Originally written Monday, January 17, 2005

A few days ago, I finally finished Pity the Nation, an absolutely superb book by one of my favourite journalists, Robert Fisk. This book is a huge chronicle of 26 years in Lebanon, where Fisk witnessed and reported the horrific events there, including Israeli invasion and occupation, the car-bombing of the US Marines in Beirut and the vicious and deadly civil wars that gripped the country.

At 689 pages of densely-packed type, this book would seem hard to get through. And in parts, it is – but not because it is boring or tedious. Instead, because of the first-hand accounts of bloodshed so appalling the images have stuck with me for days.

One of the most gruesome accounts is when Fisk arrives at the refugee camp of Chatila after the massacre of Palestinian refugees there. Chatila and Sabra were two major refugee camps for Palestinians who fled when the state of Israel was created from their homeland Palestine. Hundreds of Palestinians were murdered in the camps starting September 16, 1982 by a militia known as the Phalange.

The Phalange were supplied and controlled by the Israeli military. The Israelis circled the camps, blocking all of the exits. They had observation posts on the roofs of nearby tall buildings. The Israelis then sent in the Phalange, who entered the camps and murdered the inhabitants.

Fisk’s story of entering the camp after the massacre is horrifying. At one point, he is climbing a soft earth embankment recently created by bulldozers when he slips. He grabs a reddish rock that is protruding from the embankment to catch his balance. It comes away in his hand and he sees to his horror that it is not a rock at all, it is a human elbow. He then realizes that the entire embankment is full of bodies:

… Each time I took a step, the earth moved up towards me. The whole embankment of muck shifted and vibrated with my weight in a dreadful, springy way and, when I looked down again, I saw that the sand was only a light covering over more limbs and faces. A large stone turned out to be a stomach. I could see a man’s head, a woman’s naked breast, the feet of a child. I was walking on dozens of corpses which were moving beneath my feet.

His history of a war now some years over still has great relevance for today. For example, the leader of the Israeli army units who surrounded the refugee camps and sent in the Phalange to murder the “terrorists” therein was Ariel Sharon, the current prime minister of Israel. Ariel Sharon was later found by a (deeply flawed) Israeli commission to be “indirectly responsible” for the massacres, and he was dismissed from his post as Defense Minister, which didn’t stop him from capturing the highest office in the country years later.

*** Terrorists

Fisk talks a lot about the use of the term “terrorists” to describe one’s enemies:

Terrorists, terrorists, terrorists. The word was ubiquitous, obsessive, cancerous in its own special way. Terrorists were animals. Animals had to be put down. The PLO was a terrorist organization. Terrorists, terrorists, terrorists. Israel radio used the word in every broadcast, almost every sentence.

He examines how the word is used by Israel and by the Western powers and media to describe groups who are opposed to Israeli or Western interests, but not applied to groups who just as easily qualify for the word who are working for Israeli or Western interests. For example, PLO gunmen were called terrorists but gunmen from the same right-wing Christian militias that murdered Palestinians in Sabra and Chatila were not. He tells the story of getting shelled by an Israeli gunboat as he drove up a highway in Lebanon (the book has many harrowing accounts of great personal risk and danger) and then reading the paper the next day to see a report filed by a colleague of his in Tel Aviv that the Israeli navy had shelled “terrorist targets” on the road in Lebanon, presumably referring to him!

He calls the increasing use of the word terrorism “so all-pervasive, so ominous and dangerous”:

In one sense, it was the most frightening aspect of the war. For who were the terrorists in Beirut? The Palestinian guerilla fighters who had slaughtered their Christian opponents in the civil war? The Phalangist gunmen who had slaughtered so many Palestinian civilians and who were now allied to the Israelis? The Israeli soldiers and pilots who killed thousands of innocent people while pursuing the ghost of ‘international terrorism’?

*** The Israeli Invasion

The Israeli invasion of Lebanon forms the centerpiece of the book, I think. Here is an excerpt:

Then, just after four-thirty in the afternoon, a series of jets which we had seen twisting around the sky above west Beirut suddenly power-dived across the city, sweeping in a crescendo of sound over the rooftops of apartment blocks, scattering phosphorus balloons to protect themselves from heat-seeking missiles. From Fakhani, there now rose an even larger tower of smoke than we had seen from the hillside on our way back from the Bekaa. A pink flickering passed across the underside of this smoke, followed by five tremendous explosions so powerful that streets and buildings three miles away literally shook with the blast. For one extraordinary moment, the sky was filled with sharply outlined, bright green fire as the PLO’s anti-aircraft shells burst vainly behind the retreating planes. The Israelis were no demolishing whole apartment blocks in their raids, their bombs exploding deep inside the buildings around Fakhani and pancaking thousands of tons of concrete floors, balconies and stairways onto their inhabitants.

Fisk talks about the tactics of the PLO as well. He recounts how the PLO would place artillery and anti-aircraft weapons next to hospitals and schools, or even on their roofs, putting civilians in great jeopardy. This invasion was extremely hard on the Lebanese. Israel invaded Lebanon to get the Palestinians, and the Palestinians fought back. Little concern was shown to the Lebanese by either side.

Fisk recounts finding over 100 bodies in the basement of a school in Beirut. As it turns out, a Palestinian guerilla had parked an anti-aircraft gun next to the school:

… a PLO guerilla had driven that anti-aircraft gun here and fired at the Israeli planes that were roaming the dark skies above the city. He may have been unaware that the school contained more than 100 refugees, although this is highly unlikely. His disregard was criminal, like that of the Israeli who killed him. For an Israeli pilot had presumably seen the gun flashes and decided to bomb the artillery. The Israeli could not have seen what he was aiming at; he could have had no idea how many civilians were in the area. Nor could he have cared. For if the Israelis were really worried about civilian casualties, they would never have dropped ordnance at night into a densely populated city. But the pilot was fighting ‘terrorists’.

He also interviews Yasser Arafat, in an interview that must be about 25 years old now. Once again, it retains its relevance. He presses Arafat on the deaths of Israeli civilians as a result of Palestinian attacks in Israel:

Arafat started muttering about “rumours”. He wanted to say lies but the word kept coming out as “rumours”.

“It doesn’t! They don’t! Definite!” Arafat’s eyes were running round the room…

*** The Qana Massacre

Fisk sticks to the truth in his accounts, and that is what I think is most important. He writes passionately but he does not let his passion influence his account of events. So though he writes the truth about Palestinians in Lebanon, he also writes the truth about the Israelis. And it turns out that what the Israelis committed there is far worse.

He writes of arriving at the UN base in Qana shortly after it was shelled by the Israeli military. As it turns out, he was very close to the base when the shells started falling and arrived only moments after the attack:

They were the gates of hell. Blood poured through them, in streams, in torrents. I could smell it. It washed over our shoes and stuck to them like glue, a viscous mass that turned from crimson to brown to black. The tarmac of the UN compound was slippery with blood, with pieces of flesh and entrails. There were legs and arms, babies without heads, old men’s heads without bodies, lying in the smouldering wreckage of a canteen. On the top of a burning tree hung two parts of a man’s body. They were on fire. In front of me, on the steps of the barracks, a girl sat holding a man with grey hair, her arm round his shoulder, rocking the corpse back and forth in her arms. His eyes were staring at her. She was keening and weeping and crying, over and over: ‘My father, my father.’

This is the beginning of Fisk’s chapter on the Qana Massacre, where Israeli troops shelled a United Nations compound in Lebanon that was full of refugees, a horrifying chapter whose information I have confirmed with online sources. He writes a damning account of the incident, recounting how the Israelis had used helicopter reconnaissance before the shelling as well as a pilotless reconnaissance aircraft called an MK. He tells the first-hand witness accounts of the people who saw the aircraft surveying the area before and during the shelling. Witnesses also claimed that the weight of fire, which was not directly on the compound, shifted halfway through the bombardment to more directly target the UN compound.

Of course, the Israelis denied that they had done this on purpose. They said it was an accident, and they denied that they had a reconnaissance aircraft in the area before or during the incident, a crucial point when deciding culpability. But Fisk is resourceful. He had heard that a UN soldier had videotape of the incident that had been sealed by the United Nations, and he sought to get his hands on it. A courageous soldier then contacts him and arranges to meet, giving him a copy of the tape that he had made before it was sealed.

The tape clearly shows the reconnaissance aircraft flying over the compound during the bombardment. In other words, the Israelis knew full well what they were doing. But, of course, they changed their story. After the pictures were splashed over newspaper pages, they claimed that yes, they had a plane their, but it was on “another mission”.

*** Summary

Pity the Nation is not all gruesome. There are moments of beauty, from descriptions of the mountains to the sea to the great cedars of Lebanon. There are many moments of suspense and tension as well, as Fisk recounts his narrow escapes from Israeli shellfire, an incredible kidnap attempt in the streets of Beirut that had him driving like a madman to avoid the clutches of a shadowy group not unlike Zarqawi’s group of beheaders in Iraq, and other moments of courage and great fear.

He also talks about his profession and his, and other journalists’, responsibility to tell the truth and to inform the readers. He criticizes the journalists in Beirut who only reported from the hotels they stayed in for fear of getting kidnapped or killed, getting their information from outside sources and the Lebanese who worked in the hotel, yet never letting on to their readers that they were not actually roaming the country. (He criticizes reporters in Iraq today for the same thing). He talks about bias in the media and about the charge of anti-Semitism so often leveled at people who criticize the state of Israel.

There’s no doubt that reading this book is a bit of a project, but I can whole-heartedly recommend it. It’s interesting, passionate, disturbing, informative, horrifying, exciting and tragic. Most of all, it’s a heartfelt account of the pain and suffering so many people went through there, a terrible cost that we are so unacquainted with. We ought to remember what happened in Lebanon, because it teaches us about what is happening today, and what will continue to happen if we keep on letting it.

Originally written Wednesday, December 22, 2004

The mainstream media has finally caught up to independent journalism and the abuse of detainees in Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq is once again making headlines. The latest: memorandums obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reveal that FBI officials learned of the abuse and reported it. From the Times Online:

***

One of the most damning memos, dated June 24 and addressed to Robert Mueller, the FBI director, and other senior bureau officials, gave the account of someone “who observed serious physical abuses of civilian detainees” in Iraq.

The documents — mostly by FBI agents present at interrogations in Iraq and the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and sent to their superiors — indicate that such tactics must have been known to government officials in Washington.

***

But this kind of news is nothing new. The mainstream media outlets report in packs. Someone from a big media outlet needs to lead the pack and break a story before the rest of the slavering horde gets in on it. For weeks, I’ve been reading similar stories of abuse, torture and murder that never make it into the mainstream press.

I have watched interviews on Democracy Now with human rights lawyers and journalists who have documented abuse in Afghanistan, Guantanomo and Iraq. Not just sexual humiliation, stress positions and sleep deprivation, but electric shocks, beatings, and murder. I’ve seen gruesome pictures of the results – a prisoner standing with his face practically crushed, blood running in rivers down his chest as two American soldiers laugh. Soldiers posing next to the bruised and battered bodies of Iraqi prisoners. Numerous photos of the dead, always bruised, often bloody.

I saw an interview with an American soldier who worked in Abu Ghraib who talked about how many of the people there were in for minor offences like public drunkenness and theft. He described how the guards at one point responded to a prisoner protest by opening fire on them, killing 5. His commanding officers took photos of the dead prisoners and posted them in the base as a trophy display.

Months ago, after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, I came across an article entitled “America’s Problem” in the Guardian. Six months later, its relevance is undiminished. Here are some excerpts.

***

It was only last month that the US army formally asserted that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison consisted of “aberrations” that could not be put down to systemic problems. This week, however, two official reports have painted a more disturbing picture. The reports…describe a situation in which the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners was more extensive than previously acknowledged and in which military leadership was found seriously wanting.

The things that happened in Abu Ghraib happened because individual Americans broke the law. But they also happened because too many Americans are prepared to look in the other direction or even actively support such abuses. America is a society with a problem. That problem erupted in Abu Ghraib. America has begun to address it. But it must not slacken off now.

***

I saw parts of a news conference with George Bush yesterday. I once again heard the infantile phrases I’ve heard so many times. The enemies of the United States are the “enemies of freedom”. The United States is a “nation of laws”.

Is that what this is? Freedom? Does freedom mean the abuse, torture and murder of Iraqis in their own country? Is locking up people in Guantanamo Bay without charge or trial and denying them even the basic rights afforded by international law the work of a “nation of laws”? Is killing Iraqi prisoners who throw rocks and then flaunting souvenir pictures of their bodies what “heroes” do?

Welcome to 21st century America, land of the free, home of the brave.

Comment from Alevo:

Freedom from . . . or freedom to? The Bush doctrine has confused the concept of freedom so dramatically that I’m not sure it will ever mean anything to anyone again in our lifetime. It is now a call to arms, much like its sematic cousins liberty and justice, used to sell fear and instability. The Bush doctrine then offers itself as the only logical solution – humanitarian abuses and all – defenders of freedom. The Faustian proportions of this bargain are lost on many in America and abroad. The Bush doctrine has hollowed out some of America’s most profound contributions to the concept of citizenship in the 21st centruy. Abu Ghraib & Guantanamo Bay are symptoms of a larger identity crisis in American politics and purpose. I’m not convinced that any mainstream media outlet in America could even begin to explain why either atrocity is fundamentally wrong. That would involve the double-speak of freedom coming home to roost.

Originally written Tuesday, November 23, 2004

“Why don’t you post this on your blob?”, Casie’s email said. I chuckled. Evidently my posts were not quite as clear as I thought, if they gave the impression of a messy glutinous ball.

I stopped laughing to myself as I kept reading. The contents of the email attachment she sent me were appalling: a list of women murdered by intimate partners in the last year, along with the circumstances of their deaths.

Here are a few from the list:

Natalie Bobeika, 46. Mother of one child. Natalie was stabbed to death in front of her 13-year-old son, who called police. She had been divorced from her husband for two years and was studying accounting in hopes of getting a job to support herself and her son. She had no relatives in Canada after coming from Russia; her son was placed in the care of friends. Her estranged husband, Iouri Bobeika, was charged with second-degree murder.

Henny Ann McAlpine, 48. Toronto. Henny Ann was found stabbed to death on the lawn of her apartment building and was pronounced dead at hospital. Her husband was found dead 30 minutes later after witnesses said he “hurled himself” into traffic and was struck by a car. Police determined that the deaths were a murder-suicide. Neighbours described the couple as “incredibly loving” and “nice people” but also said they didn’t talk to their neighbours and were “together all the time”.

Susan Kilby, 39. St. Catharines. Mother of two children. Susan was found in the home of her estranged husband with her skull smashed in by blunt force trauma. She had been separated from her ex-husband for over a year and had gone to the house to pick up her children from an access visit. A phone call was placed to 911 and the dispatcher listened to sounds of an argument while sending police. By the time police arrived, however, Susan was dead. The children were nearby when the murdered occurred but police were not sure if they were witnesses to the murder. Patrick Kilby was charged with first-degree murder. Only a few weeks before the murder, community protests arose over a T-shirt being sold locally with the words “She was asking for it” accompanied by a picture of a hammer. Supporters of the T-shirt characterized it as a “joke” and one scoffed at the protests telling media that no one would really smash someone’s head with a hammer.

Because Casie works in a women’s shelter, and because I’m married to her (happily, by the way), I often hear about the abuse inflicted on so many women in our society. These short paragraphs tell the tragic story of murders. They do not tell the stories of the brutal emotional, physical and sexual abuse inflicted on women and children every day.

Murder, as the most extreme outcome of violence, is the tip of the iceberg – the number of murders reveals the mass of the violence that lies underneath, just as the size of the ice above the water indicates what lurks beneath the surface. Here, the numbers reveal a disturbing picture.

A remarkable study undertaken in 2001 by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed that murder by an intimate partner is the leading cause of death among pregnant women. Among the statistics quoted in this article is this one:

“A recent report on female homicide in New York City between 1990 and 1997 revealed that among the 54% of cases that could be categorized according to intimate partner perpetrator status, approximately 40% of the victimes were killed by intimate partners.”

Even worse is the low priority this epidemic of violence is given by the justice system, the government and our society. Take the story of Wyann Ruso, the Toronto woman who warned police about her abusive husband and received an assurance from them that he would be arrested immediately. Instead, they did nothing – that is, until 9/11 was called when her husband attacked her with an axe and a hammer. He is now charged with attempted murder. She survived the attack, but many others do not.

As a society, we classify crimes not just in terms of their severity, but also according to other circumstantial factors like the state of mind of the perpetrator. First-degree murder is the most serious of all murder charges because it is a premeditated act. If premeditation makes murder more serious, how much more seriously should violence against women and children be taken? After all, men do not only have a responsibility to protect and care for their families, but if they are married, they have taken an oath to do so. Their crime is not just one of violence, it is one of betrayal.

More statistics:

* One in four (1/4) women in Canada is sexually or physically abused by a partner.

* Forty percent (40%) of women who turn up in emergency departments of hospitals are there because of abuse.

* Fifty percent (50%) of women admitted to psychiatric hospitals/units are victims of violence.

* Seventy five percent (75%) of children in homes where women are abused are also abused.

This is not just a terrible onslaught against women and children. This is an assault on our society, our communities, against decency, justice and humanity.

Originally written Thursday, November 11, 2004

It’s interesting how certain beliefs that seem to be unrelated to each other are combined in very standard ways and adopted by distinct groups of people.

Let me explain. Think about the idea of conservatism. What issues come to mind?

Here are some I can think of off the top of my head:

– corporatism, unbridled capitalism, free markets
– anti-abortion
– in favour of the war in Iraq and the so-called War on Terror
– anti-gun control
– religious
– anti-gay rights

This is a broad range of issues that don’t all have strong connections. For example, conservatives are against abortion because they support what they call a “culture of life”, yet many support needless war, which is all about death. Conservatives support corporatism, capitalism and free markets, yet many are Christians, and Christ said that those who followed him should “go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” (Matthew 19:21).

Why is it that people accept beliefs (conservatism, liberalism) that cover just about every conceivable social and political issue, yet are often unrelated and even contradictory?

The issue of faith is especially important. Most people are religious, or at least claim to be, and there’s no doubt a significant number hold their faith as very important in their lives. The successful merging of faith, especially evangelical and born-again Christianity, with conservatism has become an enormous factor in US politics. The same has happened here in Canada although to a lesser degree.

For any revolution to be successful, it must encompass faith. The change that needs to take place in our society and across the globe cannot happen if religious people are left out. How can this challenge be met? What can be done to separate faith from conservatism?

The optimistic part is that the belief system held by religious conservatives really is self-contradictory. How does Jesus’ instruction to “turn the other cheek” when slapped reconcile with a policy of “pre-emptive” war? How can unrestrained corporatism be defended when Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”? (Mark 10:25)

(This optimism might be unfounded. Maybe a contradictory belief system is actually harder to change than a rational one.)

In a recent conversation I had with an insightful friend (that’s you, Luc), we talked about what could be done to break down barriers between groups of people. Most conservative Christians are strongly opposed to gay marriage and often gay rights in general. I think that for many, the root of this opposition (and hatred in some cases) is based on the primitive human fear of the Other.

Fear of the Other has driven human conflict since the dawn of mankind and that fear still drives international events today. One of the best-known ways to break this barrier is simple: make friends. When the Other becomes familiar and friendly, fear dissolves, taking hatred with it.

Would it be possible to create events that brought different groups of people together in an atmosphere that forced or fostered reliance, teamwork and eventually friendship between them? For example, a survivalist trip in the Northern wilderness. The event could be billed to church groups as a way to experience God’s creation, and to groups of gay activists as a way to get out of the city. ;) Create a stressful event – perhaps the “accidental” destruction of all of the canoes once the camping site had been reached – that forces the group of people to rely on each other.

Is this a recipe for disaster or could it see the outbreak of friendship among people who would not normally ever meet each other? (Perhaps it’s both – people finally break those barriers, then die of starvation.)

When Dorothy lived in Kansas, she experienced a very small world. Kansas is the middle of nowhere by anybody’s judgment, even a Kansan’s. But when a tornado swept her away to Oz, her world changed. She became close friends with people (well, an animal, a scarecrow and a robot) that she would not normally have ever met. They joined each other on the Yellow Brick Road and traveled with a common purpose.

I realize that this idea is not exactly ethical. But it’s just an idea, the product of a wacky brainstorm session. It’s probably not a good idea to mislead people into unexpected situations. But perhaps something similar could be accomplished in a different, better way. Maybe YOU can think of something. So why not leave a comment and let me know? I’d like to hear from you…

Bringing people together under false pretenses is wrong, even if in the end it would be better for everyone involved. It’s worrisome to think, though, that we may all be brought together because of some horrific catastrophe, like nuclear war and the ensuing nuclear winter, if we do not solve our differences. If that happens, we may wish we had tried every stupid idea we came up with to try and solve them.

Comment by Iliafer:

Thoughtful, nay, insightful, but here’s why your plan won’t work:

Quote:

“Would it be possible to create events that brought different groups of people together in an atmosphere that forced or fostered reliance, teamwork and eventually friendship between them? For example, a survivalist trip in the Northern wilderness. The event could be billed to church groups as a way to experience God’s creation, and to groups of gay activists as a way to get out of the city. ;) Create a stressful event – perhaps the “accidental” destruction of all of the canoes once the camping site had been reached – that forces the group of people to rely on each other.”

This won’t work, because one of the Christian conservatives will undoubtedly bring his hunting rifle on the trip to the great white north – our deer are bigger ;o) Then, when the canoes are taken away and the Christians and gays are forced to live in so-called “harmony”, the stress of the situation will surely cause one of the Christians to blow their stack, take the gun and shoot one or more mouthy gay person (because, gays tend to run off at the mouth ;o) j/k). No matter what, there will be power struggles (a la Lord of the Flies) and eventually someone’s gonna lose it. And, the conservatives will likely come out on top because they are the ones with the guns.

Sad, isn’t it?

Comment by Royboy:

Quote: ***This is a broad range of issues that don’t all have strong connections. For example, conservatives are against abortion because they support what they call a “culture of life”, yet many support needless war, which is all about death. Conservatives support corporatism, capitalism and free markets, yet many are Christians, and Christ said that those who followed him should “go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” (Matthew 19:21).***

“Needless war”, that’s editorial… hence the premise isn’t terribly well founded.

From a religious perspective war is entirely necessary to smite the “evildoers”. This is bolstered with the “me” culture of America where ppl are actually encouraged to buy large SUV’s to keep themselves (and families) safe at the expense of the smaller car they smash into. Meaning “take the fight over there instead of here”. It is this ethos that narrowly won the election for Bush despite transparent shortcomings in execution. (meaning I disagree with the conventional wisdom that values issues won Bush the election) That certainly shored up his core support and got them to the poles… but for the undecideds that put him over the top IMO.