It was a beautiful spring morning in 1985. The cloudless sky above the mountains brought clear air in off the Mediterranean Sea. The sun had already burned off the early morning fog that usually obscured the blacktop streets of Marjayoun. This strategic South Lebanon mountain village occupied a perch 1200 feet above the Litani River gorge and controlled all the roads below.
From my office I looked directly across the gorge to the ruins of Beaufort Castle atop the mountain that was exclusively Shiite Muslim territory. I had no idea of what was about to happen.
It was near the end of the first year of my contract as the producer for Middle East Television. From our offices in Beirut, Jerusalem, Marjayoun and Metulla we produced television news programs broadcasting in both English and Arabic across seven countries of the Middle East. As part of the English department I worked as a correspondent in both Lebanon and Israel. This morning my cameraman and I were heading further south to the large Muslim town of Bent Jbeil.
South Lebanon was the bottom third of the country and almost exclusively Shiite Muslim in population. I was an American working on a two-year contract occupying an office in a Christian village in the heart of Shiite dominated territory. To say I was kidnap bait was an understatement.
The Israeli army patrolled this sector, and every week some of their soldiers were wounded or killed. I crossed the border from Israel into Lebanon through a sector held by the South Lebanese Army. Since I had a pass from each side, I traveled by myself 24 hours a day 7 days a week in and out through the Israeli Army Gate. Some called me crazy, but I was the only correspondent in the world who was doing it. As a result, I was about to be thrown into a story years ahead of its time.
That morning my cameraman and I drove down the mountain ridge line from Marjayoun through the towns of Qlaya, Dier Mimas and Kifar Kila and continued along the Lebanon-Israeli frontier past Aytarun where we curved west and then south into Bent Jbeil that was surrounded on all sides by high hills. We were going after “evergreen” video footage that we could use in all manner of news stories.
Later in the day as we were preparing to leave Bent Jbeil, two young men who were following us finally approached. As a friendly gesture, I smiled and asked if they spoke English.
One stepped forward and said clearly, “We want to talk with you.”
“On camera?” I asked.
“No, no camera, no camera!” he said raising his voice and then asked, “Are you working with the Israelis?”
“No,” I replied.
“Are you an American reporter?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m an American,” I said.
“Well, I hate Americans,” he shot back and continued to rant for another minute telling me how Israel and America were evil. But his final statements were chilling.
“Some day we will come to America and make you pay,” he raged. “We are the holy warriors of Allah, and some day we will come to America and kill you Americans. You’ll see! You’ll see!” With that they walked away.
This wasn’t the first time I’d heard anti-American hatred in the Arab community. The Middle East is full of it. However, it was the first time I encountered two teenage soldiers of Allah that promised to come to America and wage war. And it was the first time I heard it in English from the mouths of the warriors themselves.
When I returned to the United States the next year, I tried in vain to tell this story to both the CIA and the press in America. They looked at me like I had two heads. The Jihad Denial Syndrome was in full force. Yet, sixteen years later on September 11, 2001, Americans suffered the most devastating attack ever carried out on our soil.
Three years later in the first publication of the 9/11 Commission Report it stated, “The nation was unprepared. How did this happen, and how can we avoid such tragedy again?” There is one answer for both questions. Our nation was unprepared because it scorned the truth.
The CIA had an office in Beirut, Lebanon. In addition, the four American television networks, the New York Times, and the Washington Post all had facilities and news correspondents in Beirut.
So after Islamists killed 259 Americans in Beirut in 1983, what did our mainline media conclude? Was there an Islamic war against America? Why, no. Instead, it was America’s fault. We were interfering in a “Lebanese Civil War” and America chose the wrong side. Of course, that’s why our soldiers got killed! What other reason could there be?
Yet sixty miles to the south of Beirut where I was in Bent Jbeil, Islamic cells trained teen warriors, tutored them in English and got them legal visas to America. So, even though the warriors-in-training were bragging on the streets of Bent Jbeil, the correspondents working for the American media in Beirut didn’t find this story? First off, they seldom traveled to South Lebanon. That was where “the hicks and yokels” lived.
Instead, our mainline media huddled together in the Commodore Hotel in Beirut where reporters met nightly at the hotel’s bar to discuss the news between each other. Oh, did I mention that the Islamic armies protected the Commodore Hotel and provided briefings for the American media? They fed our press as if they were a school of fish.
Little wonder why the narrative of the American news media reflected the Islamic Jihad’s point-of-view. And since the mainline American media chose the wrong worldview, they couldn’t put the pieces together.
The 259 bodies of dead Americans killed in Beirut by an Islamic army and the bragging teenage soldiers of Allah in South Lebanon were both testimony and evidence that America became the bull’s-eye of a worldwide Islamic jihad. Even more proof was on the way.
In the two decades before 9/11/2001 there were 84 Islamic paramilitary and terror attacks against the United States that killed 1215 Americans. That’s one attack on Americans every three months for twenty years. My fellow Americans, that’s war!
Yet the narrative of the Western media explained that a war against America didn’t exist. Instead, our casualties resulted from American interference in Islamic Holy Lands. According to their narrative, none of this would ever have happened except for the fact that Israel stole Islamic land and America supported Israel. The Christians of Lebanon and the Jews of Israel were the problem causing upheaval and oppression.
Let me translate that for you. The Jews and the Christians are at fault for holding down Islam. That’s been the rally cry of the Islamic Jihad for 1400 years. “First the Saturdays, then the Sundays.” Kill the Jews, and then kill the Christians.
Today, Americans are unaware that the Middle East was Christian for over six hundred years before Islam ever existed. It was the Islamic armies that destroyed over 30,000 churches and massacred countless innocent Christians enslaving their women as sex servants for the men of Islam.
So, when the Islamic Jihad arose and targeted America, our media chose the enemy’s narrative. Instead of warning Americans of the conflict to come, the mainline media denied the jihad and passed their self-deceit on to their home audience. The result was a nation unprepared and shocked.
Our leaders gain their authority from our consent. So, if the public is unaware of the jihad against us, they cannot demand our leaders protect us from it. But if our public finally realizes the truth, the Jihadi conquest of America will fail and our great beacon of freedom’s light will continue shining. I don’t know about you, but I much prefer freedom’s light to Islamic Fascism.
G Scott McGregor
55 Comments
WOW! This is a stunning article. My favorite paragraph is where you talk about how 1215 Americans have been killed. You are right, that makes it a war! It is sad that our reporters are so easily swayed in their views. America (and the world) is waking up I believe. First hand accounts like these mean alot because people want to know what it is really like over there. It took a lot of courage to go over there and report what was really going on without any security. Americans are led to believe that we are the bad guys-yet what is our crime? We are the symbol for freedom and democracy for the rest of the world. There is no evil in that.
Thank you, Ashley. You’re right about the dangers. The Israeli soldiers looked at me with amazement. They couldn’t believe I would go into that war zone of South Lebanon of my own free will. They asked, “Why would you come from America to report in this place?”
Although I genuinely felt a calling to be there, I never anticipated that I would find such a story. What I found was a prophecy, a foreshadow of 9/11 spoken in the bragging rights of evil men.
I am glad you are on our side…;-)
wow! nice!!!
Where can I read about the previous eradication of 30,000 Christian churches?
This was part of the decree of al Mutawakkil.
Source: Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985.
on line in brief:
Decree of Caliph al-Mutawakkil
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/caliphdecree.html
hope and change
Nice going. You got the point. Now ask yourself: Why has President Obama promoted the Islamic religion for nearly two years? https://www.gsmcgregor.com/?p=161
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