemn it as such.

Pigeon Dive Bombers

So if Sunday you're free,
Why don't you come with me,
And we'll poison the pigeons in the park.
And maybe we'll do
In a squirrel or two,
While we're poisoning pigeons in the park.

We'll murder them all amid laughter and merriment.
Except for the few we take home to experiment.
My pulse will be quickenin'
With each drop of strychnine
We feed to a pigeon.
It just takes a smidgin!
To poison a pigeon in the park.
(Tom Lehrer, Poisoning Pigeons In The Park)

Something went awry when a contractor went to perform his duties at a Schenectady, New York hospital. The pesticide he spread around was only supposed to make a few pigeons sick, instead, dozens of birds started dive bombing people around the hospital, causing them to shut down their emergency room.

"Birds were coming down like dive bombers," said Fire Chief Robert Farstad.

Ellis Hospital said its emergency room continued to treat patients during the incident Thursday evening but had to divert ambulances to other hospitals.

The hospital had brought in an exterminator to use a pesticide to get rid of pigeons on the roof. The chemical was designed to poison a few birds, whose distress calls would then drive off other members of the flock. Instead, more than two dozen pigeons were stricken.

Emergency workers spent hours searching the hospital grounds and putting dead birds in red hazardous-waste bags.

We here at Blue Crab Boulevard know the truth of course. The birds were not poisoned at all. They were warriors in the animal uprising and the dive bombing was intentional. Yet another fowl kamikaze incident. The power diving pigeons of perdition have arrived. You have been warned!

Lending a Hand, Part Three

Well, Linda Kay, the exotic dancer who kept a severed human hand, affectionately named Freddy, in a jar of formaldehyde on a bedroom dresser, has been arrested. She remains in Jail. Her attorney says she plans to plead not guilty.

Linda Kay was arrested late Friday, two days after authorities said she skipped a court appearance. She was taken to the Middlesex County Jail, where she remained late Saturday in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Her attorney, Donald DiGioia, said he looked forward to discussing his client's case with prosecutors.

"She is a good, gentle individual who has a nontraditional job," DiGioia said Saturday night. "She has no criminal record."

Kay, 31, of South Plainfield, was taken into custody with the help of the bail bondsman who initially had posted her bail, authorities said. No new court date has been set.

She was charged last week after police were called to her home on a report that a roommate was suicidal. The roommate was not home, but Kay was. Officers discovered six human skulls and a severed hand in a jar of formaldehyde in her bedroom, according to the police report.

DiGioia declined to discuss his conversation with Kay about the hand. He said he expects the county prosecutor's office to review the matter to determine if a crime has been committed.

"There's been a tremendous amount of media attention for a crime on the lower end of the spectrum," he said. "She's gentle and not a violent person at all. This has been a frightening and terrifying experience for her."

Earlier posts here and here. Actually, the attorney is quite right, there has been an awful lot of focus on this, but that's due to the unusual nature of the charges, I suspect. What does make me wonder about this whole thing is what appears to have been excessively high bail for what is really quite a low level crime.

Deadly Rain

More than 100 rockets fell on Israel Sunday. Only a single person was lightly wounded, however.

One person was wounded in a rocket barrage that landed in Kiryat Shmona shortly after 2:45 p.m. on Sunday. He was listed in moderate condition, MDA reported. Three other residents were lightly wounded, and two suffered from shock. All the wounded were evacuated to a local hospital.

Earlier, one person was lightly wounded and several others suffering from shock in Kiryat Shmona as rocket barrages continued to pound the city on Sunday afternoon. In one barrage of at least 10 rockets, a house sustained a direct hit. Other damage was also reported.

A total in Kiryat Shmona and Acre as over 100 rockets rained down again on northern cities. Twenty-nine people suffered from shock. All of the casualties were taken to Nahariya Hospital.

The first alert sirens sounded in Haifa and Tiberias at seven a.m. Several rockets landed in open territories in Haifa. There were no reports of rockets falling in Tiberias.

Nahariya and Acre were also hit Sunday morning. Seven rockets hit Nahariya, one of them reportedly hitting a car.

Meanwhile, Deputy OC Northern Command Brig.-Gen. Alon Friedman said Saturday that the missiles fired at Afula on Friday were not Iranian-made Fajr-5s, as originally reported, but an older Syrian-made rocket. This was the first time missiles of this type have been fired at Israel by Hizbullah.

Police in the North said in a statement that one of the missiles that landed near Afula contained 100 kg. of explosives - an amount that could have caused extensive damage and casualties. No one was wounded in the attack, and the Home Front Command instructed residents of the city to remain indoors. The attack caused a fire, and a helicopter was scrambled to help firefighters contain the blaze.

Larger warheads on longer range rockets is not at all good news for Israel.