Things not quite so clear cut in Lebanon

Strangely enough, (ok, it's not really surprising at all) you have to go to the BBC to see this story. Doesn't seem to have made much of a wave on the American MSM.

Huge Beirut protest backs Syria

Hundreds of thousands of people have gathered in Lebanon's capital, Beirut, to applaud Syria's role in the country and reject Western "interference".

"We are here to thank Syria which has stayed by our side for many years," the head of the Syrian-allied Hezbollah group told cheering supporters.

The crowd dwarfed previous opposition protests urging Syrian troops to leave.

Now, we can't be so blind as to ignore that fact that this protest was organized by Hezbollah, and they are a terrorist group. There's no question about that. However, it's worth noting that they were able to get hundreds of thousands of people out in their support... larger numbers than those who want Syria out of the country. You can't get that many volunteers on short notice at gun point.

Syria has been in Lebanon since 1976, and we may want to remember that they originally came not as invaders, but by the reqeust of Lebanon. (At least some factions there.) They were instrumental in stopping a civil war going on there in in the late 80's to early 90's as I recall. And who was backing the other side of that particular civil war?

Israel.

I can't help but notice a pattern here. Every time there's some sort of flareup in that area, if the United States isn't directly invovled in it (e.g. taking Iraq's side against Iran, always involved in Egypt and Saudi Arabia) then Israel is.

You can't make everyone over there happy. It's a pipe dream to think that you can. And even if there is no truth to it whatsoever, it's not hard to understand how some on the Arab street have suspicions that the US uses Israel to do their dirty work when they want to interfere in the Muslim world.

So now people are crowing that "freedom is on the march" and a wave of democracy is washing over the Middle East? Fine. Let it wash all over wherever it wants to. But let's let it do it without us.