Sound and Light Show on Parliament Hill

[Ayiekie]

Did you know Beirut was called the Paris of the Middle East, once?

I happened to be by Parliament Hill this morning. I'd planned to take some photos in order to toss at some international friends of mine, but as it turned out, there was more to photograph than I anticipated.

There was a protest against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. There were, I'd estimate, about 300-400 people there. Some carried Canadian flags, some the flags of Lebanon.

I saw one or two Palestinian flags as well.

People (even Canadians) might not be aware of the fact that Canada actually has a special relationship with Lebanon. In the mid-1970s, during the civil war there, Canada was one of the few countries to adopt special immigration measures to assist Lebanese fleeing the conflict. Later, in 1989, Canada set up an office in Cyprus to help with family reunification and refugee applications. The net result is that Lebanese immigration to Canada exploded; they are easily the largest group of Arab immigrants in Canada, with over a quarter-million living here as of 2002.

This goes both ways. Aside from Sri Lanka, there are more Canadian citizens currently in Lebanon than any other country; estimates range from 40,000 to 50,000, twice as many as the US or France. So it's been quite a concern here since the current conflict exploded.

The protest was peaceful, and bordered a pavilion trying to raise awareness of breast cancer. The people were largely friendly; stirring Lebanese music was played. But they're angry, too, no doubt about that. A speaker up near the Parliament Buildings with a microphone repeatedly called out "Stephen Harper, take a stand! Canadian's blood is on your hands."

I've been following this situation pretty closely in the news. I'm not really making this post to argue for one side or the other. Some issues and crises', I find, are easy to take a firm moral stance on. Some are not. I find this one of the latter. It's easy to understand the plight of the Lebanese civilians who are being harmed or killed by Israeli attacks. It is easy to understand the situation of Israel, who have a chance to cripple Hezbollah permanently. In twenty or thirty years, when it's obvious what the effect of this was, it will be simple to decide what was the right thing to believe. Now, not so much. My girlfriend is Jewish; I watched a woman carrying photos of a niece killed in an Israeli attack. I don't feel like condemning either, nor carrying a sign supporting either country or cause (nor do I necessarily feel either represents a "cause"). This, much like the tragedies in Africa, is a situation that makes one feel sick to one's stomach, but for which there is no clear-cut solution, or even position to take. That is, for me. Clearly, many feel differently.

It's easy to forget, for those of us in the First World, just how incredibly lucky we are to be there. I've been to the Third World, but I still forget that fact sometimes too.

As I said, this isn't really to argue a point. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. But for right now, watching this simply made me thoughtful. Perhaps some of you might find these pictures make you thoughtful too, or that they're just interesting. If not, that's of course fine as well.
Stay safe out there. And remember how lucky you are.

[hmelton]

I'm not sure if this is the same demonstration or not.
www.judeoscope.ca/article...ticle=0421
I think it is, but your reference to a "parlament hill" is confusing me.
Is it the same as Dorchester Square?
howard melton
God bless

[robkelk]

Parliament Hill is the hill upon which Canada's House of Parliament was built. It's in Ottawa.
(Yes, of course it has a website and a webcam. What doesn't, nowadays?)
It's nowhere near Dorchester Square...

-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Ayiekie]

Plus the one I was at was a lot more pleasant. There was certainly some anti-Israeli sentiment, but the main thrust was clearly anti-Israeli-invasion-of-Lebanon, which isn't the same thing.

[hmelton]

Okay I was confused, lost and trying to visualize a map of Canada's capital and the internet or the Maps I had at hand weren't helping me find any of the locations or even sort out a where they were.
Some how I missed the webcam sight and webpage, Thanks for posting the links.
I like the Parliment building, first thing I thought was Castle.
The Judeascope article mentioned a group with signs more oriented toward peace that were run off and had there signs destroyed.
I was wondering if they might have been part of the group that Ayiekie had posted pictures of.
howard melton
God bless

[Necratoid]

Lebanon has had problems, in part, because it ends up with someone else's troops as its military. Keeping in general terms they are like a country in the game Risk, one that keeps getting control tossed back and forth. They are largely bystanders in their own country militarily.
The lovely troops currently in charge are picking a fight with Israel and Israel can't let themselves just bombard at will. The bombarded targets are random civilian populated areas makes the need to stop it greater. They simply have to respond to the endless exploding projectiles.
The loonies picking the fight are driving trucks with rockets and missiles on them through residential and commercial areas. Hoping they get blown up and take of civilians, for propaganda purposes. Israel is using pinpoint strikes, which makes this a much slower battle. Meaning Lebanon stays under fire longer... meaning more civilians will die on both sides.
The Israelites have also dropped leaflets explaining that if you don't want your house blown up don't let it be used as an ammo dump or staging area. I'm not sure how much choice the locals have in that area, but that these kind of leaflets are being dropped at all shows the frustrating condition the Israelites are fighting under.
This is just the way that things currently are for the Lebanese. The only way Lebanon is going to end this game of occupational 'hot potato' is to control their own country and have a strong enough military to keep it from being used for other people's wars.

While I feel sorry for the people of Lebanese in general I'm not actually sure why they don't have their own military. Does anyone know why? Is it just been 'hot potato'ed since WWII or something?

[ECSNorway]

Another point (reported recently by the BBC) is that the terrorists are quite often basing themselves out of private homes and public facilities.
The "civilian casualty count" is admitted to be highly inflated because all it is is a count of non-uniformed bodies on the ground. Of which at least half are Hizbollah terrorists.--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Ayiekie]

If half the civilians are in fact Hezbollah, which is undoubtedly true...
...that's still quite a lot of civilians.

[Necratoid]

This where things get tricky. As I said terrorists like dead civilians... lets them have someone to 'avenge' and someone to point out to their propaganda units as innocent bystanders. This gets the foreign support and troops.
Hezbollah's current leader went on T.V. and started talking smack and how they missed killing him in that strike, by the way the wall fell on a bunch of civilians. Basically he was at a dinner party and the Israelites took a shot at him and missed., he was in the backyard or something However ask yourself who would be attending a dinner party with known terrorist bigwig, while his side is picking a fight a few day previous? (The kidnapped Israelite troops thing.) I have a hard time believing that he'd sit around quietly and scarf down food all night, never speaking. Also, other Hezbollah people were there.
So we have a dinner party at a guys house with top Hezbollah people attending and they are surrounded by their wives and offspring. Anyone killed in this specifically targeted attack (which the leader of Hezbollah fully admits he was at) is one of those civilian casualties. Remember those leaflets in my previous post, this is the kind of reason they dropped them. There comes a point where bystanders become support personal. I think the statistic is 3 support personal for each active combat troop.
This is common for terrorist leaders in the middle east, they stay in large crowds of random people when in public... that way they have lots of meat shields as a deterrent to attacks. Anyone who dies as a meat shield is now a recruiting propaganda tool instead of a person.
This kind of tactic has led the Israelites to have an expected level of civilian casualties. They aren't trying to specifically kill off the meat shields, in fact they try to kill as few as possible, but at some point it becomes a case of quit fighting or except them as going to happen. So they drop a rocket or two into a car with terrorist leaders in them and then some random people get hit with shrapnel, some of which die. This also lets some targets survive the attack, which wouldn't have if the car were hit with larger ordinance or say napalm. This is the kind of tactics and choices the Israelites have to deal with. If they lose they dont have a country anymore and theyll get slaughtered. The same as any military conflict for them.
As I said before the Lebanese are bystanders in their own countries in this. One side is actively using tactics to get them killed offed as innocent bystanders. The other is stuck with keeping the casualties as low as they can within reason. At some point you have to chose between saving a bystander and losing multiple troops protecting them. If you chose to sacrifice your own troops there are going to be a lot more 'innocent bystanders' popping up on the battlefield... some of which explode when you ask if they are alright.
That and Hezbollah like other terrorist groups tend to claim more people died than did. So the body count gets inflated by dictate rather than actual deaths. As I said the only real solution for Lebanon is its own military to keep people off their land. This kind of battle will just keep occurring if they dont.

[ECSNorway]

---

"Consistently, from the Hezbollah heartland, my message was that Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending among women and children. I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don't think anyone should be proud of having many more women and children dead than armed men." - Jan Egeland, UN Human Rights Observer

---

--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.