Where is Abed when Robert Fisk needs him? "Shamseddin, as head of the country's Shia, was the first to call on the Lebanese to fight the Israeli occupation army in 1982." Robert Fisk really often does not know what he is talking about. Muhammad Mahdi Shams Ad-Din was certainly not the first to call for the Lebanese to fight the Israeli occupation army in 1982. The first were the leftist groups, particularly the Iraqi leader (Hashim `Ali Muhsin) of the ultra-leftist, Socialist Arab Action Party-Lebanon. This was the group the coined the term The National Resistance Front and the one that launched resistance against Israeli occupation back in 1978. (It also was first to organize resistance attacks on Syrian army back in 1976 especially in the Biqa` Valley when the Syrian regime militarily intervened in Lebanon to support the fascist militias). In fact, if you read Nabil Haytham's biography of Nabih Birri, you will learn that Shams Ad-Din did not even want to support a rebellion against the Gemayyel regime in 1984. Robert Fisk: if you are not sure of your facts, just ask Abed. He is sitting next to you, for potato's sake. But Fisk is correct here: "However, there certainly were well-trained torturers in Lahd's jail - its real name was Khiam prison and it was turned by the Hizbollah into a museum until being largely destroyed in last summer's war. The sadists of Khiam used to electrocute the penises of their prisoners and throw water over their bodies before plunging electrodes into their chests and kept them in pitch-black, solitary confinement for months. For many years, the Israelis even banned the Red Cross from visiting their foul prison. All the torturers fled across the border into Israel when the Israeli army retreated under fire from Lebanon almost seven years ago." And As`ad (not me) alerted me to this: "And there really was a girl who posed as a schoolteacher to murder a militia leader. Her name was Soad Bshara and she was a Christian leftist". He of course means SUHA Bisharah. I met Suha Bisharah for the first time last summer in Lebanon. She uses the name Suha--Suha is Soad for Robert Fisk. In fact, I often call Robert Billy Bob.