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Eyewitness: Mass burial in Lebanon
All this is very sad. But this is the result of enabling and/or supporting Hezb'Allah. Blame is shared by anyone who sides with Hezb'Allah, the Syrian and Iranian governments, and anyone who agreed to the empty promises of disarming Hezb'Allah but didn't follow through with their commitments in the UN resolutions. The fact that this blame is shared so broadly does not reduce any individual's culpability. Israel didn't wake up one morning with a half-baked notion to sit in bomb shelters and attack Hezb'Allah. Reading this, you can see some of the forces at play in Lebanese and muslim society that are dishonoring the dead by taking advantage of this grim situation to perpetuate this mindset until they are all destroyed or they figure it out and do away with it. This whole thing looks staged to me, and many reporters are going to be complicit. The short-sighted will read the lines, and the more far-sighted will read the lines and between the lines as well.TYRE, Lebanon (CNN) -- Eight days ago, the Lebanese Army buried 87 bodies in a mass grave in the city of Tyre. Today, they are laying another 34 in the ground. Everyone is covering their face to keep out the stench as Lebanese soldiers remove dozens of bodies from the back of a truck. The first body is a day-old baby -- killed in an Israeli airstrike, according to the Lebanese Army. On her coffin a marking shows she had no name. (Watch as Tyre buries its dead -- 2:13) They've lined up the coffins on the sidewalk; each has either a name or a marking that says "unknown." (Watch as Cal Perry describes the reality of covering the conflict -- 2:58) All have numbers. Coffin No. 104 has three names on it - Ali, Mohammed and Talib - all children. Nearby, Fatawi Horani is screaming and crying. Her granddaughter Marim, 15, was killed, she says, while trying to flee the fighting. Three soldiers begin to struggle with a large body bag. Maggots are pouring from the bag - blood is seeping onto the ground. When they get the body into the coffin, the lid arches as doctors hammer nails into it. Maggots and blood? I wonder. In any case, just how long have you been holding onto this one? Children are beginning to gather. It is images such as these that pass down a hatred of Israel to another generation. Err, what about the people who drove Israel to this? Don't forget to tell your kids about that. A little girl, Maana, is standing nearby, a bandage on her left arm. Her father tells me she was wounded by Israeli jets - but all the passengers in the car in front of them were killed. Without having to count, it's clear that more members of the international press are here than bodies being buried. Journalists were asked to come here to witness the collected horror. Staged? A Shiite sheik arrives and begins talking to members of the media. I pull him aside and ask him one question: "What message would you send to the people of America?" "Israel?" he asks. "No," I reply. "America." "I love the people of America. It's the government I hate. Tell the American people that we received their gift. The missile that they gave to Israel - we have received it, and this is the result," he says, motioning to the coffins. So just what are you trying to say? I thank him, but he says nothing to me - just glares, turns abruptly and walks away. Very dramatic. Remember, Cal, he's a near-sighted thinker. The mayor says that the bodies will be buried here temporarily. When the fighting stops, relatives will be able to come claim their dead and bury them in their hometowns. So the can dig them up if they want to. That would be handy for that case in Iraq right now. Posted by: gorb 2006-07-30 |
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