Beirut Outtakes

Pintak, who spent five years covering the Middle East for CBS News, shows us around ``a country I love and hate,'' conveying the mindless violence of factional confrontation, the complicated problems faced by the U.S. Marine contingent and the plight of American hostages in Beirut. Events covered from 1980 to 1985 include the Israeli invasion, the Sabra/Chatilla refugee camp massacres and the bombing of the U.S. embassy and Marine barracks. Pintak contends that America's brief encounter with Lebanon ``left our foreign policy in a shambles, our credibility in tatters, and our national psyche shattered.'' The shock waves are still reverberating, he maintains, in the Iran- contra affair and the presence of U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf. Disappointingly, the connections between these sweeping statements are drawn only cursorily. (Oct.)