What is the world coming to?
People are fleeing Lebanon, or trying. I think of N., my former coworker, who last year returned to Lebanon with her husband and two little kids because, she thought, the violence was finally over. Now, even if they use their American passports to get out, the queue is over 15,000, and U.S. rescue efforts haven’t even gotten underway. What about the Lebanese without dual citizenship? Where do they go? And what about the Iraqis, too soon forgotten?
From Baghdad Burning:
Why don’t the Americans just go home? They’ve done enough damage and we hear talk of how things will fall apart in Iraq if they ‘cut and run’, but the fact is that they aren’t doing anything right now. How much worse can it get? People are being killed in the streets and in their own homes- what’s being done about it? Nothing. It’s convenient for them- Iraqis can kill each other and they can sit by and watch the bloodshed- unless they want to join in with murder and rape.Buses, planes and taxis leaving the country for Syria and Jordan are booked solid until the end of the summer. People are picking up and leaving en masse and most of them are planning to remain outside of the country. Life here has become unbearable because it’s no longer a ‘life’ like people live abroad. It’s simply a matter of survival, making it from one day to the next in one piece and coping with the loss of loved ones and friends - friends like T.