Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Well, this should keep things interesting, the Middle-East has been getting boring lately.

Tomorrow we get to see how much popular support pro-Syrian sentiment has; whether the common man wants Syria to stay and whether the anti-Syrians were just a vocal minority.

President Assad must be having a restless night… Tuesday will either be a complete embarassment with pro-Syrian feelings being demonstrated as non-existant; or Assad will be handed an enormous propaganda coup and have 3 decades of Syrian peacekeeping in Lebanon be completely justified.

The next 12 hours will cast the future of the relationship between Syria and Lebanon - and will show whether the Lebanese do love or hate Syria.

Interesting times, interesting times …

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Re: Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

Assad seems vindicated: Massive turnout so far and growing, it does in fact seem that a lot of Lebanese people are in favour of Syria’s peacekeeping presence in Lebanon.

According to http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=38232 , over 100,000 Lebanese have gone out to rally in favour of Syria.

I’m sure this proof of Syrian popularity amongst the Lebanese common man will make Presidents Assad and Lahoud much bolder about where they stand.

Girls with too much make up.... I only have one thing to say
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Re: Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

Wait till they see US and Israel’s danda. Syrians will run to the hills.

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Re: Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

This is less of a show for Syrian popularity than it is of support for Hezbollah, death to Israel and down with the great satan.

Mehndi Done By...
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Re: Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

Syria will bring back its troops from Lebanon without any danda from US or from Israel. Then US will be scratching their heads to come up with another excuse to invade Syria. US’s strategy to assassinate Hariri won’t work the way they wanted to.

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Re: Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

It would be strange fro many western governments that Hizb Allah also agrees that the Syrian forces should be withdrawn, but they want this to be done honorably, during six month period after the elections, in their view the Syrian forces helped Lebanon in establishing peace after the Taïf agreement, so their withdrawal should reflect that service. This was reflected on the streets in Beirut today.

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Re: Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

Then why are the slogans they are holding pro-Syrian?

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The Lebanese people expressing their gratitude to Syria for its efforts and sacrifices in Lebanon over the past 30 years :slight_smile:

Almost brings a tear to my eyes … one country’s love for another expressed by so many people :teary1:

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Re: Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/03/08/hezbollah-lebanon050308.html

Wow - close to half a million pro-syrian demostrators!!!

Even I had no idea that the Lebanese people loved having the Syrians around this much!

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Re: Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

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Why does it not surprise me that when so many of the Lebanese people love and appreciate Syria's presence, the USA wants Syria to leave Lebanon?

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Re: Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

What is their motivation, love of Syria or hatred of Israel (and non-Muslims in general)? Syria and Hezbollah represent hatred against Israel and US as evidenced by such asinine signs like ""All Our Disasters Are from America." Syria and Hezbollah fan the hatred, orchestrate the demonstration, pressures people to show up and busses them in from Syria. Still, 1/2 million is a huge turnout, their ability to organize has been proven. But will change the international pressure for them to withdrawal?

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Re: Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

The international pressure may not be diminished, but Assad and Lahoud will view this as a clear mandate from the Lebanese people that opposition to Syria is a minority in Lebanon.

This protest will ensure that Emile Lahoud himself will have virtually no pressure to resign his presidency, since popular opinion now appears to back his pro-Syrian stance.

Not only that, but with such an overwhelming pro-Syrian sentiment, the next election is likely to produce another pro-Syrian government as well.

I would not be surprised at all if we shortly see the Lebanese government invite the Syrian army back into Lebanon once more.

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Re: Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

"when you try to over come too much at one time you will fall"!

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Re: Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

hear even a peep about it on ABCNNBCBS media whores?

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Re: Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

I think they are busy in chanting the freedom " :soldier: " mantra as usual.

'Fatwa' against Pakistani minister for paragliding pics
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Re: Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

I saw the whole thing live, including Seyed Nasrullah's speech, and boy, did this demo out-dwarf the anti-syrian one. The seyeds speech was full of praise for Syria and Hafiz al Asad, he made it clear that they didnt want foreign meddling in thier affairs. There were other communists, christian and sunni politicians also giving speeches at the demo.

The funny thing is, the anti syrian demo was bigged up so much in the western media, its gonna be interesting to watch the contrast of how they try to portray this one. Whatever, they will have to notice this one. Still, this isnt the end of it, there are gonna be demos all week. The majority has now spoken, loud and clear. Lets hope it doesnt fall on deaf ears.

Also, something to note, Syria has been decreasing troops in the region since the 90's, its been an on going process, so for the Americans to pretend Syria began widthdrawing troops under thier watch is laughable, if anything its prolly slowed the whole process down.

Its funny tho no, they're all trying to be leb. saviour now, after not batting an eye lid, when it was under occupation from Israel. Sometimes, its real tough making sense of this strange world we live in eh. :)

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Re: Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

Syria is cooked...how do you like it..sauteed or flame broiled?

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Re: Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

They (Syrian troops) have packed their bags and are moving east towards the border, it's a start.

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Re: Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

like they've been doing for the past decade eh....it'll always have support from its neighbour, it can leave whenever.

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Re: Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

Two interesting reads:

http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk03082005.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery03072005.html

Exactly 50 years ago a secret, heated debate took place among the leaders of Israel. David Ben-Gurion (then Minister of Defense) and Moshe Dayan (the army Chief-of-Staff) had a brilliant idea: to invade Lebanon, impose on it a “Christian major” as dictator and turn it into an Israeli protectorate. Moshe Sharett, the then Prime Minister, attacked this idea fervently. In a lengthy, closely argued letter, which has been preserved for history, he ridiculed the total ignorance of the proponents of this idea in face of the incredibly fragile complexity of the Lebanese social structure. Any adventure, he warned, would end in disaster.

At the time, Sharett won. But 27 years later, Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon did exactly what Ben-Gurion and Dayan had proposed. The result was exactly as foreseen by Sharett.

Anyone who follows the American and Israeli (there is no difference) media, gets the impression that the present situation in Lebanon is simple: there are two camps, “the supporters of Syria” on the one side, the “opposition” on the other. There is a “Beirut Spring”. The opposition is a twin sister of yesterday’s Ukrainian opposition, and loyally imitates all its methods: demonstrations opposite the government building, a sea of waving flags, colorful shawls, and, most importantly, beautiful girls in the front row.

But between the Ukraine and Lebanon there exists not the slightest similarity. The Ukraine is a “simple” country: the east tends towards Russia, the west towards Europe. With American help, the west won.

In Lebanon, all the diverse communities are in action. Each for its own interest, each plotting to outfox the others, perhaps to attack them at a given opportunity. Some of the leaders are connected with Syria, some with Israel, all are trying to use the Americans for their ends. The jolly pictures of young demonstrators, so prominent in the media, have no meaning if one does not know the community which stands behind them.

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Re: Crunch time in Lebanon: Pro-Syrian protests, Tuesday 8th March

:hehe:

nice one. So this means they’ll be asked to stay then…ermm.

The syrians have moved east! hehe, my right hand is moving east to scratch my ear.