>Clearly the Lebanese events blow up the standard calculation that for every
>person who shows up at a demonstration, you have to assume that the movement
>has ten or so active supporters. Even if we take the conservative estimate
>that half a million people showed up to the pro-Syria rally, the population
>of Lebanon is what, 4 million tops? (It's difficult to know for sure since
>the country hasn't had an official census since 1932 because of communal
>tensions.) And other news services estimate the crowd to have been even
>larger than that, maybe even a full million, which would be about 1 out of
>every 4 Lebanese. And all of this over about 14,000 soldiers!
>
>It seems like there's a real danger of the US helping re-spark the civil war
>if it continues in giving so much encouragement to one coalition in the
>communal conflict.
John, John, John. These are *facts*, and we don't care about them. So much nicer is the fantasy that unleasing hell in Iraq has had the pretty outcome of democratizing an intractable, backward region of the world, a region that until now made the Balkans look civilized and peaceful. Purple fingers, orange and cedar revolutions, it's the birth of a new era of liberty, man!
Doug