Beirut Protests

After last week's pro-Syrian Hizbullah demonstration, there was a feeling that maybe the there wasn't much power behind the opposition, and "people power" in general, in Lebanon. After all, the opposition was only able to muster 100,000 people, while Hizbullah's demonstration was more than 500,000 strong. And perhaps the opposition was itself slightly stunned after such a show of force, even if many of the demonstrators were bussed in by Syria.

Today, the opposition responded. According to this article, hundreds of thousands are demonstrating in Beirut demanding "Freedom, sovereignty, independence", on this one month anniversary of the assassination of Hariri. PubliusPundit links to a number of articles showing that it is significantly more than "hundreds of thousands".

Independent estimates placed the number of the opposition demonstration at well over 1.6 million. Highways into Beirut from northern, eastern and southern Lebanon were clogged by human waves stretching more than 5 kilometers from the capital trying to push their way to join the graveside protest.

It is interesting to note that the size of these demonstrations is being downplayed by much of the MSM (NPR referred to the size as "thousands of people"). Leftist blogs, which had been so quick to write about the Hizbullah demonstrations and their size, are so far silent on these latest pro-democracy demonstrations.