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Desecrating The Dead In Lebanon

Anwar Wazen - 8/28/2006

A disturbing practice has been vaunted on Arab TV networks, Arab newspapers, arab tabloids and most recently on the internet: Pictures and newsreel footages of dead children whose bodies riddled with shrapnels, bullets and rubble are held up from the feet by bearded fellows telling the world viewers: In your face.

The corpses were brandished in front of reporters and re-transmitted in real time by Al Jazeera TV, Hizbollah's al Manar TV and other Lebanese and Arab networks. The same pictures were shown again and again to the millions of viewers around the world with no respect whatsoever for any ethical standard or the sanctity of the innocent children who perished in the 33 days Israeli/Hizbollah war. Has there ever been a clean war? Are we to expect a bed of roses after a war, any war? Hizbollah's "jihadists" were caught red-handed in some villages of south Lebanon lobbying missiles at Israel's cities from Lebanese civilian areas then running to take cover in tunnels dug underground. The civilian population, families with their children, were caught in the crossfire and innocent lives were lost in the shelling. In other words Hizbollah fighters were cowardly using mothers, children and their fleeing car convoys as human shields. Israel's tanks, airplanes and firepower may have bombed indiscriminately, but war is a dirty business: you kill before you're killed, and when your enemy is lobbying missiles at your cities from atop a house or from the basement of an apartment block you bomb the hell out that house or basement. In the military lexicon it is as simple as that. There is no doubt that Israel has committed mistakes, but the Arab media and Hizbollah's propaganda machine made sure that those young and innocent lives were slaughtered twice.

The same ignominous pictures are circulating now on the net in the form of pps and wmv files. My e-mail box has been flooded on a daily basis with nauseating images courtesy of Hizbollah propaganda network. By not letting those young souls rest in peace, Hizbollah and other internet naïve pundits want to make sure the world buys this cheap and appalling propaganda This must stop. The international community should come up with harsh measures preventing the media and internet users from disseminating such disgraceful and despicable material.

The dead deserve not only a sheet to cover them up respectfully, but also harsh measures to be enforced against whoever desecrates them after they die. Zarqawi's throat-slitting videos were banned, so why can't we impose strict measures on the Arab media to exercise some self discipline or at least to warn the viewers that such pictures and/or film footages might be disturbing. As for the internet users, strict monitoring should be applied and whoever is caught originating, propagating and/or circulating such material desecrating the dead should be prosecuted and brought to justice.

Knowing that sooner or later Israel would open the gates of hell on Lebanon if provoked, mullah Hassan Nassrallah should have been keeping busy building fortified underground shelters to protect the population of south Lebanon with part of the hundred of millions of dollars he received for years from Iran. Instead, he was busy digging underground tunnels and holes to protect his "mujahiddin". Mullah Nassrallah built his State within the State of Lebanon, he failed in one important aspect though: protecting the families and children of south Lebanon. He should get quickly on the job of building those shelters before he triggers the next round of devastation and destruction.