The more I look at pictures like this, the more I realize that watching wars is like watching a movie for most people. On 9/11, a lot of people made the comment that it was like watching a movie when the planes hit.
We are not really in tune with reality anymore, in spite of the reality shows 
Whenever there are realistic pictures like this on TV or online, people will look at it and then go back to eating their dinner. They pretty much forget about it right away. That's unfortunate.
As long as it doesn't literally happen on our front door, none of this impacts most in the long run.
Actually it does because it is wars like the civil war in Lebanon that polarizes people and takes away any semblence of tolerance
do you know about the larger massacre in the Village of Damour?
http://www.cedarland.org/damour.html
'In the morning I managed to get to the one house despite the shelling to bring out some of the corpses. And I remember something which still frightens me. An entire family had been killed, the Can’an family, four children all dead, and the mother, the father, and the grandfather. The mother was still hugging one of the children. And she was pregnant. The eyes of the children were gone and their limbs were cut off. No legs and no arms. It was awful. We took them away in a banana truck. And who carried the corpses with me? The only survivor, the brother ofthe man. His name is Samir Can’an. He carried with me the remains of his brother, his father, his sister-in-law and the poor children. We buried them in the cemetery, under the shells of the PLO. And while I was burying them, more corpses were found in the street.'
The town tried to defend itself. Two hundred and twenty-five young men, most of them about sixteen years old, armed with hunting guns and none with military training, held out for twelve days. The citizens huddled in basements, with sandbags piled in front of their doors and ground-floor windows. Father Labaky moved from shelter to shelter to visit the families and take them bread and milk. He went often ‘to encourage the young men defending the town’. The relentless pounding the town received resulted in massive damage. In the siege that had been established on 9 January the Palestinians cut off food and water supplies and refused to allow the Red Cross to take out the wounded. Infants and children died of dehydration. Only three more townspeople were killed as a result of PLO fire between the first night and the last day, 23 January. But on that day, when the final onslaught came, hundreds of the Christians were killed. Father Labaky goes on:
'The attack took place from the mountain behind. It was an apocalypse. They were coming, thousands and thousands, shouting ‘Allahu Akbar! God is great! Let us attack them for the Arabs, let us offer a holocaust to Mohammad ‘And they were slaughtering everyone in their path, men, women and children.'
Whole families were killed in their homes. Many women were gang-raped, and few of them left alive afterwards. One woman saved her adolescent daughter from rape by smearing her face with washing blue to make her look repulsive. As the atrocities were perpetrated, the invaders themselves took photographs and later offered the pictures for sale to European newspapers. Survivors testify to what happened. A young girl of sixteen, Soumavya Ghanimeh, witnessed the shooting of her father and brother by two of the invaders, and watched her own home and the other houses in her street being looted and burned. She explained:
.........but no one remembers, only CHristians were killed
Actually Jim, I mention Damour my piece. Take a look a little harder. I just couldn't find any pics other than Sabra and Shatila. It drove me batty.
Amal,
If I were you I would not be too worried for Lebanon. Rome was not built in a day. Nations take decades to be built and rebuilt. Russia spiralled downward after the Perestroika and only today it seems to be stabilizing.
Lebanon will not come out of the ashes in a few years. It will take decades. And the Lebanese people who stayed in Lebanon will create this achievement, neither you nor me who deserted.
Those who deserted better keep their mouth shut and not give lessons to those who stayed the course, because we aren't smarter. Funny how we assume that because we live in the stupid West we ought to teach the Lebanese how to rebuild the nation.
Lebanon will be rebuilt, stone by stone, day by day, by those who live in Lebanon. If you return to Lebanon I will respect your thoughts on Lebanon. But criticizing warlords while living in your safe Montreal neighborhood is quite naive.
These warlords had to do what they had to do in times of wars. They were obviously criminals, but hey, everyone of us is a criminal once given the chance. Greed, jealousy, envy, and so on are human sins not reserved to the warlords.
So let the warlords slowly resolve their issues. They are doing a great job so far (relatively speaking) and let us not teach them lessons. Let the people in Beirut and Saida and Tripoli give them lessons. They know better than we do. They stood against Syria for 15 years and were beaten in jails. They finally kicked Syria out. And the achievements will not stop here. I can only look with awe at my fellow Lebanese.
Some warlords are unfortunately continuing to bow to Syria. I think the current problems are precisely that. However, I am not an expert politician to tell for sure. Perhaps Joumblatt is the jerk. But the current facts point to other leaders.
Hezbollah must disarm. Do you have armed group in Montreal outside the army? If so then we can leave the weapons with Hezbollah.
Michel Aoun must stop his bullshit rethoric and let the cabinet make some progress.
Once these issues have been resolved, in my opinion the country will start moving forward. But again, I am no expert.
Michel Aoun pisses me off so much he is a bullshitter. He knows very well that in every modern country the majority takes over the "executive branch" and it must be given the chance to execute daily tasks. It's like the board of a company. If the cabinet fails, the people will replace it after a year or 2.
But Michel Aoun wants to replace it before even giving the time to do it's job. The consequence is that everything related to the economy, to the judiciary, etc, is being put on hold and the country continues to suffer.
He claims he is the purest of the purest and yet all his deputies are family members. Back to feodalism! What a bullshiter! I wish France would buy him a nice chateau in the Loire and he would return there and leave poor Lebanon alone.
Michel Aoun is a hypocrite of the highest order. You can't even begin to think he isn't. He spent 15 years reviling Syria as the country who forced him out of his "homeland", came back and promptly aligned himself with pro-Syrian MP's in the election when he didn't get his way. He makes me sick.
Thanks for visiting my blog Amal.
I tend to write provocative words to create a reaction. But in fact I respect your points of view.
Thanks much for a lovely compliment.
I like getting comments as long as they are well thought out and intelligent. I hate comments that are obscene and/or have nothing to do with what I wrote about. Feel free to comment at anytime.
You know what they say about history ... and it just keeps repeating, over and over and over.
I'm depressed now.
Commenting by HaloScan
