Americans Stuck in Lebanon Get No Sympathy

In this article, Kevin Sites tells about some Lebanese-Americans who are trapped in Lebanon. I thought it was a heart-rending story.

Then I read the comments.

I don't know if the people commenting on this story are a cross-section of Americans, but I was very surprised by some of the reactions. Many say that those people shouldn't have been in Lebanon anyway. Why not? The country has been at peace for six years. Beirut was an up-and-coming tourist destination - by all accounts a gorgeous city. (See the Beirut Daily Photo Blog for some evidence. You'll have to look back a few days because the recent photos aren't so lovely.) Some comments claim that the State Department has been telling people for years to stay out of the whole Middle East, so whatever happens to those people they just deserve.

The other thing that surprised me was the way many of these commenters assume that to visit Lebanon is to fraternize with terrorists. Some say that these people went to Lebanon, supported terrorists, and now expect the US to save them.

Few of the commenters understand that the people in the article have Lebanese heritage and they are visiting family members. That doesn't seem difficult to grasp. But apparently it is.

As someone who lives in a country often described as dangerous, and a country for which the State Department has a travel advisory, and a place from which Americans have in the past been evacuated, I find these attitudes quite interesting. People have many different reasons to visit and/or live in difficult places. (One comment said, "If these are Americans why the *&^% would they want to live there?") Sometimes people feel that there is work to be done that justifies the choice to live in a place that may not be 100% safe. (Oh, and by the way, a place that is 100% safe doesn't exist on this earth.) Others have family there. Many people were in Lebanon studying Arabic - it was considered a safe, Western-friendly place to do that.

I guess it just amazes me that people have so little imagination and empathy. They see an international tragedy unfolding, and they sit and type snide little comments blaming people caught in the crossfire. This week a child died in a Wal Mart in Indianapolis when a mirror fell on him - immediately people started blaming his mother. Last year when an American family had their children kidnapped, I remember reading a comment from someone who suggested that the children's father should have remained celibate - as though by having children and living in a place where kidnappings happen, he was pretty much asking for whatever he got. Why is people's first instinct to blame the victim?

Actually, I have a pretty good answer to that last question. I've come to believe that many people want to fool themselves into thinking that in their lives they are invulnerable. When bad things happen to others, they like to figure out the reason it happened and reassure themselves that that would never apply to them. That way they can know that they and theirs will be fine.

Come on, people.