not only Beirut, but all of Lebanon under siege

Well, you follow the news, don't you?

Well if you didn't, you are obliged to acknowledge a few facts in a nutshell.
Lebanon has been crippled in a few days in many instances worse than the Israeli invasion managed in 1982 and in its consecutive years of occupation.
All major exit roads are ruined, the air port is done for, historic sites of beauty blown away - and of course there are the dead and the lamed and wounded. The structural physical damage is immense, as is the grief of the common folks.
I might be not completely correct with my figures, because I pull them out of my crackly memory. But I believe Lebanon has not even a population of 4 mill. And now as we speak, over a million people are driven away from their homes and displaced. That kind of exodus would compare in the US of having 60 million people flee their homes from the southern states towards the North, and besides that misery - it would be a logistical nightmare, especially if you take in consideration that every major Interstate highway previously had been blown apart to dust.
Tomorrow I will attend the rally in-front of UN headquarters and I will be reporting back on how that went.
And what might also follow is a critique of the situation in the Middle East in general. I still have to think about it though. You se, it is kind of easier for me to voice my mind because I am not directly involved in this present nightmare, But every nation bears some kind of responsibility in shaping their present and their future. And Lebanon is not excluded. I will not go into details now, but some of the issues of "bad karma" reside often from our own negligence not to act when the door is open ... and enter. One of those "karma doors" with rusty hinges is this:

Lebanon's President Emile Lahoud has vowed to stand by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
"Rest assured Lebanon will not remove Sayyed Nasrallah," he told a crowd. "... the resistance and the national army achieved liberation for Lebanon. (in 1982)We will not forget that." This is of course not a pragmatic approach to serve the present goal to make Lebanon a peacful and unhurt nation. His thoughts seem to live in the past - not in the present.

Can I leave it at that for now without getting too specific?
Some things are complicated,
but working hard to avoid violence is not!
Take care -
Zee.