Lebanon on August 5, 2006

I have lost track of the days of the Unpleasantness in Lebanon, so I'll just go by dates.

I'm not trying to be supercilious by calling it an Unpleasantness, because I must resist the temptation to add my voice to the chorus of outrage. The perpetrators of such horrors will not amend themselves by angry confrontation. In such confrontation, they find support for their own anger and destruction.

Remember General Dyer and the massacre at Jallianwalla Bagh, or Amritsar. " How shall the dying children apply for aid, General Dyer?"

If you have seen the film "Gandhi", you will recall that following this question, there was a close-up of Edward Fox as General Dyer and there was silence for about 8 seconds. 8 seconds of silence in a film of 24 frames per second makes even the most entranced come out of their involvement with the story and begin to ask "What's going on? Why has the movie stopped?"

When will we ask what is going on? When the WTC was attacked, we had Bin Laden to apprehend and capture. One man. Perhaps a few followers. Now we have created a disaster in Iraq which is a School for Terror. Now we have countenanced the bloody charade in Lebanon which will be a University of Terror. I feel much less safe than I did in late 2001.

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