Wow
 

And that has what to do with democracy, or holding elections? I think the protests are wonderful, but I can't figure out what you think the Middle East looks like once you've forced it into the Conservative Master Narrative.

In Iraq, there was an election held while a foreign power occupied the country, and the country is a mess. So this inspired Lebanese to protest to tell the Syrians to leave before the next elections. Is this how we set an example for the rest of the world?

Wow
 

Who is trying to fit what into their ideological narrative? Or have you forgotten that we are in Iraq at the request of the Iraqi government?

Wow
 

Elections were scheduled? The Syrians killed the opposition. I know part of the Clinton White House SOP was killing opponents, but even he stopped short of the candidates.

Killing the opposition candidate has what to do with a democracy?

I believe the point Club makes is that w/o seeing people stand up to brutal force elsewhere, the Lebanese might well have taken this more meekly.

Wow
 

I don't have an ideology. I believe in facts. You're the one who is trying to suggest that there's a connection between what's happening in Iraq and Lebanon. They're both Arab countries, so there must be a simple explanation tying it all together, right?

"Have I forgotten that we are in Iraq at the request of the Iraqi government?" Only a lawyer could say something so obtuse. We are in Iraq because we invaded -- kind of the opposite of a "request" of the Iraqi government, actually -- and because we haven't left yet. Notwithstanding an election in which the party getting the most votes ran on a platform that we should leave, we have not left yet because we disarmed the military and touched off an insurgency that the government is powerless to stop.

It's touching that you place legitimacy in the "request" of the Iraqi government that we stay, but have you forgotten that that government was appointed at our behest, not elected, and that it did poorly in the last elections? If a government with that kind of legitimacy invited us into Lebanon, there'd be a civil war.

Wow
 

The theory of evolution has less factual support to it than does the idea that our invasion of Iraq, and the resulting change in the form of government, has had a major impact on the course of various ME countries, Lebanon included. There are only five people left in the world who contest this, and you are two of them.

Wow
 

Not much. JFK and RFK were killed, and our democracy continued on.

I'll agree that the Syrians are not democrats. A lot of people associated with the government have been killed in Iraq, too.

And while there haven't been mass demonstrations in Iraq, the Lebanese learned a thing or two from last summer's Republican National Convention, right?

Wow
 

Of course. The causal relationship is that thing about "tone" you so aptly described last week. It's had a "major impact" on the "course" of several countries. It's also responsible for bringing longer, sunnier days to the Middle East in the last several weeks, increasing everyone's productivity and happiness and generally making peace possible.

Wow
 

Also, long-impotent village elders are now routinely having erections.

Seriously, I'm amazed at your intransigence on this one. Most of your compatriots are conceding exactly what Club argues here, yet you are not. You're like Monty Python's limbless knight, yelling "get back here and fight - it's only a flesh wound!"

Wow
 

you talking about the pro-hezbollah guys now?

Wow
 

I'll say the same thing I posted last week when you told me Bush set a new "tone": I haven't seen any actual reporting suggesting that what happened in Iraq has influenced what happened in Lebanon. Inside the Beltway, among people who spent more time watching the President's last State of the Union speech than they have spent in their entire lifetimes trying to understand Lebanese history or politics, it may be taken as a given that Mr. Bush and the Iraqi people are responsible for all the good that transpires in Lebanon. Whoop de do.

Elections are not new to Lebanon. And what you have there is not exactly a groundswell for representative democracy, except among the Hezbollah supporters who would like to have representation proportionate to their numbers -- something your "pro-democracy" Maronites and Druze have opposed.

If our invasion of Iraq made a difference, I suggest the difference is that Syria feels exposed now in a way that it did not before, and feels compelled to withdraw its forces as a result. That is a good thing -- one hopes, unless the Lebanese start killing each other again, which is what was happening when a Republican administration with Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense invited Syrian troops into the country -- that results from the invasion. But it doesn't have much to do with Hallmark-card-grade sentiment about democracy.

Wow
 

You didn't read the posts from this morning, did you?
I would agree that this is certainly part of it. Exposed to what? Our military? A changed Iraq? A shrinking world for tyrants? A lifting of the feeling of powerlessness amongst subjugated peoples? All of them?

Wow
 

I know about the demonstrations today, and think they're great. I'm talking about something more fundamental. Seats in the Lebanese parliament are allocated according to the 1932 census, with results that overrepresent Christians and undercount Shi'a. Also, the President must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister must be a Sunni, and the speaker of the legislature must be a Shi'a.

Our military. Iraq is changed, but not in a way that threatens Syria. It's true that fax machines and jet airplanes have shrunk the world for tyrants just like the rest of us, but I think Assad is too busy running his country to jet off to the Cote d'Azur for the weekend. "A lifting of the feeling of powerlessness amongst subjugated peoples?" Does Hallmark make a card for that now? That's part of Bush's "tone," right?

Wow
 

Do you think Assad has more fear of our military, or of the people of Lebanon? I suspect that his prime fear isn't a US invasion, but a popular Lebanese uprising. His hold right now in Syria proper is tenuous enough that he likely would rather not start such a process - who knows to where it might spread.

And yeah, I think Hallmark still sells some 4th of July cards.

Wow
 

I think Assad is most worried about avoiding a U.S. invasion of Syria, and generally with retaining power in Syria, and that the mood of the Lebanese people has little to do with that. This vision you have of "a popular Lebanese uprising" that threatens Assad's grip on his own people has very little to do with what ails Lebanon or Syria.

Credit Cards
 

Actually, what I contracted for was to have my health care costs covered. I don't have any bargaining power witht the providers, the insurer does. It ought to be the one negotiating and argeeing on an amount for the hospital stay. It should not be incumbent on me, on my own, to fight it out with the hospital.