Assad Waves an ‘Iron Hand’ at Opposition

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Assad Waves an ‘Iron Hand’ at Opposition

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Arab League, shmarab league. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is evidently still unwilling to make room for the possibility that he is in anything resembling a precarious position, as he made a defiant speech on Tuesday in Damascus, blaming foreign media for making him look bad and dissing the Arab League. —KA

AP via ABC News:

“Our priority now is to regain security in which we basked for decades, and this can only be achieved by hitting the terrorists with an iron hand,” Assad said in a nearly two-hour speech to a cheering crowd packed with well-dressed supporters at Damascus University. “We will not be lenient with those who work with outsiders against the country.”

By turns defiant and threatening, Assad has refused to give in to the most serious threat to his family’s 40-year dynasty in Syria. He showed a steely confidence in his speech even as opposition forces said he was dangerously out of touch.

Assad, 46, also lashed out at the Arab League, saying the Cairo-based bloc failed to protect Arab interests. The League has suspended Syria and sent a team of monitors to assess whether the regime is abiding by an Arab-brokered peace plan that Assad agreed to on Dec. 19. The moves were humiliating for Syria, which considers itself a powerhouse of Arab nationalism.

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TAGS: arab league arab spring bashar al-assad damascus egypt france nicolas sarkozy president syria

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By chris massey lynch, January 11, 2012 at 8:35 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/syrias-torture-machine/4od this is a link to the film Syria’s TORTURE MACHINE that was shown on ch4 check it out

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By doughboy, January 11, 2012 at 5:22 am Link to this comment

Wishing to use any and all accusations against Bashar al-Asad, even if out of
context, the prevailing narrative would condemn the Syrian president for doing
what most nations have done already. Counting only the rebels deaths and not
those who support the regime is at the top. We invaded Iraq and Afghanistan in
pursuit of terrorism. Based upon politicians’ rhetoric, we are still at war with
terrorism—to the point of having our government murder US civilians without trial
and placing suspects in indefinite detention. So much for a Constitution. Britain,
France, Germany, Italy and others have used extreme force to destroy groups that
oppose their policies. But, the narrative is about a terrible dictator (the worse
according to Western media sources). If only Syria was more like Yemen or
Bahrain or Saudi Arabia or Iraq or Afghanistan (the last two beneficiaries of our
democratic invasion) or how about our most important trading partner China?
Hypocrisy. Mr. al-Asad is correct that there is a foreign hand behind the
explosion of violence. Enemies of old—relatives, disgruntled government
officials, segments of Lebanon’s groups, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, NATO and its aid to
rebel forces in Turkey and Jordan, as well as the old religious fanatics—have come
together to topple the government. When Bashar is gone, the media will ignore
the disintegration of Syria as quickly as we have disassociated ourselves from the
fragmentation of Iraq.