No subject

at all, and the IDF actually were told by UN officials that the observers
were going to be evacuated out. Yet 40 minutes later, they bombed the post
with a precision-guided missile.

As a good friend of mine says, if it isn't precise, at the very least they
ought to rename it. That's my black humour, I guess.

Retired general Lewis MacKenzie suggested that Hezbollah was using the UN
observers as human shields, noting your husband's comments a week before he
was killed that Israeli strikes around the base were "a tactical necessity."

Lewis needs to come from an informed platform. That blog of my husband's was
on the 18th. The bombing was on the 25th. We know from the UN that there was
no Hezbollah presence at the post that day. 

I don't know how much clearer that can be. The peacekeepers work for the UN,
they have a blue helmet, they're in a bunker that's clearly marked and there
are promises made that they won't be attacked. That day, the President of
Israel called Kofi Annan [then UN secretary-general] and said, "We will
spare those men." UN commanders that day spoke to the IDF and were told that
they wouldn't be attacked. And then you bomb them - that has to be
explained. 

Commenting on the report, Rick Hillier said that your husband "did not die
in vain." Do you think he died in vain?

At this point in time? Absolutely. He did die in vain. What is being done?
What is being done by our government? Nothing. 

Where do you go from here?

I'm going to write the Prime Minister. That's the next thing I'm going to do
today. I'm grateful that we had a board of inquiry. I'm thrilled that the
Prime Minster wants to get to the bottom of this. However, he needs to take
the next step. And unfortunately I have to write him to ask him to do that.
I don't understand why he hasn't done that.

Because what we've done is send a really clear message: If you kill UN
observers or attack a UN patrol base, we will do nothing about it. We will
conduct a board of inquiry, we won't have the full information and we won't
do anything about it.

John Allemang is a Globe and Mail writer and frequent Focus contributor.