The Lebanese Government Is Blocking International Aid, Rescue Teams, & Arresting Journalists. Pass It On

I don’t know where to even start.

I wanted to write about how Joe Akiki’s mom broke my heart. How Sahar Fares’ funeral tore me to pieces. How little Alexandra’s face, next to her glass, as they announced that she passed was so full of life, gone too soon.

But I am still angry. And right now, I’m even angrier.

The blog may have been retired for a while. But today, I want to use whatever reach it has left to say one message: The Lebanese government is killing us. Right now. Blocking aid, blocking rescue teams, arresting journalists.

You don’t believe me? Well, here’s a French medical team saying they were ready to head to Lebanon tomorrow when they were notified by the Lebanese government they were no longer needed:

This is a Dutch rescue team talking about the difficulties and hurdles they were handed by the Lebanese government:

It took them THREE WHOLE DAYS to search for Joe Akiki and his colleagues. THREE WHOLE DAYS. I want to ask why. But I know why… because they’re incompetent, rotten, corrupt, illegitimate murderers…. will the gallows be enough?

If Joe Akiki had been their son, would they have waited three days? If Alexandra was their daughter, would they have blocked aid? Our government lives in la la land, devoid of any overlap with the people it supposedly governs… Our deaths do not affect their lives. They don’t care.

Journalists are also blocked from entering the site of the explosion. What are they hiding? Are they hiding how their criminal negligence killed Beirut? How their years of corruption caused such non-inevitable suffering? Are they trying to cover up all the ways they killed us?

I don’t know what else to say. For now, the world must now what the Lebanese government is doing. Pass it on.