The protest vs. the "protest"

1) The first (anti-Syrian) protest was illegal; they risked being machine-gunned to death just for showing up.

2) The second (pro-Syrian) "protest" was not only condoned and heavily armed, but supported by (and comprised of) the very people who would have been machine-gunning protest #1 if not for world media attention and the fact that a few hours away there are 165,000 troops from a military superpower led by a man who just said he was going to stand with democratic reformers