{"id":575,"date":"2006-07-28T15:43:00","date_gmt":"2006-07-28T15:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/2006\/07\/28\/watching-beirut-die\/"},"modified":"2016-10-29T05:50:36","modified_gmt":"2016-10-29T05:50:36","slug":"watching-beirut-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/2006\/07\/28\/watching-beirut-die\/","title":{"rendered":"Watching Beirut die"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
I haven’t written about what’s happening in Lebanon because there is so much out there<\/a>, I can’t imagine I can add to it. It’s a nightmare.<\/p>\n

I know that what is happening is wrong on so many levels – but I can’t say I know who to blame. One can rationalize anything, I suppose, whether it’s the decision to kidnap the first soldier, or the one to target civilians, or the one that puts rocket launchers near hospitals and schools.<\/p>\n

Common sense says those things should never happen. Reality proves they do. And always, the innocent pay the ultimate price.<\/p>\n

So while I can’t add a lot to the discussion of these sad events, I can point you to a story on Salon.com today which you should read. It’s called “Watching Beirut die.”<\/a> It’s written by Anthony Bourdain<\/a>, a celebrity chef and author, who arrived in Lebanon with a camera crew to document the rebirth of the city and instead ended up holed up in a hotel for days, watching the city die around him.<\/p>\n

It’s a riveting first-person account, admittedly from a position of relative safety and far from the chaos of the rest of the city. But it’s well done and worth reading.<\/p>\n

One further link. Christopher Allbritton, whose blog, Back To Iraq, I have written about before, is now in Lebanon, in Tyre. If you want a first-person account from a professional journalist with a keen eye for what’s going on, read his latest postings<\/a>. And consider donating something to his cause.<\/p>\n

Allbritton is a remarkable journalist and what he has done in Iraq over the past two years is an amazing story in itself.<\/p>\n

Technorati Tag: Lebanon<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I haven’t written about what’s happening in Lebanon because there is so much out there, I can’t imagine I can add to it. It’s a nightmare. I know that what is happening is wrong on so many levels – but I can’t say I know who to blame. One can rationalize anything, I suppose, whether […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/07\/burning.jpg?fit=106%2C72&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p88Hib-9h","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1521,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions\/1521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}