Exclusively in the new print issue of CounterPunch

HOLLYWOOD AND THE CIA — Film historian Ed Rampell details Hollywood’s entangled relationship with the CIA and the Pentagon; HOUSES OF THE DEAD: Nancy Kurshan exposes the cruel human rights offenses taking place inside America’s vast gulag of Control Unit Prisons; BROTHERHOOD OF SUMMER: David Macaray charts the history of the most powerful union in the US: the Baseball Players Association; TAR SANDS COME TO AMERICA: Steve Horn explains how the Keystone Pipeline debates have diverted attention from Big Oil’s other plans to transport Alberta’s oil into the US. PLUS: Jeffrey St. Clair on CONSTITUTIONAL ENTROPY; Mike Whitney on HOW THE BANKS TARGETED BLACKS; Chris Floyd on THE RISE OF BRITAIN’S TEA PARTY; Kristin Kolb on THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE; Kim Nicolini on the FILMS OF WILLIAM FRIEDKIN; and Lee Ballinger on POETS VS. THE ONE PERCENT.

September 18, 2002

September 1982 Sabra and Chatila

September 1982, Sabra and Chatila

by THOMAS MOUNTAIN

I woke up that morning Where far across the earth In Beirut, in Sabra and Chatila camps Zionist butchers were hard at work

That day was to have been special It marked the anniversary of my birth Instead came the news of the massacres Sending shock waves around the earth

We had watched Israel invade Lebanon The summer of 1982 The seige and bombing of Beirut Until the PLO withdrew

The PLO left the city With the salute of the people in their eyes Trusting the word of the Americans It would be their wives and children who would die

The Israelis surrounded Sabra and Chatila camps Trapping the old men, women and children within Then their trucks brought the Phalange through their lines And they ordered the massacre to begin

They killed all day until night fall But the mercy of darkness brought no relief For Israeli flares soon lit up the sky So the rest from bloodshed would be brief

The killers went house to house Even killing the dogs it was said Planting booby traps beneath the bodies To kill those who had come to bury their dead

So Why? Why? Why must I ask why? That these killers and their masters Have not been tried And sentenced to die?

THOMAS MOUNTAIN can be reached at: brotom@lava.net