[OneTimeLurker]

Lebanon has a population of about 3.6MM people. That percentage of the population can't be totally manufactured. I am sure they had help but there is a true backing for Hezbollah and Syria among the Muslim population in Lebanon.

[llama hunter]

but 12 seats in Parliament says they have some but not majority support, if they are supported by one third of the Shia Muslims, that means two thirds of the Shia Muslim in Lebanon do not support Hezbollah and what portion of the Lebanese population, without the Syrians (who are mainly Sunni Muslim I believe) is Shia?

I suspect neither the majority of the Lebanese nor even the Syrians want an Islamist state which is Hezbollah's main goal for Lebanon (I'm sure they got their eyes on Syria next)

Saddam Hussein was able to muster up these kinds of protest and we knew Saddam forced those people out and we've also found out since Saddam paid persons for anti war protests outside of Iraq

in fact the Democrats did the same thing when the mayor of Philadelphia (?) made all the city employees attend that Clinton Kerry rally, after giving them the afternoon off

[cdrw]

I'm curious about the stats. Of the 3.6MM you reference do you know if that is the "Lebanese" population or if that is the total number of human beings presently residing in Lebanese territory. I'm not challenging your number ... I would really like to know because I have heard of nearly a million Syrian "guest workers" and of an unspecified but very large "Palestinian refuge" population. If there are 3.6MM true Lebanese but 0.8MM Syrian nationals and another 1MM "refuges" then the non-voting foreigners represent a substantial proportion of people there. If the 3.6MM includes the foreigners then there appear to be as many foreigners in Lebanon as Lebanese. Either way I feel sorry for these people.