Israeli warplanes continue to pound Lebanon into the stone age, and two Arab Israeli children playing in front of their house are the latest to die on the other side of the border. And does anybody even remember why?
The Lebanese prime minister has called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah militants, saying his country "has been torn to shreds". Fouad Siniora said more than 300 people had been killed and 500,000 others displaced in a week of Israeli attacks.
Israel says it carried out 80 air strikes in Lebanon in the early hours of Thursday morning.
And it says its soldiers are now fighting Hezbollah militants along the border just inside Lebanon.
The clashes are taking place north of the Israeli village of Avivim, an Israeli Defence Force spokeswoman said.
On Wednesday evening, Israel said a wave of aircraft dropped 23 tonnes of explosives on a bunker in the south of Beirut where senior Hezbollah figures, possibly including leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, were believed to hiding.
But Hezbollah issued a statement saying the building targeted was a mosque under construction and "no Hezbollah leaders or personnel were killed in the strike".
Twenty-nine Israelis have died - including 15 civilians killed by rocket attacks - since the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah militants began eight days ago.
On Wednesday, two children were killed in Nazareth by Hezbollah rockets.
More from the BBC:
In an emotional televised appeal, the Lebanese prime minister urged the international community to intervene.
"I call upon you all to respond immediately... and provide urgent international humanitarian assistance to our war-stricken country," Mr Siniora said.
"Can the international community stand by while such callous retribution by the state of Israel is inflicted on us?"
He vowed to make Israel pay compensation to Lebanon for the "barbaric destruction".
The Israelis say they are fighting to end the control of Hezbollah over the lives of ordinary people on both sides of the border.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the campaign against the militants would continue "as long as necessary" to free its captured soldiers and ensure Hezbollah is not a threat.
And when would that be? When Lebanon has been completely turned to dust?
Of course, if you're Lebanese, you probably are dreading the exit of the foreigners, whose presence may be the only thing restraining Israel from completely laying waste to your country.
Pat Buchanan asks, where are the Christians? (FYI: Their neighborhoods are being bombed to smithereens, too...)
When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert unleashed his navy and air force on Lebanon, accusing that tiny nation of an "act of war," the last pillar of Bush's Middle East policy collapsed.
First came capitulation on the Bush Doctrine, as Pyongyang and Tehran defied Bush's dictum: The world's worst regimes will not be allowed to acquire the world's worst weapons. Then came suspension of the democracy crusade as Islamic militants exploited free elections to advance to power and office in Egypt, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, Iraq and Iran.
Now, Israel's rampage against a defenseless Lebanon – smashing airport runways, fuel tanks, power plants, gas stations, lighthouses, bridges, roads and the occasional refugee convoy – has exposed Bush's folly in subcontracting U.S. policy out to Tel Aviv, thus making Israel the custodian of our reputation and interests in the Middle East.
The Lebanon that Israel, with Bush's blessing, is smashing up has a pro-American government, heretofore considered a shining example of his democracy crusade. Yet, asked in St. Petersburg if he would urge Israel to use restraint in its airstrikes, Bush sounded less like the leader of the Free World than some bellicose city councilman from Brooklyn Heights.
What Israel is up to was described by its army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, when he threatened to "turn back the clock in Lebanon 20 years."
Olmert seized upon Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers to unleash the IDF in a pre-planned attack to make the Lebanese people suffer until the Lebanese government disarms Hezbollah, a task the Israeli army could not accomplish in 18 years of occupation.
Israel is doing the same to the Palestinians. To punish these people for the crime of electing Hamas, Olmert imposed an economic blockade of Gaza and the West Bank and withheld the $50 million in monthly tax and customs receipts due the Palestinians.
Then, Israel instructed the United States to terminate all aid to the Palestinian Authority, though Bush himself had called for the elections and for the participation of Hamas. Our Crawford cowboy meekly complied.
The predictable result: Fatah and Hamas fell to fratricidal fighting, and Hamas militants began launching Qassam rockets over the fence from Gaza into Israel. Hamas then tunneled into Israel, killed two soldiers, captured one, took him back into Gaza and demanded a prisoner exchange.
Israel's response was to abduct half of the Palestinian cabinet and parliament and blow up a $50 million U.S.-insured power plant. That cut off electricity for half a million Palestinians. Their food spoiled, their water could not be purified, and their families sweltered in the summer heat of the Gaza desert. One family of seven was wiped out on a beach by what the IDF assures us was an errant artillery shell.
How many times do I have to agree with Pat Buchanan before I become a full-fledged conservative?
And Pat is not alone. More and more, people are crossing the third rail, and criticizing Israeli policy.
Oh, and I guess "somebody" decided to send Condi Rice over to talk to the U.N. ...
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"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
