Assad "jubilant"
This is truly repulsive. Assad of Syria is calling the removal of Morsi a vindication for his horrific attack on his own country. The "jubilant" description comes from the headline of an informative NYT article today.
One must remember that the resistance to Assad's military rule, discrimination against Sunnis, and ruinous economic policies began as peaceful protests. Remember two years ago seeing apparently actually happy protestors marching in the streets of Homs and other cities to make their grievances public. After a short while of tolerating this, Assad put sharpshooters on the roofs of buildings to mow them down. Then he started assaulting towns with abandon, with tank propelled rockets into civilian areas. The most telling report of this was arranged by Richard Engel, the incomparable NBC reporter on the Middle East, who interviewed a senior and older spokesperson for the Assad regime, a spokesperson who reminded me of the Tariq Aziz of Saddam Iraq fame. He was immaculately dressed, spoke perfect English, acted the elder statesman role, and claimed that without question the Assad regime was not attacking Homs. NBC had one quarter of the television screen(upper left) with video of the tanks sending bombs into civilian areas intertwined with the carnage as this interview of an unrepentant liar took place.
Assad created his own Islamist extremist problem, to the extent that there is one, and one could presume there is a big one. This weak lightweight just followed the dictates of veterans of his father's military ideology. Crush any opposition at all brutally and quickly and they will go away. NOW he is jubilant?
What happened in Egypt and Cairo has nothing to do with Assad, nothing to support his actions and his arrogant approach to mass murder, supported by his fashion obsessed wife.
Syria may well end up in Islamist hands eventually given Assad's actions to date. Hopefully not, and both the Islamist groups, the more secular Sunnis, and even the Assad supporters can take some lessons from this Egyptian experience if they choose to think, if that is possible in the Middle East. Being "jubilant" is not one of them.
One must remember that the resistance to Assad's military rule, discrimination against Sunnis, and ruinous economic policies began as peaceful protests. Remember two years ago seeing apparently actually happy protestors marching in the streets of Homs and other cities to make their grievances public. After a short while of tolerating this, Assad put sharpshooters on the roofs of buildings to mow them down. Then he started assaulting towns with abandon, with tank propelled rockets into civilian areas. The most telling report of this was arranged by Richard Engel, the incomparable NBC reporter on the Middle East, who interviewed a senior and older spokesperson for the Assad regime, a spokesperson who reminded me of the Tariq Aziz of Saddam Iraq fame. He was immaculately dressed, spoke perfect English, acted the elder statesman role, and claimed that without question the Assad regime was not attacking Homs. NBC had one quarter of the television screen(upper left) with video of the tanks sending bombs into civilian areas intertwined with the carnage as this interview of an unrepentant liar took place.
Assad created his own Islamist extremist problem, to the extent that there is one, and one could presume there is a big one. This weak lightweight just followed the dictates of veterans of his father's military ideology. Crush any opposition at all brutally and quickly and they will go away. NOW he is jubilant?
What happened in Egypt and Cairo has nothing to do with Assad, nothing to support his actions and his arrogant approach to mass murder, supported by his fashion obsessed wife.
Syria may well end up in Islamist hands eventually given Assad's actions to date. Hopefully not, and both the Islamist groups, the more secular Sunnis, and even the Assad supporters can take some lessons from this Egyptian experience if they choose to think, if that is possible in the Middle East. Being "jubilant" is not one of them.
posted by John Borden at 5:30 PM
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