Mission Accomplished

In the wake of the deadly attack by the Israeli military on a U.N. observer post in south Lebanon, CNN reported that the U.N. was pulling parts of its peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon citing security concerns. Taking into account the Fog of War that inevitably occurs, it is still difficult for me to understand how a military as advanced as Israel's can make such a glaring mistake. In fact Israel has a history of "accidental" attacks on both the U.N. and U.S. One theory may be that with the U.N. gone Israel can violate those "quaint" Geneva conventions without the watchful, yet ineffective eye of the U.N.

*A 1/25/02 memo written by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales said "the war against terrorism is a new kind of war" and "this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."