Lebanese blame the US for war

In central Beirut, a large banner looms over the now nearly empty streets of downtown: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stares intently, with piercing fangs and blood dripping from her lips. "The massacre of children in Qana is a gift from Rice," the banner says, referring to a southern Lebanese town that's now synonymous with the word massacre after the deaths of at least 28 civilians, many children, in an Israeli air strike on July 30, and another attack in 1996, when Israeli artillery killed more than 100 civilians. Last year, Lebanon was the beacon of the Bush administration's vision of a new Middle East. There were free elections, women's rights, a free press and free speech. Today, much of this nation feels deserted by the US as Israeli warplanes dropped US-made weapons which destroyed apartment blocks, bridges and roads. After four weeks of bombardment, the feeling is increasingly shared by Shiite and Sunni Muslims, Christians and Druze. Many officials who once considered themselves pro-United States don't disguise their dismay at a Bush administration that for weeks refused to call for Israel to stop bombing Lebanon and backed an initial UN resolution that didn't call for an immediate cease-fire or for Israel to withdraw its troops from the country. "The cost and toll in human suffering is enormous, and it's undermined the capital that the US has in Lebanon and other places, not to mention its undermining pro-Western governments across the region," said Sami Haddad, the minister of trade and economy and another stalwart of Lebanon's anti-Syria coalition. Anti-US posters have become commonplace in shopping districts that only weeks ago were peopled with students from the American University of Beirut sipping lattes at the now-closed Starbucks. The images are graphic: In one, a man lifts a dead child covered in dust with a blue pacifier hanging from his shirt, an image from the July 30 Qana bombing. The poster states: "March 21st Mother's Day, June 18th US Father's Day, July 30th Bush's Children's Day." In another, a US flag's red stripes bleed onto a dead Lebanese man and asks, "What's next?" "Bitter is an understatement about American politics in Lebanon," said Yaacoub al-Sarraf, minister of the environment and one of the few ministers who unabashedly support Lebanon's pro-Syria president, Emile Lahoud. "We're not bitter about them sending bombs; we're bitter about them covering up for murder." But with his arm raised and fist clenched, Sheikh Hussein furiously expressed a sentiment rapidly taking hold here. "We know who our first enemy is: America," he shouted before tearful mourners at a funeral on Aug. 9 for 30 civilians killed by an Israeli air strike. The sheikh led the crowd in a militant chant: "Death to America! Death to America!" In Beirut's Shiyyah district, where the Israeli strikes took more than 40 lives on Aug. 7, Hassan Dirani's emotions were first about the children–three of his remained in the rubble. And second, they were about accusing the US of giving Israel a free hand to destroy Lebanon. "Thank you, George Bush. Thank you for those 'smart' bombs," says Dirani, whose wife and surviving son were injured in the attack. "I want to ask George Bush: 'What did our children do to him?'" "Even with this, we love the American people. We love peace and respect Americans," continues Dirani, differentiating individuals from official policies. Unprompted, shell-shocked Lebanese now often skip accusations against Israel, and lay blame on its chief patron. "I beg Americans not to vote for another butcher and criminal like George Bush," says Dirani, who works at the environment ministry. Tearfully, he says his small daughter, now entombed, had been sharing her excitement about her upcoming sixth birthday party next week; she wrote out an invitation list of 20 school friends. "Why does your system and White House do this to us... give smart bombs to throw on our people?" asks Dirani. "What are you going to tell your kids [to explain it]?" Israel's overwhelming military offensive emptied 900,000 people from their homes, blockaded the country and systematically destroyed bridges and airports, making relief efforts all but impossible. "That's how they create terrorists," says Mohammed, a Lebanese restaurant owner, while watching the digging effort in Shiyyah. "And they ask: 'Why do they hate us?'" Fatima Haider remembers the day her family rushed to help survivors of a bomb that destroyed the US embassy next to her childhood home in Beirut. "Bring me the newspapers, I'll show you pictures of my brother pulling Americans from under the rubble," she said. Now her home in southern Lebanon has been turned to rubble by the Israeli military and her husband has been killed in a war that she says the United States is encouraging Israel to wage on Hezbollah. "We didn't use to be against the Americans, but now we are," she said. "They are against us." Homeless, she has returned with her children to the family house in the seaside district of Ein el-Mreiseh, which was beside the US embassy until that building was blown up by Shiite Muslim militants in 1983. "We were against what happened here," said Fatima, herself a Shiite. A towering apartment block and a car park stand where the US embassy used to be. "We used to cook Lebanese food for them, make them coffee. They'd happily eat with us; now they are happily eating our country," Fatima said. "Evil, she's evil," Najar Hamam said of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has become the personification of US policy for many Lebanese. "She's not welcome here," added Hamam, whose house in Beirut's southern suburbs was flattened by an air strike. Cursing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, she wondered if President Bush's home state might put her up. "Are they going to give us a home in Texas?" she asked. "I just wish I had a plane so I could destroy Israel, Bush and his dog Olmert," she said, recalling stories of entire families killed in air raids. "Do babies know how to fight?" "They give Israel weapons, tanks," said Hamam's daughter Faten. "They have a big country, so why don't they give them some land there so we can live in peace."