I went down there without an escort, without a guide, with no one to introduce me to anyone else just to see what would happen. Would I be welcome? Thought of as too nosy? Suspected of being a trouble-maker? Not likely. Not from the look of the place.

I slung my camera around my neck and walked up to the edge of the camp looking as much like an "aw shucks" American tourist as possible. A military jeep with machine gun barrels poking out the sides like pins stuck in a cushion roared past. A man in his thirties saw me poking around and walked up to the edge. He wore a red baseball cap and a "Timberland" t-shirt affixed with a pin of Walid Jumblatt, Druze leader and head of the Progressive Socialist Party.

"Bon jour!" he said.

"Bon jour" I said back.

"Parlez vous Francaise?"

"No," I said. "Anglais?"

"No," he said and laughed. "Arabie?"

"No," I said and laughed.

Then he beckoned me in, pulled up a chair, and told me to sit. He summoned some of his friends: another man in his thirties, a kid who wasn't a day older than fifteen, and a shy quiet woman in her fifties. I assumed the rest were Druze, too, but I couldn't ask. None of them spoke any English.

The man with the pin of Jumblatt poured me some Turkish coffee in a small plastic cup from a silver pot. We all sat in a circle and smiled, sipping our coffee and enjoying the shade from the sun. We couldn't talk to each other. But somehow it wasn't awkward. They expected nothing from me. They just wanted me to feel comfortable and welcome among them. And I did.

Two more of their friends came over, both young men in their twenties. They spoke excellent English.

"Welcome to Lebanon!" they said.

"Thank you," I said. "This is a wonderful country."

Talk turned instantly to politics, as it almost always does here. A Lebanese-American I met in a restaurant told me it has always been this way in Lebanon. It's not just because of the upheaval now.

I wanted to make sure these guys knew a huge cross-section of the American people support what they are doing.

"It feels kinda weird, man" Hisham said.

"Why?" I said.

"Because we don't know what you want from us. What's in it for you?"

"Look," I said. "We live in a free country."

"Oh yes, I know," Hashim's friend said. "We really envy you for what you have."

"So we want you to be free, too," I said. "Americans hate dictatorship and oppression. No one should have to live like that. You're fighting for what we believe in, so of course we support you."

They seemed slightly wary, like I was blowing smoke.

"Okay," Hashim said. "Who decides what kind of freedom we have in Lebanon?"

"You," I said and pointed at him personally.

"Yes!" he said. "Who decides what kind of freedom people will have in Iraq?"

"Iraqis," I said.

"Yes!" he said. He then took out a card and wrote his name, phone number, and email address on the back of it. He handed it to me, shook my hand, and said "You have a friend in Lebanon now. You will always be welcome here."

Later, inside a different tent, a young woman took me aside. And she said: "I must tell you something. If we didn't think we had American support we would never have done this. They would kill us. We need you. It is just a fact."

In his book From Beirut to Jerusalem Thomas Friedman quotes Lebanese writer Fouad Ajami:

"The Lebanese, like all Middle Easterners, are a people with a vivid imagination. That is why a great power should never wink at anyone in the Middle East. Small winks speak big things here. You wink at Ariel Sharon and he goes all the way to Beirut. You wink at Amin Gemayel and he tries to invade the Shiite suburbs of Beirut."

The U.S. and Europe are both winking - big time - at Lebanon now. We had better be serious. I get the impression the Lebanese have no idea how important their tiny country's struggle is to the rest of the world. And I wonder if Americans and Europeans have any idea how powerfully the tiniest word of support, even in a politician's throw-away line at a press conference, resonates here.

This country has nine hundred pounds of significance, but it is miniscule in actual size. Seattle is not only larger than Beirut, it is larger than all of Lebanon. The smallest smidge of support - moral, verbal, or material - has a bigger impact here than you can imagine if you're far away.

If you care about the people of Lebanon, if their victory - by no means assured at this point - over terror and dictatorship is important to you, please help us help them. You can donate as little as five dollars, or as much as you can afford. A donation from you is more than just charity. They are fighting for all of us here.