On the subject of enemies, you’ve had some close calls yourself in the Middle East. For instance, you were once shot at in Lebanon. Can you tell us about that?

DeVore: In 1984, I was visiting the Bakkah Valley with some journalists, when the Syrian Army in Lebanon started shooting at us. I’m a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, and I had gone though basic training, so I dropped to the ground. But the journalists we were with just kept standing. You could hear the shh, shh, shh, of the bullet rounds as they got closer. And the journalists were still standing. I asked the Israelis we were with, “Why are they test firing?” They said, “Don’t take it personally, but they’re not test firing.” The Syrian army was trying to shoo us away from the hill. They’d never seen journalists up there before and they didn’t want them taking photographs of their lines.
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It is not necessarily just the facts that are embellished but HOW they are juxtaposed to political advantage.