{"id":683,"date":"2006-08-02T15:10:56","date_gmt":"2006-08-02T22:10:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp\/?p=683"},"modified":"2006-08-02T15:10:56","modified_gmt":"2006-08-02T22:10:56","slug":"their-wretchedness-is-the-poignant-marker-of-the-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/their-wretchedness-is-the-poignant-marker-of-the-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Their wretchedness is the poignant marker of the war"},"content":{"rendered":"

3quarksdaily<\/a><\/p>\n

Siege notes.<\/p>\n

I lived in Lebanon for the first four years of my life, after leaving New Orleans. My earliest memories are of Beirut and its wonderful people. We were evacuated and ended up in Greece in 1975.<\/p>\n

My mom says I used to talk about guerrillas, monkeys and tigers. Things to do when you in a curfew- make up the news. Those were different times – or were they?<\/p>\n

Today many many years have passed and I am a father of a young boy. That is the voice in which I speak. I am no longer a three year old blond kid. I am a father and I want other fathers to be able to look after their children, regardless of their religion or place of birth.<\/p>\n

I realise that is asking rather a lot but I can’t remain silent any longer about the current situation in Lebanon. Please read the post I link to above. <\/p>\n

When I saw a demonstration in Boston<\/a> a couple of weeks ago I promised to speak out. Until now I have not kept the promise. Self-censorship is a very powerful thing. <\/p>\n

Gaza and Lebanon used to be different wars. Not any more. We’re seemingly creating a caliphate from the ground up, whatever our intentions from the top down.<\/p>\n

So what is Rasha saying? Some is poetic:<\/p>\n

\n

I keep having fantasies of a huge, huge civilian procession of human shields walking alongisde convoys of food, medicine, ambulances, that defy Israeli’s military superiority in the air. A similar mass of people that took to the street when it was aggrieved by former Prime Minister Hariri’s death that walks fearless and relentless to the south. A human convoy of hundreds and thousands of people just taking back the country and lending their bodies to rescue their brethren trapped in villages. Civility turning the tide on barbarism. A crazy dream that ought neither be crazy nor a dream. Perhaps one day…”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Civility turning the tide on barbarism. Is that enough dream rather than memory for you Mr Friedman<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Treat civlians as civilians and they will likely act like civilians. Treat them like terrorists…<\/p>\n

Why have we abandoned those we applauded<\/a> so vigorously last March? Why did the rules of engagement change?<\/p>\n

I thought we were going to support the nascent Lebanese democracy, and try to encourage self-determination.<\/p>\n

Self-determination… we need to stop confusing fear with facts on the ground.<\/p>\n

Peace out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

3quarksdaily Siege notes. I lived in Lebanon for the first four years of my life, after leaving New Orleans. My earliest memories are of Beirut and its wonderful people. We were evacuated and ended up in Greece in 1975. My mom says I used to talk about guerrillas, monkeys and tigers. Things to do when<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_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-683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9wfjh-b1","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}