Definitely not Browns related. If you aren't interested, read no further. I have to get something off my chest regarding the recent Israeli-Hizbollah fighting.
It certainly looks like a war and it's serious business. But this crap really gets under my skin:
Many expressed frustration that it had taken the U.S. government so long to get them out of Lebanon while Europeans and Lebanese with foreign passports already have fled by the thousands.
or
After criticism from Congress, the State Department said it dropped plans to ask Americans to pay for their rides on commercial vessels.
That is incredibly lame, and it says something kind of sad about America. You're in a foreign country, a war breaks out, you fear for your life, and on your own you'd happily buy a plane ticket out of the country if only you could. Then your government charters vessels to get you out. It takes nearly a week, yet you are alive and in one piece. The only catch -- you have to pay your way out, though the government will give you free credit and you can pay any time you want at a later date. It sounds like a pretty good f*cking deal to me. Yet people have the balls to complain about the timeline and about the money. That is just pathetic.
There are a couple things notable about this conflict that underscore my point. 1) For a person in Lebanon during the past week the safest t hing to do has been to stay put, unless you happen to be visiting your friends/relatives in Hizbollah-land in South Beruit or the southern part of the country (and in which case, well, you really should know better). 2) The Israeli bombs are falling either in known Hizbollah areas, on key infrastructure that could be used to re-supply Hizbollah, or some Lebanese government/military offices. While it's debatable whether all such bombings are necessary, what is not debatable is that they are happening and one ought to stay away from those places. It's a freaking war -- and people sound like they're complaining that their hotel room should have had a king bed instead of a queen. 3) The State Department has _always_ asked civilians to repay the costs for emergency flights out of war zones. This isn't new at all. And in fact in most cases the costs have been much higher, running into the tens of thousands for some more remote places. 4) And, from the books I've read, the State Department isn't in the business of bill collecting and a lot of people who can't reimburse the government simply don't. 5) Finally, if you've travelled to Lebanon you surely knew there was a possibility something could happen. Granted, a full-on war wasn't really expected, but no one should be totally suprised. Ignorance does get you sympathy, but it usually does not grant you special privledges. 6) The fact that people are _complaining_ about paying for a boat ride to Cyprus is, to me, evidence that people aren't quite fearing for their lives.
Maybe we just don't hear the stories of wars past, but it's hard to imagine some earlier generations complaining about such things. I don't remember anyone in the movie Casablanca complaining that they had to pay their own way home. Maybe that scene was left on the cutting room floor, as it should have been.
Look, I am really, really sympathetic to the fate of Lebanon and to the circumstances that visitors now find themselves and the whole situation is hitting close to home. It breaks my heart to see what is happening. For a long time now I've looked forward to going to Lebanon with my family and have spent a considerable amount of free time reading up and learning about the country. But to see such petty things in the news is disrespectful to the serious of the situation.
Like stories about the government's "incompetence" after Hurricane Katrina, these stories seem designed to position our government as the entity that ought to always be able to control what is happening, and it apparently doesn't matter if it's a huge natural disaster or a sudden outbreak of war. But if you are looking to your government to be your insurance policy when bad things happen, I guarantee you will be very dissappointed. The fact that the government has took a week to arrange for safe transport out of Beruit and asks citizens to pay their way would seem to be an absurdly trivial complaint. And it makes me feel like Americans are not serious about matters they ought to be.