Sights and Sounds
I love the way Andrew Lee Butters starts his "Welcome to Hizballahstan" in the May 26 issue of Time with a sharp mix of sight and sound accented with a strong quotation:
Surrounded by a ring of mountains like a concert band shell, Beirut has great acoustics. So the roiling street battles on May 8 between Hizballah militiamen and supporters of the Lebanese government echoed through the city with a drumroll of rocket explosions and a chorus of machine-gun fire that sounded like the symphonic overture to civil war. When an early-summer thunderstorm began that night, it seemed as if the heavens themselves were taking up the ominous theme.
But by the next morning, the battle for Beirut was mostly over. After just six hours of all-out fighting, Hizballah militants were in control of areas of West Beirut that had previously been the government's preserve. This made for some incongruous scenes. Bearded men with rifles and rocket launchers secured lingerie shops and a Starbucks in the commercial Hamra district. Elsewhere, they surrounded the houses of ministers and members of Parliament and watched buses evacuate students from the American University of Beirut. "It was like a field trip for us," said a Hizballah fighter standing on the Corniche, the city's seaside promenade. "Some [government loyalists] were begging us not to kill them. They were literally pissing in their pants."
Butters follows this opening with a strong analysis of the situation in Lebanon. Brian Bennett and Tim McGirk also contributed to the story. time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1779365_1779366_1806629,00.html
Check out the rest of Time's special report on the Middle East at www.time.com/time/specials/2007/0,28757,1779365,00.html