Qana Bombed, Rice Cancels Trip to Lebabnon

Early this morning, the Southern Lebanese town of Qana was bombed and at least 60 civilians have been killed as a four story apartment building was hit.

Secretary of State Rice has immediatley changed her tune, now saying it is "time to reach a ceasefire." There has been no report that the U.S. intends to slow the flow of arms to Israel that have recently been expiditied.

Prime Mininster Fuad Siniora is calling the bombing a war crime. Considering that the missle used to destroy the building was likely supplied by the U.S. (maybe even one from the rush shipment), it seems clear that the Lebanese government views the U.S. as at least an accessory to the crime, and is no longer interested in hosting Ms. Rice.

This incident has sparked a near riot in Beirut where Hezbollah supporters stormed the U.N. building there.

Here is the question that I need answered. Is it possible to launch a rocket from a four story apartment building? Israel defends the attack as a defensive one in that hundreds of rockets have been launched from the area. The question remains, was this building used to launch rockets? With the surveillance technology now available, wouldn't it be fairly easy to determine if this building had or had not been used as a rocket launching pad?

In this day and age of precision guided munitions and space age surviellance, it seems to me that with U.S. help, Israel could prove the defensive nature of this attack. That is assuming, of course, that this was in fact defensive.

Qana