Beirut
Eyewitness account of the bombing that killed 10 by Luna Park on Beirut’s shore:
BOOM!!!
Everyone hit the floor, except the group of European tourists who just looked surprised. Waiters dived under the tables. Mother grabbed their crying babies.
Human flesh landed in the children’s play area.
Blacksmiths of Lebanon on what it means, with art.
Topics: lebanon
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 1:51 am on Thursday, June 14, 2007
34 Responses to “Beirut”
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June 14th, 2007 at 3:03 am
Mother Pelosi needs to have another chat with Baby Assad. He doesn’t know how to play nice at all.
Murderous thugs.
June 14th, 2007 at 3:32 am
Something bad happens in the Middle East and…Syria gets the blame for it?
The pro war crowd needs some new material.
June 14th, 2007 at 6:18 am
Lebanon’s cabinet has approved draft UN plans for setting up an international tribunal to try suspects in the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Syria has been implicated in the bombing that killed Mr Hariri in February 2005, but denies involvement.
Ask this person, you dumb bastard….OH, wait. You can’t, he’s dead, but then so are you, from the neck up.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6144162.stm
June 14th, 2007 at 7:39 am
Much as I enjoy seeing a wingnut siding with the UN, El Cid, I hate to point out that we’re talking about two different Lebanese victims here. Even if Syria is responsible for Rafik Hariri’s death (we haven’t had the tribunal yet), that doesn’t mean that they killed Walid Eido, too.
Seeing as the Lebanese army is currently fighting an Al Qaeda-affiliated group just up the coast from where this latest bombing took place, shouldn’t all true patriots blame them for this act?
June 14th, 2007 at 8:21 am
What’s al-Qaeda? They don’t exist. OH and “victims”, isn’t that the last name of your scribbling? As Fred Thompson said to one of your hero’s, “Mental Institution Michael, think about it.” Ummm same advice to you…”victim”.
BEIRUT: Anti-Syrian MP Walid Eido was killed on Wednesday - along with his eldest son Khaled and eight other people - when a booby-trapped car tore through the politician’s convoy near Beirut’s seafront. Residents and passersby in Ras Beirut flocked to the now-familiar scene of blazing cars, shattered windows and wounded bystanders.
Nahhhh, just because Walid WAS Anti-Syrian, of course ‘they’ had nothing to with his assassination.
June 14th, 2007 at 8:22 am
Link…”victim”….http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=83033
June 14th, 2007 at 8:22 am
God Damn It….
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=83033
June 14th, 2007 at 9:57 am
I imagine that the Presbyterians, and not the Syrians, detonated that car bomb. No, wait, let’s blame Bush! He forced the Syrians, er, the Presbyterians, to assassinate Walid Eido. Yeah, that’s it!
June 14th, 2007 at 10:35 am
“Alphie”–How is Damascus this time of year? One great thing about the internet is people from all over the planet can engage one another. One the seedy side the internet can be used to spread false information; old men pretend to be young girls, terrorists pretend to be Americans. Jihadis pose as naive leftists, like “Alphie”, using language algorithms that throw out non sequitars and colloquialisms like “eh?” at random to give them some regional grounding.
“Alphie” is an individual or group of individuals posing an American or Canadian liberal who takes the opposite side of every conservative issue just to rankle feathers no matter how illogical or irrational. “Alphie’s” blog “Alphavictim” is bogus, put up lend ‘credibility’ to his corrosive left-wing views. How does that Palestinian peace plan of yours look now “Alphie”?
Debating “alphie” is a downward spiral, as today’s path shows.
“Why does Syria always get blamed?” is it bad luck “Alphie”? Why does Iran get blamed? Thought provoking questions for people who are starting page one “Alphie”. Let’s go back to the beginning…How can we prove any us even exist? How about that “Alphie”? That’s one I want to debate.
“Why do a million refugees go to Syria?” is it for the political freedom under Assad? I hear Assad won another 7 year term in his latest election. Oh, yeah there was no opposition.
“Alphie” or “Adar” or “Ashur” or whoever is at the keyboard today, go to Lebanon, at the site of the latest assassination and ask them “why does Syria always get blamed?” Verbal diarrhea like that has no consequences in blogs but face to face with victims of tyranny and those brave enough to risk their lives for liberty you’ll find quite a different reaction.
I’m sure you would have the guts to ask such a question unless you had a gun, or a car bomb.
June 14th, 2007 at 11:07 am
I’ve had my suspicions about al-Fie for some time now myself. Either that, or he’s a true-blue jihadi wannabe who posts here in between work shifts at dad’s rug store in Dearborn and indoctrination classes at the neighborhood mosque. The question is, what flavor are you, al-Fie? Palestinian? Iranian? Iraqi? Lebanese?
June 14th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Rebecca, the crowd over at Protein Wisdom (a blog from which he has been banned) referred to The Alphtard™ as “jihad boy”. Clearly, you can see why that is so.
June 14th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
I’m going to lobby Jules to ban Al Jazeera Al-Fie.
This is not free speech any longer. Like Ralph Peters says “Propaganda isn’t free speech. It’s the enemy of free speech.”
Ralph Peters, peace be unto him, also says, “ In the coming decades the propaganda war may become so ferocious that we will have to declare hostile journalists as full combatants and legitimate targets. A camera or a microphone cannot be allowed to protect hate speech when the diatribes and lies kill American troops and frustrate our purposes. Americans should never fear the truth, but deadly liars must learn to fear America. And when, as we have seen in Iraq, hostile journalists throw their lot in with our enemies so completely that they accompany them on terrorist ambushes or bombings the “journalists” become legitimate targets.
For example, Al Jazeera turned the course of the first assault on Fallujah by broadcasting non-stop lies about civilian atrocities and mosque destructions. When this was broadcast Tony Blair even got cold feet and asked the US forces to pull back. For the second assault we wised up and cleaned out Fallujah not worrying what the world thought. That’s how it should be. We should have targeted Al Jazeera reporters from the start. When “news agencies” like Al Jazeera spread lies like this they are no longer observers.
People who spread terrorist propaganda nonsense like Al Jazeera Al-Fie should be eliminated from circulation. That is to say, don’t give them a pulpit. Ignore their comments. Jam their websites. Ban them whenever they appear.
It’s gotten to the point we need “NetNanny” software to seek out terrorists hiding in chat rooms. Arguing with Al Jazeera Al-Fie has yielded a negative result. Look where it’s ended up. “Why does Syria get blamed?” No serious person could mouth those words. This is the “Al Jazeera CAIR algorithm” in action. “If we could only make Americans see the other side of the issue”. The Syrian side “If we could only plant the seeds of doubts…” About Syrian/Iranian guilt.
It’s all a waste of mental energy. Use you brains for more important issues.
Debates should go upward, not down. Rebecca H is probably right. Al-Fie is some rug store jihadi in Dearborn.
Victor Davis Hanson smartly says we should attack their websites with the same ferocity as we do an IED.
June 14th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
The problem is that it is very difficult to differentiate between a genuine jihadi propagandist and too many of our own graduates of the government schools, where they have had their rational faculty turned off, and are taught to operate on the perceptual level of one of the lower animals (but without the hard-wiring that assists them in their survival). The ant spews nothing but the scripts of others. When he is confronted with anything beyond the given script, he changes the subject to suit. In this, he is a robot, whose programming is so easily discerned, and so completely predictable, that he offers no challenge to anyone with two brain cells.
When the worm turns (notice the optimistic “when”), those like the ant will skitter across the floor in terror, like cockroaches caught in the light.
I did get a really good laugh, however, when I found out the name of his blog. I always appreciate a good laugh.
June 14th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Haha, 4″Iraq”,
Someone questions wingnut mythology and the response is always:
1. Accuse them of being terrorist lovers.
2. Call for them to be banned.
It’s not 2003 anymore.
“Gut feelings” have led us into the crapper.
Start debating the facts or face the dustbin of history.
I say that as a friend.
June 14th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Someone questions ‘jihad boy’’s methodology and the response is always:
1. Accuse them of being wingnut neocons.
2. Call for them to debate non sequitors
‘Start debating the facts or face the dustbin of history.’
Irony, thy name is Alphtard™
June 14th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Hi Everyone,
Just to clarify a point I read earlier (and I have to say, I feel terrible about not discovering this discussion a while ago):
Alphie said: “Seeing as the Lebanese army is currently fighting an Al Qaeda-affiliated group…shouldn’t all true patriots blame them for this act?”
First of all, no disrespect here Alphie, but it would help if you knew a thing or two about what happens in Lebanon and Syria before you hurled yourself in defense of the autocratic regime in Syria.
It has been proven, beyond any doubt and in the face of a number of in accurate reports (passed on to foreign reporters by Syrian Intelligence opertaives, or people linked to them), that Syria is the primary backer of the Fatah al Islam group the Lebanese Army is currently engaging in the Nahr el Bared camp in northern Lebanon (you know, the place which you described as being only down the coast from the bombing, but in reality is at least a 2 hr’s drive away).
Alphie also said: “Something bad happens in the Middle East and…Syria gets the blame for it?”
There have been close to 10 assassinations or attempted assassinations of Lebanese politicians, and state employees (chiefs of police, judges, etc), in just under 3 years. Would it surprise you to know that in every one of those instances the target was either an active critic of Syria of a judge or investigator assigned to investigating a case in which Syrian officials or intelligence agencies were the primary suspects?
Now I understand you badly want to rub some “right wing nutters’” face in the mud by showing off some polished prose about rationality and facts you’ve been working on for some time. But when it comes to peoples’ lives, as it obviously does in Lebanon everyday, it might be a bit more respectful to question your own facts and your own reasons for pushing the arguments that you do, before advancing a position which would only result in more death, both for my country, and for yours…
…the leader of the Syrian-backed group in Nahr el Bared has been convicted of killing a US diplomat in Jordan. The Syrian intelligence agency that trained him with this most recent task, is also accused of training other Sunni fundamentalist terrorists and sending them to Iraq, where they blow up US soldiers.
June 14th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Blacksmith Jade
Just added your site, to my favorites. Thank you.
June 14th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
I’m not the one pushing a very unpopular foreign policy, Oldman.
The default setting on U.S. foreign policy is:
1. Bush goes home to cut weeds full time.
2. America pulls its troops out of the Middle East…forever.
It should be obvious to the people who don’t want (2) to happen that their current mythology and talking points aren’t going to prevent it from happening.
Is it that hard to give up the giddy typing of blanket, racist accusations against entire Muslim populations in order to appeal to more than 25% or so of voting Americans?
Maybe there’s some kind of gum you guys could chew when the craving to wax stereotypically strikes?
June 14th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Good to have you on board El Cid.
And good job on the Dailystar quote, its an alright paper overall, but it has the best english-language op/ed editor/writer in country, Michael Young. His weekly articles are a must (he was one of the leading writers to bust Seymour Hersh’s sources in Lebanon as being drawn, primarily, from a pool of Hizballah agents and contacts intimately tied to the Syrian regime - and its propaganda machine).
June 14th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Maybe there’s some kind of gum you guys could chew when the craving to wax stereotypically strikes?
Wow, do they sell that wax in stores yet? Guess I’ll have to check Wal*Mart. I’m writing that name down…Wax Stereotypically, is that kind of like Renuzit?
By the way, did I ever tell you people that without the commies, Mars would not exist. That right. It’s called the Red Planet, right?.
Astronomically yours, alphie
Oh sorry I meant Gastronomically yours.
alphie
No, no…darn…it’s ASStronomically, yours,
alphie
June 14th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
‘I’m not the one pushing a very unpopular foreign policy, Oldman.’
Yes, jihad boy, you are. Because cutting and running like you continually advocate to support your wet dream of global dar al Islam is extremely unpopular or the recent cut and run effort would have been successful. As it was, it was only as successful as it was through bribery.
“1. Bush goes home to cut weeds full time.
2. America pulls its troops out of the Middle East…forever.’
Well. ya on #1. In our country, you only get two terms as president. You need to read up on the US a bit more if you think that will be the result of current U.S. foreign policy.
I know that #2 is integral to your puppeteers’ plans, but if one of the real hopefuls in the field of democrat contenders for the presidency wins, it’s a fool’s bet that they would continue to play to your moonbat BDS allies. For one, BDS after Bush is out of office will die on the vine. It won’t cure the angst over the historical dissolution of Clinton’s presidency, but will shift the syndrome to someone else. Secondly, the moonbat crowd consistently serves up more downside than upside to anyone they support who heeds them after gaining office. They’re poison to anyone not coming from a district where they aren’t a majority, legislators, being dedicated to reelection prospects, play them as fools, but aren’t played by them.
June 14th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Keep living the dream that you guys are the “real” Americans, Oldman.
Clinton left office with a 70% approval rating.
Bush, if he’s lucky, will leave with an approval rating around 20%, maybe.
The wealthy 10% who are only interested in low taxes and corporate pork, and the 10% of Americans who would support any war, against any “enemy.”
June 14th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Republicans have stalled action on the floor to protest a plan by Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) to insert members’ pet projects into spending bills after the House and Senate have both approved their respective versions, making it difficult for members to challenge individual projects.
Hmmm, “corporate pork”, huh?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0607/4498.html
June 14th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
Blacksmith Jade,
I am happy to add you to my list of blogs visited daily. I’ve followed events in your beautiful country since before the civil war. I’ve long been an admirer and I am happy to see things turning. I know it is slow and terribly painful, but freedom is always worth the effort. The alternative–well, you already know the alternative.
A word of unsolicited advice: Don’t try to engage the ant (my name for the Alphtard). I call him “ant” because he operates on the level of a worker ant. He is a thorough collectivist and has given up the ability to distinguish individual voices and independent thought. He is completely lost if he steps off of the trail of pheromones laid by his masters. He isn’t worth a moment of a thinking man’s time. (He is occasionally fun to poke at.)
Thank you for your reporting.
Saltydog
June 14th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Blacksmith Jade, your post was very thoughtful. You’ll notice that Alphie failed to engage any of your points about Syria. So, really, there’s no need to accord him respect: he’s like one of those round-bottomed inflatable clowns. You can punch him to the floor, and he just rolls up again with a smile on his face, and starts a new argument about something else.
June 14th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Reb,
I didn’t engage Blacksith’s points because he posted at the same time as I did.
They tendency of some people to consider only others who support their own worldview as “authentic” sources of information is what creted the fiasco in Iraq.
I’m sure Blacksmith considers himself a rational source of info on Lebanon, but his info reflects his very partisan biases.
I’ll store it away with the usual adjustments.
See hotair’s recent labeling as “impeccable” the blogroll on Fred Thompson’s new site that only links to hardcore wingnut bloggers to see this kind of limited thinking in action.
Or see Michael Totten’s “reporting” on Lebanon that is little more than Likud campaign propaganda.
Limited, biased, but still a good read sometimes and useful once it’s corrected for its obvious partisanship.
June 15th, 2007 at 4:06 am
Ah, I see the ant is now an authority on Lebanon, whereas those who actually live there and cope with what is happening around them on a daily basis, are simply biased. I told you, he responds to nothing but his own programming. Independent judgment requires an individual mind at work–that’s work which he has chosen not to do.
There is no evidence to convince the ant. IF it goes against his programming, THEN it automatically goes to the “wingnut” file. That is the extent of his ability.
June 15th, 2007 at 4:21 am
That’s not quite it, salty.
I’ll read, with interest, anything anyone has to say on any topic.
But I’ll take it as their opinion, not a fact, unless they back it up with some objective proof.
June 15th, 2007 at 10:01 am
Partisan biases with respect to what Alphie? WIth respect to Syria? And if my view is one side of the story, what is the other?
Today Lebanon’s acting Foreign Minister will present to an emergency session of the Arab League concrete proof of Syria’s involvement in every aspect of the instability that has plagued Lebanon for the past month (we’ll go with past month for starters…).
Concrete proof, i.e. photographs of Syrian-trained fighters amassing along the border, intercepted weapons truck coming in from Syria, confessions and testimonials by terrorist masterminds busted in Beirut and across the country in possession of documents, and oh yeah three booby-trapped cars rigged to explode, clearly pointing the finger at Syria.
Look, I’ll do you a favor and tell you that if you start digging and trying to present counter-arguments to the points I have presented you will eventually hit a dead end. I’ve seen all the major references that are pushed in order to reach some other conclusion and in every case the sources of those references or the presentation of the information contained in them have been revealed to contain massive inconsistencies and deficiencies.
I’m not trying to engage you on every point of your political belief or analysis system. If you recall this conversation started with you saying that the Fatah al Islam group in northern Lebanon is linked to Al-Qaedam, has nothing to do with Syria, and should be blamed for the assassination of a leading Anti-Syrian MP in the country. Thats incorrect pure and simple, and thats what I’m arguing.
By the way, did you know that the Fatah al Islam group is booby-trapping corpses so that when Lebanese Army and Red Cross personnel come to remove them they get blown up? Now I’m no expert on Islam, but for a group which allegedly adheres to a radical interpretation of a religion banning any desecration of the body (including tattoos and smoking), this doesn’t sound very Islamic of them.
Just another nugget of info.
June 15th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Blacksmith, I just added you to my links as well. You have a good blog…..good luck to Lebanon! It ain’t worth much, but you have my support, and gratitude for working against the darkness.
June 15th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Blacksmith Jade–
Thanks for the education on past and recent events in your country and link to your site.
I’ve been an avid Michael Young reader for nearly a year now. He’s incredible. I don’t think I really began to understand Lebanon until I him. I’m sure I still don’t. But I’m trying. One thing is certain; Seymour Hersh doesn’t have the faintest clue but gets credit for being a muckraking sage. Michael Young’s “Does the New Yorker actually edit Seymour Hersh?” absolutely floored me watching him refute Hersch on a point by point basis. Young then proceeded to categorize and analyze the different armed groups in Lebanon including a Palestinian Sunni extremist group called Fatah al-Islam. Hersch makes the ludicrous claim that the Sinora government armed this group of 70-80 men to take on Hezbollah.
“A Muckraker on the Wane”
Does the New Yorker actually edit Seymour Hersh?
http://www.reason.com/news/show/118922.html
It is a masterful article. He’s one of the finest writers I ever read. During down time, I head to the Michael Young archives at Reason online.
I was disgusted to see a round table of journalists on a Sunday morning TV show talking about Seymour Herch’s “serious new article” on the Bush administration funding al Qaeda. “Serious article”? Why don’t they drop his conspiracy pushing source-less ass and read Michael Young?
Blacksmith Jade—During the war last summer I became very attached to your country and what it stands for—liberty, tolerance, democracy, free trade. During this time I stumbled across a site called the Lebanesebloggers.com. It had some great writers. I visited it regularly, several times a week. When Hezbollah (and Iran) made its power play and the street protest became more confrontational, so did the writers. One great writer, Raja, wrote a piece, “Lebanon’s Ahab”, about Nasrallah. It was a scathing condemnation of militant Islamists in government. Nasrallah had just given a speech to state his party’s platform: War, war, and more war.
http://lebanesebloggers.blogspot.com/2006/12/lebanons-ahab.html
Shortly after this post the website stopped posting. I believe the identities of the writers became known and they were threatened or killed. The website is frozen at December 24th.
March 14, 2005 is a holiday to me. The US should have pushed to topple Syria then.
Nancy Pelosi has Lebanese blood on her hands.
June 15th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
4Iraqisfuture:
Let me start by assuring you that both Raja and Doha from Lebanese Bloggers are fine. I know them personally and although I can’t comment on why they stopped blogging I can at least say they’re alive amd well.
I remember that speech, it was disgusting and for all intents and purposes, a political mistake for Hizballah (not that they abide by the political rules, regulations, and/or institutions dictated by our constitution, but thats another topic altogether). I also remember that the Prime Minister replied with a forceful speech of his own, one in which he revealed that through his work to establish a ceasefire during last year’s war, he was confronted by the Iranian Foreign Minister who urged him not to work towards a diplomatic solution to the Shebaa Farms (something that is being worked towards now). The Iranian FM’s request was based on Iran and Syria’s wish to use the territory as a pretext for the continued existence of Hizballah’s weapons, and their use of them to advance their own regional agendas. Agendas that would be paid for with the blood of Lebanese citizens who would be caught in the crossfire, just as they were in the summer of 2006.
In pushing for international support for Lebanon we (regular people like Raja, Doha, and myself) are fighting for the right to live in a country where we decide when we want to go to war and when we want to live in peace, and not have despotic regimes like the ones in Syria and Iran decide for us.
But anyway, with respect to Michael Young, you’re on the right track…absolutely. Seymoure Hersh got Lebanon completely wrong and we called him on it, as for his other works…I guess I will leave that bit up to someone else.
June 16th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
4iraqisfuture here,
Blacksmith Jade–
Thank you for the good news that Raja and Doha are fine. There was a time where the news coming from their blog was weeks ahead of the mainstream media and obviously light-years more insightful.
I was disgusted to hear PM Sinora say he wasn’t getting what was promised from the US. Lebanon is a jewel. If I made policy I would drastically increase all forms of assistance to Lebanon. I don’t mean just throwing money at a shortcoming; I mean logistical and technical support as well. That is important because that would help establish human ties. I realize Americans are persona non-grata in Lebanon for good reason what with the war last summer but that could change.
I’ll be reading your site.
June 16th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
Worth a thousand words….
….Click Me!