Things a Mother Might Ask

I usually try not to post too many things relating to politics because it causes debates, hard feelings and the like. But I can not help but post about recent events here in Beirut. You see, there was a war here not so long ago, 2006 to be exact and I was actually here for that sad event.

Several hundreds of dollars in international phone calls to my family back home and assurances to them that my area was not the target of choice by Israel but little could really be done to reassure my family that I was ok. Scared, but ok. There is nothing like hearing American jets bombing a neighborhood in the wee hours of the morning as the mosques ring out for the morning call to prayer.

As people lay asleep, children and even grandparents, a barrage of bombings hit a quiet neighborhood disrupting an otherwise peaceful summer day. I was in shock and couldn’t figure out what was happening and then I called my husband. Yeah, he wasn’t here and couldn’t get here and soon wouldn’t be able to come at all due to the bombings at the airport that destroyed the run ways.

So when I found out that Israel was supposedly retaliating for a certain group taking two soldiers I thought to myself wow, there must be more to the story. A common thought that I now have because I have seen the other sides of stories left uncompleted by my own media in the states. Our media in the states left me so ignorant to the facts and left me embarassed to be so unknowing of the rest of the world around me. I love my country, I have defended my country but I was now mad for not knowing and looking like a fool.

Come to find out, Israel has been taking hostages from the south for quite some time using whatever excuse would seem acceptable in the eyes of their people and the people of America. Of course, as an American myself, we wouldn’t stand for random acts of terrorism by anyone so pretty words have to get attached to the reasons Israel does anything.

Yesterday there was the exchange of prisoners. One prisoner, my husband pointed out, has been a prisoner for at least 20 years. He was told by the Israeli’s that the person who would release him from prison was not even born yet! When my husband told me this I got a sick feeling. I wanted to know more about this prisoner issue. He said, did you know there are still approximately 11,000 prisoners left? I was in shock.

There is part of Lebanon that Israel wants and Lebanon just will not let it go. It belongs to Lebanon. But I really would like to see a show of hands of how many in my home country know that this is the reason, amongst a few others, for the war that broke out in 2006? But in the news, if you were in the states at the time, you only heard that a said group “attacked” Israel. Hmmmm..I am not that stupid, I know there is more to this than meets the apparent media eye and that is when Al-Jazeera became very popular…popular because for the most part, it doesn’t sugar the truth. Raw news..raw news.

So, with that small snippet of history from my birds eye view, I was here and Israel was not bombing military spots. Lebanon hardly has a military to speak. I think they have like 1 or 2 heliopters at best for air support and even that is nothing like what I was accoustomed to growing up around.

So prisoners exhcanged last night and the barrage of fireworks could be heard all night. One of those men was actually sentenced to 5 life terms because of a raid back in 1979. WOW…I was like 9 years old playing with barbie with the next door neighbor and I think, my husband was living out his life at the same age (we are the same age by the way).

I am sure Israel was not happy about the death of their two soldiers and according to most, they pretty much knew they were killed in the fighting but still had hopes they were still alive.