Submarine Warfare

In the neighborhood of Karakon Druze, a stronghold for the Sunni supporters of Future Movement, a largely Sunni party that is part of the government, opposition fighters smashed a sandwich shop , breaking its windows, and threw cans and food around. Burned cars, shattered glass and upturned garbage containers were evidence of fierce fighting the night before. An old woman wearing a Druze veil stood on a balcony, [1] and behind the curtain of a window in a nearby apartment a man held a baby. Both were watching fighters set fire to flags and posters of the pro-government March 14 coalition.

Atrocity can exist in the eye of the agitator-propagandist, Mr. Bones Thee and me may not be vividly impressed by the rape of Karakon Druze, but who knows how other marks will take this news? I assume that it really is news, although Mlle. Alia Ibrahim would care for her faction very little if she refused to invent a few broken windows and thrown cans to help it out in unexpected distress.

Since her significant quotations are attributed to named individuals, some notorious, one can feel a bit more assured that she did not fabricate that part. They make an interesting procession:

(1) Walíd Junblátt: ""We will not be dragged into a civil war, but we will hang on, I will hang on here in Beirut, with the people of this city." (2) Samír Gegea: "What's happened today is a coup d'etat that has toppled the legitimacy of Hezbollah's weapons." (3) Dory Chamoun [2]: "People need to feel that the army is there to protect them, and to protect their properties, and those last few days they haven't felt this way." (4) Leila [3]: ""Tell Hezbollah congratulations, they have beaten their enemy, us, the people of Beirut." (5) Diana Moukalled [4]: ""What's happening is not simple, it's too dangerous. I always felt we were targeted but never thought that the threat would be this direct."

Perhaps one may conjecture, Mr. Bones, from her list being splendidly fair and balanced in more dimensions than one, that in less interesting times Mlle. A. Ibrahim agitates and propagandises for feminism? Be that as it may, her summatorial topic sentence goes like this:

Supporters of Lebanon's opposition Hezbollah movement seized control of most of Beirut Friday, roaming shuttered streets with guns and grenade launchers and provoking broad domestic condemnation for deploying their weapons against fellow Lebanese.

According to the keyboard of A. Ibrahim, at least, the crisis is a twofer: the baddies have "seized control" but, equally significant, the Seedier Revos have contributed "broad domestic condemnation." It is only an insignificant technical detail that verbal journalism can conveys the latter so much better than the former.

For the delectation of the picture people, the Washington Post Company supplies a short video clip from the Associated Press . Naturally it does not actually catch the baddies in the act of being in "control of most of Beirut Friday." How could any pictures do that trick? Apart from a couple of CMM’s, "criminal militia members," running around firing assault rifles, pretty well anybody could be in control. [5]

Meanwhile the New York Times Company summatorializes less exuberantly :

Heavily armed Hezbollah fighters seized control of much of western Beirut on Friday, patrolling the deserted streets in a raw show of force that underscored the militia’s refusal to back down in its escalating confrontation with the American-backed government.

Not the whole town, but only "much" of the infidel half of it. To complete the line up of usual suspects, here is the Los Angeles Times :

In one swoop, the Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah took over a large section of Lebanon's capital Friday, altering the country's political balance and demonstrating a level of military discipline and efficiency that left the pro-Western government struggling to exert its authority. Within 12 hours, the Iranian-backed group dispatched hundreds of heavily armed Shiite fighters into the western half of Beirut, routing Sunni Muslim militiamen, destroying opponents' political offices and shutting down media outlets loyal to the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and to Sunni leader Saad Hariri's Future movement.

Those whose standards of reporting date back to before M. Rupert Murdoch and Mlle. Alia Ibrahim will probably like the LAT show best. There is a good deal more of it, for one thing, and for another thing, the freaks are on display as well as the wise and noble exponents of Seedier Revolution:

In West Beirut, Hezbollah fighters, wearing their signature ammo vests and black baseball caps, patrolled the streets, napped in the shade and directed traffic, politely stopping some vehicles to ask drivers and passengers for identification cards. "During lunchtime if you place food on the table, by the time you've finished eating, we can take over," boasted one grizzled Hezbollah fighter patrolling famous Hamra Street. He identified himself only by the nickname Zam-Zam. He held what he described as an Israeli-made M-16 assault rifle equipped with a night-vision scope and a laser sight. "It was an insult for us to fight these people," he said of the Sunni militia loyal to the government. "We fight great armies."

Now it manifestly does not conduce to the reëstablishment of elementary law and order in (parts of (West)) Beirut to disseminate the taunts of M. Zam-Zam. We cannot deny that proposition, Mr. Bones, but we may wonder whether it be the proper role of journalism to change the world and not "merely" describe it. Rupert Baron Murdoch and Mlle. A. Ibrahim take their stand with the late Dr. Marx, though naturally they borrow from that discreditable source without acknowledgment. Thee and I do not sell newspapers or run for public offices, so we need not worry about that sort of discreditation. The Scientific Socialist® approach to journalism has at least one strong argument to present: twistifications printed by WPC or NYTC or LAT about the Beirut statelet are themselves factors in the human events thereof. Always potential factors, and on occasion actual factors and efficient causes.

Since we cannot deny that, sir, we must frame our objection to murdochisin’ and ibraheematin’ with some care. I am inclined off-hand to think that we may fall back on probabilities. Though it is always possible that a twistifier in North America or Tasmania will derail the politics of the Levant, is this not an extremely rare sort of possible occurrence?

I put it to you, Mr. Bones, that in the overwhelming preponderance of cases, the R. Murdochs and A. Ibrahims and K. Marxes of the world merely end up looking a bit silly. Bint WaPo here gives the impression that she believes that if she talks about "provoking broad domestic condemnation" enough, she will -- well, provoke some broad domestic condemnation. Isn’t what she actually provokes more like contemptuous amusement? After Merlin the Masterful has abracadabraed and opensesamed a couple dozen times without visible effect, does not laughter replace suspense, with ennui following not far behind the laughter? To be sure, the sorcery that Bint WaPo attempts does in fact work one time in thirteen billion or so, whereas abracadabras proper never work at all. However the prospects of success are not distinguishably different in the two cases. Unless Bint WaPo has actually won the lottery recently, most customers of her corporation will (as I conjecture) see no reason to think her more likely to do so than anybody else. [6]

And God knows best.


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[1] The Barbara Fritchie of the Beirut statelet!


[2] " Dory Chamoun , president of the National Liberal Party."


[3] "Leila, a resident of the neighborhood, who refused to give her full name."


[4] "Future TV's head of programming and a Shiite who has been at the network 16 years"


[5] Compared to Mlle. Ibrahim, the AP soundtrack is distressin’ly even-handed.


[6] The Washington Post Company is not exactly parallel to LAT and NYTC when it comes to twistification. From time to time it twistifies with an eye to a small number of policy individuals in Beltway City USA. Or even perps down at Rancho Crawford, though the Baní WaPo are not in general warmly regarded by the cowpoker vigilantes.

Accordingly Mlle. A. Ibrahim may be rehearsin’ the horrors of Karakon Druze and inflatin’ a balloon of "broad domestic condemnation" mostly in order to prevent those [exp. del.] State Department Arabists from exerting undue influence on the reflexes of Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology.

Once again, though, I should say that this is an unactualized potency; the lady is probably doin’ exactly what it looks like she is doin’ -- an abracadabra and opensesame shtik for the general public of the holy Homeland that could just as well have been produced by LAT or NYTC. (BGKB.)