Starting the New Year with a Bang 2

I have started the year in Lebanon, as we are considering the possibility of doing some work there. As the picture shows, Lebanon is an incredibly beautiful country, and the people are just delightful. It feels like a 'normal' place, where people go out to dinner, have a drink, and everyone just gets along.

But right below that tranquil surface, the place is a tinderbox. Hezbollah controls a good portion of the country, and they are truly a 'secret' movement--no one really knows who is and who isn't. Then throw in the Israelis and their incursions against Hezbollah that sometimes can be considered just a bit excessive, the Syrians, and the fact that removing elected officials means blowing them up, and the place is ready to explode, literally and figuratively.

For the most part violence has not been directed against Americans--this has mostly been an internal problem. But all that changed when I was there Tuesday, when someone attacked a US Embassy vehicle with a bomb. And as is often the case, the only people killed were local citizens, the proverbial 'collateral damage'. But the simple attack on an International target will make everyone a bit jumpy, and as I spent the next couple of days, everyone was asking 'What does it mean?'

In talking to one of our cab drivers, Judit said 'that [the bombing] is awful.' He responded 'That's Lebanon.' How sad that is.