Can you hear me now? Boom!

It's late and I'm too tired to really crank out some cranky column and this story from a couple of days ago has been in my mind. The story begins, "Israel called off an airstrike against the house of a suspected Palestinian militant in Gaza late Saturday, after the inhabitants ignored a telephoned warning and neighbors flocked to the house to prevent the bombing, the military said." The Palestinians declared victory for their latest "popular resistence." The Israelis criticized the cynical use of civilians as human shields. "The Israeli military spokesman said the attack on the house had been called off after a routine telephone warning from the military urging inhabitants to evacuate the house was ignored. “We didn’t want to harm civilians,” he said."

Read it again if you didn't catch the remarkable words in the story. The Israelis actually pick up the phone and call targets of airstrikes and tell them a bomb or two will be landing on their homes in about thirty minutes and that they might want to leave. These calls are "routine." So I ask again as I have in the past - name me a single country that has ever existed or that currently exists, other than Israel, that would give a courtesy call to strike targets. Just one. Israel measures success by how FEW civilians are killed in a military action. Its enemies measure success by how MANY civilians they kill.

And by they way. I have some advice for Israel on to counter this latest "weapon" of human shields protecting targets tipped off by the Israeli army - don't call first. Can you hear me now? You can? Boom!