Another Busy Day in Hades: Regrets, Climbing Death Toll, and Condi Rice Plays "Deal or No Deal"

Despite the less than truthful talk that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was going to do her best to broker a cease fire among all parties - this floated late Sunday and flew in the face of everything we had heard thus far from the Bushies and Israel - it does not look like any cease-fire will even be considered by the U.S. and Israel which means continued deaths that do not appear to be breaking the back or mindset of Hezbollah, Israel's stated objective.

Israel reports 14 of Israeli soldiers are dead in fighting, and expresses "deep regret" from what certainly appears to be NO mistake that Israeli forces attacked a U.N. facility yesterday in Lebanon, killing four and wounding many. I do not believe it was an accident, and my suspicions are born out by a report from an Irish official who said he warned Israel no fewer than six times that their actions were endangering U.N. officials and their facility.

From the report:

At the same time, Ireland’s Foreign Ministry said an Irish army officer in south Lebanon had warned the Israeli military six times that their attacks in the area were putting the lives of U.N. observers at risk.

“On six separate occasions he was in contact with the Israelis to warn them that their bombardment was endangering the lives of U.N. staff in South Lebanon,” a Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman said.

“He warned: ‘You have to address this problem or lives may be lost,’” the spokesman said of comments by a senior Irish soldier working as a liaison officer between U.N. forces in South Lebanon and the Israelis.

The bomb made a direct hit on the building and shelter of the observer post in the town of Khiam near the eastern end of the border with Israel, said Milos Struger, spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as UNIFIL.

The U.N. facility was in place for a number of years and was very clearly delineated on maps and other references. Israel simply chose to do this, much as the U.S. has gone after those critical of their actions.

According to other reports, U.N. peacekeepers and observers seem to be targeted by both sides, but especially by Israeli forces, as if to send a strong and clear message that Israel considers them interlopers and, unless they vacate, they will be killed.

China has condemned the attack, as have a number of other nations.