From the BBC:
Nearly one million people have gathered for an opposition rally in Beirut, officials say – a month after the death of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
The BBC’s Kim Ghattas in Beirut says the crowds have turned the city centre into a sea of red, white and green – the colours of Lebanon’s national flag.
The protest is against the continuing presence of Syrian forces in Lebanon.
It has surpassed recent pro-Syrian rallies and is thought to be the biggest in Lebanese history.
Syria has pulled back some of its troops in Lebanon to the border.
Damascus also promised the UN a full timetable for the withdrawal of its 14,000 troops and intelligence agents.
The move was cautiously welcomed by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a “positive development”.
Meanwhile military intelligence officers left two offices in the north, in the town of Amyoun in Koura region and Deir Ammar on the coast, the Associated Press news agency reported.
[…] Demonstrators packed Martyrs Square, near where Hariri died in a car bomb, and spilled over into nearby streets.
The sea of people fell silent at 1255 (1055 GMT), the exact time Hariri was killed four weeks ago.
Unlike previous anti-Syrian rallies, Sunni Muslims came out in force to join Druze and Christians to commemorate the loss of their leader.
A stream of buses and cars brought protesters from the eastern Bekaa Valley, while others arrived from Junieh in the north by sea.
“We are coming to liberate our country. We are coming to demand the truth,” Fatma Trad, a Sunni from the northern area of Dinniyeh, told AP.
YOU HAVE FORCED SYRIA’S HAND, MR BUSH, AND THEY CALLED YOUR BLUFF! SOON YOU MUST ACKNOWLEDGE HEZBOLLAH AS A LEGITIMATE POLITICAL PARTY AND NORMALIZE DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH THEIR “POLITICAL WING,” WHICH FUNDS SCHOOLS AND HOSPITALS AND KEEPS THE TRAINS RUNNING ON TIME! ISLAMIC THEOCRACY IS THE WAY OF THE “OTHER,” CHIMPY, AND NO ARROGANT, HAM-HANDED HEGEMONIC PIPE DREAM WILL CHANGE THAT FACT!*
Hmm. Wonder how the pro–Hezbollah crowd is feeling about this crazy little turn of events…
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update: Instapundit posts a pic of some Lebanese cleavage of FREEDOM (garnished with a side placard of Braveheart bravado).
SYRIA OUT OF LEBANON! MEL GIBSON IS MY MASTER!
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update 2: More pics here.
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update 3: “Apples from Israeli-Occupied Golan cross into Syria”
Invoking the vasty deep are we?
Methinks I hear Hellblazer’s little feet.
keyword “blood”
You talkin’ to me? ‘Cause I don’t see anybody else….
Oh, no! You just had to mess with that puzzlebox, didn’t you? Now we’re all going to suffer an eternity of exquisite torture…
What? Oh, Hellraiser? My mistake. Nevermind.
Obviously it’s time to impeach the chimpy bushitler and haul him up before an international court. Things are getting out of hand. Turing word “ones” which is apt because a million or so is too much.
“I’ll see your 300,000 Syrian flunkies and raise you 200,000 Sunnis…”
Turing test: must
“The word must is not used to princes.”
Doesn’t really change my thoughts about it in the least. My concern – if you actually bother to read – is that the two hyped up groups will get into another civil war when they start clashing together on the streets.
But hey, got to crack a few eggs n’ such for a FREEDOM quiche.
What I find amusing is that all five trackbacks from Hellblazer’s entry are from Jeff.
We’ll see how sharp his wit is now. It’s like having to pee really, really bad, the anticipation.
Yes, because the status quo that’s under the thumb of a Baathist dictatorship is much better than making breakfast. Your “concern” is touching.
Yes, heaven forbid the wogs ever taste the quiche of FREEDOM! A bloody disaster, that’d be.
Behold, the power of the REFRESH button.
Ah, I see someone has been taking their Enzyte.
Jeff,
Is it just me or is “Lebanese cleveage of freedom” the best band name in the world?
It took me about 5 visits to Mr. Hellblazer, but I finally get it:
When you have been debated into a corner, simply fire off a sarcastic quip and ignore the point completely.
This leaves the leftist, cocktail-party types very impressed and is what passes for substance in Manhattan and San Francisco intellectual circles.
Um, firing off the sarcastic quip and ignoring the point entirely seems to be the sum total of the comment stream here.
Sometimes when people have essential disagreements about whether they should be free or slave, they do end up fighting. The Lebanese appear to be handling things pretty calmly right now, but does the potential for a dustup mean that people should just stop trying? If people who wanted to be free were not willing to fight for their freedom, then all but the strongest and most ruthless would be slaves.
Maybe the point here, Blazer, is that no matter how perspicacious you may regard yourself, others aren’t convinced of your point, vis-a-vis, the inevitability of civil war anent Lebanon and your sneering disregard for the possibility of freedom in the ME.
That and the fun of mocking highbrows, of course.
Jeff’s hysterical anti-Chimpy rants at the end of each post are generally the highlight of my day.
Speaking of CLEAVAGE OF FREEDOM
On a more serious note, the fact that there have been peaceful demonstrations, both pro and anti syria is a big step. Contrary to the comments by babbling morons everywhere, I’ve yet to see a “right winger” on any of the blogs I read, opine that the pro-Syrian faction doesn’t have the “right” to be protesting in favor of their position. The people are speaking up, which ultimately, is good for everybody.
If Lebanon ends up with Hezbollah in charge, we’ll cross that bridge (with hummers and M1A1s) when we get to it.
Or even the EXPOSED MIDRIFFS OF LIBERTY
As I said, the cartoonish portrayal of my position isn’t actual discussion. But then, as I seem to remember on another thread, this isn’t the place for actual discussion, rather this is a place to reinforce your own superiority over people like me.
Glad to help with the wanking. Although I wish I had brought my rain slicker.
You know something, my mother kept telling me that there was a Lebanese church meeting in thier Catholic church after the regular mass, and she was telling me I should go because she said all the women look like supermodels.
Now I know what she is talking about.
I think I will have to start driving all the way to my parents for church.
Hellblazer asked:
“Inquiring minds want to know. Is freedom still on the march or what?”
I think you got your answer. Anymore stupid questions, or can we go back to scoping out Lebanese babes?
PlutosDad—you should see the babes on the beach in Tel Aviv.
Hellblazer,
your concern is valid, but that does not mean we should not be happy for the spread of democracy and freedom.
After all, the exact same thing happened in eastern europe, after communism fell their old ethnic hatreds flared up. There were no strong central governments at the time to enforce the law to stop it.
Does that mean they were better off under communism where they were not free?
no.
Also, that is why any people we have in Lebanon are encouraging them to passively resist. Just like we gave support to Checkoslovakians, Serbians, and recently Ukranians.
If you believe the History channel, we had CIA officers there not only giving support and consulting, but also kept telling them “don’t use violence, you can do this without violence” and that helped them stay on the non-violent path. Which you CAN do, but not always.
I’m sure we have people on the ground in Lebanon doing the same thing.
Turing word: strengh, as in the Lebanese have strength in numbers, which can defeat all the Syrians and Hizbollah’s guns. well unless they decide to commit genocide, which has been done plenty in French supported areas of Africa the last 10 years. Whoops did I just bash France?
PD, I pretty much agree with everything you’ve said.
Let’s just hope we actually follow through instead of relying on the Lebanese equivalent of Chalabi to guide our policy.
No one is reinforcing anyone’s superiority over anyone else, here, HB. I addressed your point rather bluntly.
But if you really believe that is what we’re doing, you must love being put down or you wouldn’t keep dropping by.
To sum up: You think you can’t force freedon and democray on the ME.
Jeff’s (et al) counterpoint: Nobody is forcing anything on anyone, but toppling dictators in the ME can offer salutory, beneficial ripples to other oppressed people so why not hope for the best with fingers crossed?
Your ilk gets tiresome exactly because you seem to want nascent freedom to fail just to prove your superiority over the evil Bushco and his minions. Thus the moral obtuseness from your camp.
You’re welcome.
Your kind is bizarre exactly because you ascribe fantasy positions to people you know absolutely nothing about so that you can bask in the warm afterglow of waking off to the destruction of these straw men.
Well, if you’re addressing me, Blaze, I have to admit I don’t have the foggiest what you’re saying. Straw men? Huh?
What, praytell, is your point? Or do you have one?
Are you really that dim?
HB: Kelly isn’t being dim. You really haven’t laid out your argument in a way that can be addressed in anything but a cartoonish fashion. If you’re just saying the Lebanese situation might possibly blow up or go sour, that’s fine, but what’s your point?
Well, actually, there isn’t much more than that. From this tiny germ of an insignificant comment on my third rate blog, I’ve received a non stop stream of simply hilarious variations of my blog’s name, a wonderful sequence of ever increasingly ludicrous assertions as to what I believe, spiced with a number of amazing caricatures of who I am.
It’s been truly stunning to watch.
All I’m doing is gawking at the train wreck and marveling at the wanking.
Hell,
I gotta ask.. Do you ever just come over here to have a good time or do you only come when Jeff summons you ? I mean, youve got brains and you have a great command of the language.. It’s the wit and sense of humor that need work.. So try this.. make up a new nom de plume for yourself.. loosen up.. have a shot of Patron (or whatever you loosen up with) and drop by anonymously to match WIT with the other commentators.. Match WIT.. not insults.. not condescension.. not IQ.. WIT.. These people are some of the wittiest in the, as you say, Parrotsphere… if you read what theyre writing that is instead of only reading your own ‘wit’. Oh, and dont forget to bring your PDA with Google,Websters & the Urban Dictionary loaded.. It’s required for this course…
-AB
WIT malice toward none, WIT charity for all, WIT firmness in the Right-wing as Jeff gives us to see the Right, let us strive on to varnish the work we are in, to bind up irration’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the prattle and for his (protein)_wisdom and his dolphin, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting conversation among ourselves and with all rationals.
“per” as in “that this blog of the witty, by the witty, and for the witty, may not per-ish from the Per-rotsphere”
“Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it…”
— Mephistopheles
Jeff’s on my RSS so I read him whenever he posts (or the thousands of updates of previous posts he does). The comments – well – I just come over here to watch the burnings of my effigy. Keeps me warm at night.
I agree that y’all are some of the wittiest in the PS. And I must say it’s an honor to be torn to pieces by such a great group.
(seriously)
, I’ve received a non stop stream of simply hilarious variations of my blog’s name, a wonderful sequence of ever increasingly ludicrous assertions as to what I believe, spiced with a number of amazing caricatures of who I am.
It’s been truly stunning to watch.
All I’m doing is gawking at the train wreck and marveling at the wanking.
You are dealing with a HUMOR blog, you jagoff. People are here to laugh at jokes and have fun, yet you pine for den bestian treatises on the issue of the day, an issue that YOU raised with an attempt at smart-ass humor on your blog. Your original post WAS smarmy sarcasm, and now you whine when you get it back in spades. Learn some self-analysis. Or don’t, you might dislike what you find.
And I’m not implying that you CAN’T get what you want (reasoned, detailed refutation of your selective negativity that pines for an outcome that reinforces your intellect rather than the collective spin of the “parrotsphere”), but I would say that your assertion of superiority because people are taking swipes at you or cracking wise on a humor blog is “truly stunning to watch.”
Ridiculous, even.
Now that’s the kind of quality you just don’t find anywhere else.
RE: my updates.
What can I say? I like to get my posts just so.
I suppose there are many motivations to post comments on a blog, I just never thought masochism was one of them.
Mrs. Ratbag will take the blow on the head, quizmaster!
I’m just here to see the BUSTING out of Freedom and Democracy.
Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, enjoy the spectacle – I always say.
Thank you, sir, may I have another, sir!
First person to compile and host all the hotness that is protesting Lebanese women gets free ad space at File it Under.
And a hotlink.
And a link.
Is it my imagination, or does the woman in the picture Master of None posted under “CLEAVAGE OF FREEDOM” bear a freakish resemblance to Courtney Love?
Drat. And I so liked being truly stunning to watch. I was going to put that on the dust jacket of my witty memoirs.
Well, actually, there isn’t much more than that.
And you bitch about a lack of sophistication here?
We never get tired of our furry little pet Hellblazer. In fact, everyone wants one.
By the way here’s the blanket/cold shower hawk with an argument that it’s the democratization of the Islamic fundimentalists that’s coming (and defeating Bin Laudinism) not the beautiful Lebanese tee shirt chicks. The claim is that moderates are too marginalized to matter.
I wonder though. Echos of “There is nothing going on here but the normal, every day bustle of the Lebanese market place.”
Anyway I want a smiley pic with curious george on it for chimpy hitler Mc.(tm) Burton
meant to type “wet blanket” not just “blanket”
PIMF
I love how I get alternatively bitchslapped for not being serious enough and then for being way too serious. I must! Yet, I cannot!
And people wonder why I keep coming back.
Yes HB, it’s amazing how individual members of the parotsphere can actually have different opinions and express different thoughts. Now piss off.
Beck, when you looked at MoN’s “CLEAVAGE OF FREEDOM” link, did you check out the brunette on the blonde’s right? She is totally ogling her friend’s rack.
Right now I am so completely in the throes of celebrating liberty that I can’t stand it.
Turing word: union. What, of those two? Hell yeah I’ll watch!