Jim Ellinger's Austin Airwaves TravelBlog

Bon Jour from Beirut!


The city is undergoing an extraordinary building


boom, with skyscrapers going up all along the beach


front. There are still many destroyed buildings


from "the crisis years" from 1975-1990, during


which time much of the central city was completely


destroyed by warring, heavily armed, factions.





Following the assassination of the Industry


Minister a couple of months ago, the city has


been expecting trouble. 

[See his image and bullet-riddle car in photo above]

There have been a couple of enormous demonstrations, hundreds
of thousands of peole, but virtually no violence. This is a city that


has seen 15 years of civil war, massive car bombs


to assassinate gov't officials, while taking out


many innocent civilians, interferemce/domination


by Syria, not to mention, being the target of


many thousands of IDF airforce soirtees in the


south. Thousands of landmines remain. 

Attached image: Victims of cluster bomb explosions in Lebanon.

http://action.atfl.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6966&track=signclusterbombpetition_18480661

The streets, at least the parts we have seen so far,


are crawling with soliders, armored personnel carriers,


sand-bagged gun positions, road barriers, and, Jeez!,


real live tanks with the those super-duper machine

guns that can cut down an entire building in a coupla'


minutes. Extra barbed wired is piled alongside bldgs. 

Yet, the soldiers are fairly friendly, "Bon Jour!"
They are impressed with the WMDB's blonde tresses, and
as usual, are bored silly. The soldiers around the campus


of the American Univerisity must feel lucky guarding


the lovely co-eds in the their skintight apparel.


We plan on going clubbing tonight with our

man in Beirut, "Solid" Jackson, but he has not


answered his mobile in several hours...following


his interview with a Hezbollah rep for a radio

story.





We assume he is just running late, but we shall see...





Bye from Beirut,


jim & the WMDB