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Our NBC News team is on Israel's northern border as I write this, and President Bush's joint news conference with British Prime Minister Blair is being aired live on television. The volume is all the way up because every few minutes we can hear the firing of Israeli 155 millimeter artillery into Lebanon a few hundred yards away.
The leaders of two of the world's most powerful nations are voicing their unified position to work for a sustainable peace in the region, before calling for an immediate cease-fire. Their comments seem a touch defensive, given a worldwide outcry over the disproportionate number of civilian deaths in Lebanon.
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All photos by Ann Curry, NBC News
It appears without warning in the faces you see in Beirut -- a flicker of fear moves across the eyes, darting like a frightened bird and revealing the uneasiness of being in a nation under siege.
Israeli air strikes have squeezed supplies routes in. The airport is closed. The roads are vulnerable, and at the border, you can see the big trucks parked in long lines, the drivers worried their cargo will be mistaken for Hezbollah weapons. Plenty of food is still available, but choices seem to be diminishing. More restaurants and stores are shutting down. The lights often go dark. Some hotels are struggling to operate on limited staffs. And oddly, in the lobby of one, three Lebanese women stop you, an American, asking for advice on the best road out of Beirut.
Discuss (104 comments) Email this | Link to thisMaybe it's because it's the Fourth of July. Maybe it's because it's been awhile since we've seen a shuttle launch. Probably it's because we in America have heard so much bad news of late. Whatever the reason, it was thrilling to watch Discovery's successful rise into the heavens, accelerating from 0 to more than 17,000 miles-an-hour in just eight-and-a-half seconds this afternoon.
Nerves of steel is what it must have taken for the seven astronauts to endure such a ride, not just because of the roar, but because of the incessant debate about whether foam would jeopardize the safety of their flight. Two top NASA officials had voted "no go" for launch, and that was before a small triangular piece of foam fell off one of the brackets holding the external fuel tank.
Preparing for the NBC News Special Report to show America the historic launch, the first on Independence day, I read a quote from NASA Administrator Michael Griffin that may give pause. On Friday, he said, "We are playing with the odds." He said balancing the dangers of another accident with the pressure to keep to a schedule that could shut down the shuttle program in 2010 is "What you pay us for as taxpayers. It's called risk management."
Taking this risk in these trouble times, on this day we celebrate our nation's birth, took both confidence and courage. But then, I suppose without the risk, maybe it would not have felt as good today, to watch America soar.
Discuss (2 comments) Email this | Link to thisGoing over the day's top stories, as we prepare to broadcast NBC Nightly News tonight, I am struck by what they say about the best and worst of these times in our nation's history. One is about the possibility of a Fourth of July launch of the space shuttle Discovery. Call me hokey, but I can imagine Americans feeling pretty good about watching a successful shuttle launch again -- that soaring rise into the heavens reminding us of the greatness among us, and how far we've come since Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon, and how far we might still go.
Discuss (9 comments) Email this | Link to thisExhaustion. NBC News Middle East Correspondent Richard Engel is hanging on in spite of it, a sleepless three days now since the killing of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"I'm running on adrenalin," Engel tells me on the phone, his voice only slightly slurry, as he describes what he is filling for Nightly News tonight: a dramatic show and tell of what's left of al-Zarqawi's hideout.
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