Posted on 07/18/2006 8:52:21 PM PDT by Shermy
The base rate for a family escape from Lebanon was supposed to be $600, including the bribes at the Syrian border.
But for Melani Cammett, a Brown University professor trapped in Beirut as the bombs fell over the weekend, the price was $1,350. Desperate to leave the war-torn country with her 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter, Cammett wasn’t in a position to negotiate.
The 36-year-old political science professor – who was researching the extremist group Hezbollah as part of a book about post-war Lebanon –had been in Lebanon with her family since May. She had been interviewing Hezbollah officials the day their group kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, sparking the latest conflict.
“I love being over there – I really enjoy what I’m doing,” said Cammett, a New York native who speaks fluent Arabic. “But to be perfectly honest, nobody expected this. Nobody expected Hezbollah would pull this, and nobody expected Israel to respond like this.”
The Israeli bombings across Lebanon initially took place only at night, Cammett said. But she counted a half-dozen major explosions the afternoon her family fled.
“My five-year-old-son was saying, ‘Oh my God, there’s another boom,’” Cammett said.
The hired car arrived at their hotel early Saturday afternoon. The plan was to make an eight-hour trip along the coastal road into Syria. A direct highway route would take less than two hours, but the Israeli military had dropped leaflets earlier in the day warning residents of heavy bombing along the major highway.
It wasn’t until Cammett’s family was nearly an hour into the trek that she realized they were going the wrong way.
“The driver didn’t listen to me, all the sudden we’re in the mountains,” she said. “He completely lied; he wanted to get through faster to save gas.”
They were headed down the route the Israeli leaflets had warned them about.
“We went speeding down the mountain literally at 95 mph as the bombs were dropping,” Cammett said. “We passed two craters that were still smoking…My son kept saying, ‘Mommy, the car’s going too fast, the car’s going to fast.’”
Her daughter slept as Cammett and the driver used cell phones to get minute-by-minute updates from friends watching television about which roads had been destroyed.
And just an hour and a half after they left Beirut, the car pulled up to the Syrian border. They gave security officials a $600 bribe and quickly passed through to Damascus, where they boarded a plane to Paris and then another to Boston.
“Everything here looks so beautiful – it feels very strange to me,” Cammett said in a telephone interview this afternoon from her Boston home. “I feel almost guilty that I’m here.”
Cammett will return to Brown next week.
Gee, I feeeeeel soooo sorry for this friend of hezbollah.
She's researching Hezbullah and she brings her kids????
And this nitwit has been studying Hezbollah? Honey, they are not a social organization.
> Nobody expected Hezbollah would pull this ...
Least of all an ivy league prof who studies them,
which says more about leafy-brained academics
than it does about the vermin they study.
"Honey, they are not a social organization."
LOL really hard!
I won't even go to Juarez (or even El Paso) without backup and an escape plan.
Too bad she gave $1,000 to the 2004 Kerry campaign, she'd only been out $350.
She took her young children there? Into a hotbed of terrorism, no less. That's living dangerously..
What kind of person brings their children to Lebanon? What kind of person brings their children to Lebanon AND THEN researches Hezbullah so she can write a book and try to make a profit? This woman is scum.
CNN had a nice little puff piece on how Hezbollah builds schools, hospitals, and started a welfare fund. Pillars of Society.
"What kind of person brings their children to Lebanon?"
From reports, many from all over the world. They thought Beirut was different I guess
No mention of a father.
Any guesses as to what god she prays to?
(Aside from Bill Clinton, whose name has a mandatory "peace be upon his name" each time it is spoken among Brown profs, of course).
She figured she was among like-minded friends, and therefore would be safe.
Stuck in a war and they complain about bribery price gouging!
Her husband is in this article. Cute kids.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/07/16/desperate_choices_inside_lebanon/
---Nobody expected Hezbollah would pull this, and nobody expected Israel to respond like this.---
She's not a very good political scientist. I hope Brown doesn't have her on tenure.
I guess I could buy that argument if this lady was a telecom exec on her first trip or on holiday. She's obviously an authority on the region:
“I love being over there – I really enjoy what I’m doing,” said Cammett, a New York native who speaks fluent Arabic.
I am just upset about the kids. If she wants to risk death for a living (Daniel Pearle comes to mind), then hire a damn sitter.
> I hope Brown doesn't have her on tenure.
It used to be "publish or perish" in the ivory towers,
and her book is obviously in big trouble now, since
she was completely clueless about her subjects.
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