04 March 2004

Born Again

So now it is 183 dead in the attacks yesterday. I want to swat at the numbers like flies. There is a story in the Times- and I should not have to point out that it is the New York, rather than the Washington version- about the body-washers of Iraq, and the tremendous stress they are under dealing with the dead.

It is important in the Faith to get the dead clean when they meet God, and it is equally important to get them underground swiftly.

Alas, it is not happening as the devout would like, and I appreciate the pain. In the bombings yesterday, daughters and sons were killed who should have remained to wash the bodies of their parents.

There are a thousand Marines now on the ground in Haiti. A key point in the disarmament of the rebels is the assumption of public order patrols by the Leathernecks.

That is not what they are for. Marines are equipped to be the emissaries of sharp violence, not law enforcement. Not that there is any law to enforce. I think the 82nd Airborne just got back from Iraq. They are tired and are resting. So the Marines are what we have available and the Marines are there on the ground this morning, roaring off in their convoys into the Haitian dawn.

Bless them.

It is mad out there in the wide world and close and rainy here. It is still dark on this side of Big Pink. I rose a little before the alarm and smoked in silence. Some soothing classical music bridged the gap between the world of dreams and the world we walk through.

There were dreams aplenty in the night brought on by the mild air and the light rain that is soaking the soil. It is time for the shoots to come out. I could see the buds on the trees fattening as I walked briskly from the Yellow Line stop at Huntington last night. I bathed in the air with the top down on the car. I can smell the wet earth this morning. Rebirth and renewal once again, the annual display of the optimism of the earth. The season when we are all born again is here.

I also read about Beirut this morning. It was a marvelous article about the rebuilding of the ancient market- the Souk- by smart French architects. The Souk will have an IMAX theater and everything, and recreate the medieval street pattern.

Beirut was a sad place the last time I cruised the eastern Mediterranean Sea. It was 1990. I helped plan cruise missile strikes into the Beka'a Valley. The valley was a stronghold of terror in those days. We did not execute them. It had only been six years since hundreds of Leathernecks and French Paras were murdered in their bunks. They were there to keep the peace.

The civil war ended by some accounts the season we planned those missions. We did not go ashore to what had been the glittering Arab Riviera. The lovely capital had been split by the Green Line, patrolled by militant young men of Christian and Muslim faiths. The elegant Centre-Ville was gutted by mortar fire, and the churches and mosques and synagogues were hollow shells.

This was not uncommon in the area. The ancient Greek city of Smyrna to the north was a city of culture and flowers. Just after the first German war ended, the Turks put the place to the torch and left no stone upon another. They eradicated even the name.

Like those Greeks, the fifteen-year civil war in Lebanon left thousands dead, washed and unwashed. But they tell me the capital of Lebanon is regaining its reputation as the cultural capital of the Middle East. They are building grand structures and planting magnolias along the broad boulevards. The Sheihklings are bringing g their money there, the waterfront is being expanded and luxury condos are going up on the rubble.

The women do not wear the veil here by force. They may, of course, since this is becoming once again a secular society where a short skirt might be worn, and the wearing of make-up is not punishable by prowling religious police. There are problems, to be sure, but the sap is flowing and the Green Line is gone. Beirut is growing, shooting up new tendrils and sprouting new spires.

It appears to be Spring in Beirut, something I would not have thought possible. I am thinking about how I might arrange to go there. Now that I have to pay for my own travel, it is a bit problematic. But it would be an investment to see if the hope that grows from the human heart might be a way to the future. I'd like to see the new buildings, and listen to the wine-dark Med break on the seawall.

I would like to see that there could be a way for this all to work.

It is Spring. Perhaps it can.