Posted on 07/21/2006 3:15:31 PM PDT by GMMAC
Whiners: Find your own way out of Beirut
After being rescued from war zone, a little gratitude would be nice
The Edmonton Journal
Fri 21 Jul 2006
Page: A18
Section: Opinion
Byline: Lorne Gunter
Aw, the boat ride was too long, was it? And you say it was too hot? There was no doctor on board, either? And the departure was delayed. And the port was chaotic. And too little food and water had been laid in. And some of you had to sleep on the floor!?
Oh, the indignity of it.
To listen to the whining and carping of many of the 261 Canadians rescued from Beirut on the first day of the evacuation from Lebanon, you would think they had just been returned to port from an ocean cruise that went terribly wrong, instead of being saved from a war zone.
Tuesday, the Crown Princess, a Princess Cruises ship, suddenly listed to port in heavy seas off the coast of Florida. The promenade deck almost submerged. Stairwells "became waterfalls." The casino and gift shop below decks were flooded. The main dining room had to be turned into a triage ward as more than 200 of the 3,100 passengers on board were injured by the sudden tilt; 94 had to be taken off for hospitals on shore.
By contrast, no passengers on the first Canadian rescue ship were injured. The worst that happened was a few threw up.
And, yet, the grousing and moaning on the Crown Princess did not equal that of the evacuees from Lebanon when they reached Cyprus early Thursday morning. Some even cursed at the Canadian diplomats who greeted them.
One woman from Montreal described the trip as "hell;" not the war, but rather her tax-paid voyage to freedom. After all, it had taken 15 hours instead of seven. Twice their ship, the Blue Dawn, had been stopped by the Israeli navy to ensure it was not hostile.
Imagine that. Stopping a ship in a war zone to see whether it is friend or foe. How rude!
And the griping doesn't end with those Ottawa has already plucked from the suddenly very hot zone in south Lebanon. Others still awaiting evacuation complain that our embassy in Beirut has not dealt with them fast enough. Their e-mails have gone unanswered, their phone calls meet with a busy signal. If they present themselves in person, there are long lines in the hot sun to meet a Foreign Affairs official face-to-face.
There aren't hotel rooms for them all. The waiting rooms are inadequate for the numbers wanting to leave. Embassy staff will not give precise departure times.
No kidding. We're not talking about the returns desk at Wal-Mart the day after Christmas.
A staff of two dozen, who normally deal with a few thousand inquiries a year are suddenly swamped with 2,000 or 3,000 people demanding to be saved - Now! In a city that no longer has a functioning airport. Where fighter-bombers frequently scream overhead. Air raids do tend to disrupt the flow of things.
It's a wonder our government managed, at all, to find seven underused cruise ships it could lease on such short notice.
On the first day that any country was able to get its citizens out by boat, we managed to rescue 261. The British got out just 170 of their people. The French, who have a fleet of warships patrolling the Mediterranean, could manage just 180.
Thursday, we rescued another 1,375. And thereafter, we should be able to extract 700 to 1,000 swearing, muttering ingrates each day, either to Cyprus or Turkey.
But just wait until they get to safe ports and find out they have several-day waits ahead of them until they can be airlifted - again at taxpayers' expense - to Canada.
When told she might have to sit put in Cyprus for a few days until a jet ride could be arranged, and that while she waited she would have to find and pay for her own hotel and meals, one of the first evacuees complained that the government had not already taken care of such things.
Whatever happened to personal responsibility? To simple gratefulness?
I don't expect the rescued Canadians to bow down and kiss the feet of our diplomats when they arrive on safe soil. But why is it too much to expect they might be thankful simply for being extracted from a danger zone, regardless of how uncomfortably?
They remind me of the Canadian and British antiwar activists extracted by commandos earlier this year from months of captivity in Iraq, who rather than saying thank you criticized the rescuers for using force to free them.
Wouldn't you be grateful to be rescued from Lebanon right now even if you and your family had to ride out in the fish hold of a trawler for a few days?
And yes it does matter that many of those complaining are Canadians of convenience. They hold Canadian passports, but have dual citizenship in Lebanon and have not been much interested in Canada for years until their real home country started getting dangerous.
There is a simple solution to this carping. The boats have to go back to Beirut for more evacuees. Anyone who profanes a Canadian worker or whines about conditions on the free boat gets put back on board and returned to Lebanon where they can find their own way out.
I'll bet the 'chickenshit coward' would have stayed to fight---not much courage of his so-called convictions has he?---damn glad he was not in my outfit in WW2---to be truthful I don't remember anyone in service back then who was a damned coward---plenty of decent brave men and women did the job and look what we listen to an see around these days---God help all of us if we having another real 'shooting war' in America and Canada both---and Thank God for the Canadians at Juno Beach on 6/6/44 that I served with---Maple Leaf forever
Yep
One the other hand, there was a young man who expressed his admiration for the Hezbollah terrorists, and said that it was only because of his parents that he was coming back to Canada, rather than staying to fight..
Go home creep...plenty of airlines will fly you to the area, get a boat and go fight, why the hell did you leave, BS bastard...how much of this GD BS, do we have to take...get back home and get a gun and join in the battle...otherwise shutup...
I didn't.
Really. These are thousands of stupid people.
Yes it does.
And, based on the actions and attitudes of too many Americans, especially the types of Murtha and a few other traitorous bastards in DC, a wake-up call is inevitable.
The sad, sick, twisted dark side of me hopes it's sooner than later; for the sake of America.
Maybe then the friggin peacenik bastard will demand just retribution on the enemy instead of kissing the UN's ass.
I'm fed up with this "Can't we all get along bullshit." I've been hearing this since I was a kid watching Vietnam war protesters spit on American soldiers.
/rant
(Excellent!)
I think we have more ignorant, ugly and petty freepers than I ever knew before. They've really outed themselves with this incident.
Yes, you did. You claimed you were there under UN protection, but you didn't like their plan to go through Syria (most of us agreed with that). You said that you had connections to get you out and you were on the first ship out. You claim that you were on the first boat out, and we saw families still waiting to board after your ship left and you say you didn't bump families?
Wow, are you right. It is just amazing to me that some people here have absolutely no idea about traveling outside the US. Yes, one can always stay home, but visiting other countries really gives you a sense of the way the world works. While I haven't visited the middle east, I have traveled extensively in Asia. My favorite spot is Thailand. And, no I have never registered with an embassy.
My first trip to Asia was to Korea and Hong Kong during the Bush/Dukakus election. I was amazed that my Korean tour guide introduced himself and announced that he was a republican. I was on a day trip to China when I found out the results of the election. I guess that trip taught me, that when we vote here we are really voting for the world. Who we elects does affect the rest of the world.
I think that travel is one risk in life worth taking. Certainly if you end up in a situation like Beruit, well you do need help getting out. This type of situation is totally beyond the control of the traveler and I am sure very scary. On the other hand Rebel_yell2 has a great story to tell.
Did we ever hear anything from the FReeper trapped in Lebanon (I think his name was Rebel_yell2 or something like that)?
I retract. I hadn't read all the posts before asking my question. :)
It became the job of the US gubmint (i.e., taxpayer - you and me) to evacuate these dual citizens (avoiding taxes) and other idiots that ignored the gubmint's warning to NOT GO THERE, OR AT YOUR PERIL (on a public website) - when the media force fed us their "poor New Orleans Katrina victims" story and it worked, millions of dollars poured in and were stolen, while many other citizens of bordering towns and states were ignored. We are on a bad path, and how can we stop it? Too many traitors living here, in the media and the population...
Why do you need HELP (my freakin' tax $$$) when you were warned to NOT GO THERE in the first place? So, if you jump off a 50 story building (not using common sense or the info you have that it's NOT A GOOD IDEA) it's MY fault and I should pay? You've outed yourself, you are a freakin' bleeding heart idiot! If you want them evacuated, pay for it yourself!
You are so right. Let's all stay home and bury our heads in the sand.
What the hell does "staying home" have to do with my paying for them going where they were warned NOT to go? Guess you haven't noticed, there isn't any such thing as "staying home and burying your head in the sand" any more, since your friends have been blowing us up and cutting our HEADS off - we don't have them to stick in the sand anymore! I'm not in the sand, I'm in the fight! And, I know who the freakin' enemy is, and won't be vacationing or "creating incredibly profit making business ventures" with them and then pretending what I was doing was on a higher plane - venturing out from the high sand dunes of the US... Geez, I don't have any words for you!!!
Are you alright? This is pretty inconherent and has nothing to do with my visiting Asia a few times. Just who do you think my friends are? Do you think you have the right to dictate where I travel? I have never traveled to the midle east or to any other spot on a warning list.
That said, your rant about someone who was on a business trip is just strange. I have often gone on business trips to places I didn't particularly want to travel, but I did it because it was my obligation to do it.
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