IS SYRIA ABOUT TO PULL A GEORGIA ON LEBANON?

It sure as hell looks that way.

Syria has deployed military forces along its northern Lebanon border and Beirut officials now fear an incursion is imminent, according to a report in The Times.

Damascus has insisted its forces are involved in an anti-smuggling operation along the border, yet the Lebanese Government is braced for the first incursion since Syrian forces pulled out three years ago.

Beirut believes the unusual scale of the operation is connected to tensions between the two countries over recent sectarian clashes in northern Lebanon.

"People around here are worried. We don't know why the Syrians have arrived like this," said 18-year-old Ali, a farmer in the tiny hillside hamlet of Hekr Janin overlooking the border,told The Times.

Lebanese media report that 8000 to 10,000 Syrian special forces have taken up positions along some of the hills overlooking the Kabir river on the border.

Sunnis populate much of northern Lebanon and most of them are supporters of the Future Movement, headed by Saad Hariri, the son and political heir of Rafik Hariri, whose 2005 assassination is widely blamed on Syria.

Mahmoud, Vladmir, Hugo and now these douchebags. Games dictators play. It's far past time to smack these asshats down. Alas, these people know the US is involved in other military affairs. More importantly, they know that Europe will do nothing under any circumstance and that our friends the Democrats have systematically crippled our ability to fuel ourselves with our own oil. We're closer to World War III than many want to believe. Frankly, given that there is no other country that than the US with the will or the means to confront fascists bent on dominating world energy resources, I think it's a war we're destined to lose.