News As Fiction

Tom Clancy is noted for writing of Cold War conspiracies. Perhaps he could tackle this particular story line.

The official Hizbollah news channel, Al-Manar TV, recently broadcast a report that claimed an Irish soldier was fighting with the Israeli army in Lebanon. As proof, they displayed an identification card, an official Irish Defence Forces ID. From that one card, the reporters of Al-Manar were able to concoct an entire story, rather a horror story it would seem. The UN Forces arriving soon in Lebanon are going to fight on Israel's side. The West is out to get us - war against Islam, blah blah blah - and here's the proof.

We are accustomed to news that reports facts. Our Lebanese neighbors are digesting fiction that is paraded as fact, but the facts are as real as a plot device in a novel. What if, the author says, and so Al-Manar delivers clever Tom Clancy-esque stories, with a twist worthy of James Frey or J.T. Leroy.

So where did the Irish I.D. come from? Apparently, it's been kept since the soldier who once owned said I.D. was wounded in 1997 while serving with peacekeeping forces in Lebanon. Poor man had to have the leg of his trousers cut off so that his injuries could be attended to, and there went his wallet with its I.D. card. The gentleman reported the card missing, it was cancelled, and that was the end of it.

Until now, when some clever chap dug it out of safekeeping. Oh look, Al-Manar triumphantly proclaimed, here in this collection of artefacts left behind by the Israeli army is this Irish I.D. so that proves the UN folks are...well, it's a bit of a broken record, that line. No one in Lebanon will know that the card was gone missing ten years ago and is no longer valid. The fiction was written, presented as fact, and Tom Clancy could not have done a better job in crafting a story based on a single found item.

Problem is, of course, that the readers of said fiction don't know it's fiction. Sounds harmless, until you realize that Irish soldiers are going to be sent to Lebanon as part of the U.N. mission. The people they are going to protect won't believe the truth, that the Irish soldiers are not aligned with Israel, because they have been indoctrinated with fiction, presented as news. I do believe that's called propaganda, and Joseph Goebbels would surely be proud of the writers of Al-Manar.