What happened to Lebanon?
Thursday, 5 October 2006 by Jacob TomawLast night I was watching an old episode of Tagesschau, German Nightly News, from early September. There was a story about peace keepers in Lebanon and I thought “When was the last time I heard anything about that on the news?”
Looks like there is quite a bit of news coming out in domestic back page and foreign print. Typically our mass media is not showing anything about it. Rush Limbaugh calls them the “Drive-By Media” and I think regardless of your political leaning you can agree. Our news organizations will cover a story when it is a sensation, when everyone else is covering it, or when they can just read press reports to us. This is easy stuff, how often do you hear the TV news quoting a newspaper or reading a document a government or terrorist agency has given them. Once the easy stuff is over is when real journalism should take place. Then they should go out and interview people, talk about what is going on, and find ways of presenting why the things that happened happened. Shouldn’t journalism be a deliberative occupation, not just repeating what someone else is telling you?
So, what is going on in Lebanon?
The UN force there is called United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon or UNIFIL. Don’t you love how the UN includes minor words in their acronyms. It adds a lot of vowels and makes them more pronounceable as words. Does UNIFIL rhyme with Landfill or Awful? Both are probably apt for a UN operation.
UNIFIL is increasing from 2000 troops to 15000 troop. Even thought they are called the Interim Force they have been there for 3 years already. I am guessing they saw the war coming but kept quiet a lot better than they kept the peace before the last war. Even if they cannot keep the peace they claim to be helping the economy.
“The soldiers spend a lot of money here: they visit local attractions, eat out, travel and this, in the end, helps to stimulate the economy,” UNIFIL’s acting chief administrative officer Jean-Pierre Ducharme said.
“In addition, UNIFIL employees have many visitors who will have a significant impact on tourism and this is priceless, it improves the reputation of the country,” he said.
The only thought I can put together in my head after reading that is, at least it is not direct aide from my tax dollars.