Hizbollah Draws Vast Pro-Syrian Crowds in Beirut

[Nbadan]

Tue Mar 8, 2005 11:41 AM ET
By Nadim Ladki

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of flag-waving Lebanese flooded central Beirut on Tuesday for a pro-Syrian rally called by Hizbollah that dwarfed previous protests demanding that Syrian troops quit Lebanon.

Hizbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah urged the Lebanese opposition to join a national unity government and reject a U.N. demand for the Syrians to leave and his own militia to disarm.

"We call ... for the formation of a government of national unity and we ask the opposition to join it," he told the rally.

Nasrallah said no one in Lebanon feared the United States, whose troops left Beirut in 1984, a few months after a suicide bomber killed 241 Marines at their headquarters in the capital.

"We have defeated them in the past and if they come again we will defeat them again," he said, drawing chants of "Death to America" from the sea of demonstrators.

President Bush again told Syria to take its hands off Lebanon before parliamentary polls due by May.

"All Syrian military forces and intelligence personnel must withdraw before the Lebanese elections for those elections to be free and fair," he said in a speech in Washington.

(more at link)

reuters



Nearly 500,000 pro-Syrian protesters waved flags and chanted anti-American slogans in a central Beirut square Tuesday, answering a nationwide call by the militant Shiite Muslim Hezbollah group for a demonstration to counter weeks of massive rallies demanding Syrian forces leave Lebanon

MSNBC

Faux News was reporting yesterday that the protesters were bused in from Syria. What a bunch of morons who would fall for that. Probably isn't enough buses in the entire middle-east to haul that many people to Lebanon.

[Hook Dem]

Thats right Dan!....especially since they already used all the busses to send insurgents into Iraq.

[MannyIsGod]

Thats great Dan, however I think it's safe to say the majority of Lebanese aren't supporting an occupation of their country.

[Extra Stout]

Dammit Manny, you're being all idealistic and stuff. You must be from that part of the left that is interested in the welfare of all kinds of people. The academics and the cultural elite can't stand your kind. You're just supposed to be opposed to the U.S. position, whatever that may be.

[exstatic]

Folks, you refer to the "Lebanese" as if they were a geneous block. They're not. Hezbollah is actually a political party there, and would poll a significant number of seats in an election. Democracy is what it's all about, right?

[MannyIsGod]

Hezbollah is advocating the pressence of Syria only because Syria is a major source of funding.