How Bashar al-Assad fooled the world

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http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/15/opinion/ghitis-syria-assad/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Editor's note: Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist for The Miami Herald and World Politics Review. A former CNN producer/correspondent, she is the author of "The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television."

(CNN) -- One long, brutal year has passed since the Syrian people launched their revolution, demanding an end to the dictatorship of President Bashar al-Assad. Since then, the regime has killed at least 8,000 people, according to the U.N., and it has sent the rest of the world a quiet but blunt message: You are fools.

Fools because much of the world fell for, and even participated in, al-Assad's manipulative, decade-long game in which he portrayed himself as a modernizer and reformer.

But now we know what al-Assad really thought about reform. In his own, ultramodern shorthand: LOL.

From the day he came to power in 2000, al-Assad, a London-educated ophthalmologist, has used the media and massaged the egos of politicians to put forth the fiction that he would bring freedom and openness to Syria. But the charade started to come apart one year ago.

If the massacres committed by Syrian forces on his behalf had not provided enough proof that the image was all fake, a new trove of private e-mails confirms just how far Western observers had missed the mark when they judged the lanky doctor-turned-dictator as one of the good guys.

The Guardian obtained 3,000 e-mails from private accounts used by the president, under the address [email protected], and his wife, Asma, as [email protected].

The Guardian says the e-mails, which were provided by a Syrian opposition source, are verified as real by many of its correspondents. They confirm that Bashar and his stylish, British-born wife are keenly tuned into the modern world. They shop extravagantly online and consume mass-market cultural fare such as Harry Potter, "America's Got Talent" and country music.

Their e-mail discussions about shoes, jewelry, chandeliers and fondue pots, along with ideas about how to put down the uprising and how to spin the events for foreign audiences, occurred between June and February, as forces loyal to al-Assad slaughtered thousands of mostly unarmed protesters.

In one e-mail, al-Assad laughs at democratic reforms. When his wife tells him she'll come home early one day, he quips, "This is the best reform any country can have that u told me where will you be, we are going to adopt it instead of the rubbish laws of parties, elections, media ..."

Other e-mails show one of al-Assad's media advisers, Shererazad Jaafari, whose father is Syria's U.N. ambassador, helping arrange interviews with American networks such as ABC and dealing with CNN.

Al-Assad joked with Hadeel al-Ali, one of his media consultants, while Arab League monitors were in Syria seeking to bring an end to the carnage. Al-Assad ridiculed the mission, sending al-Ali a YouTube parody of the violence that uses children's toys. "Check out this video," he wrote. She responded with, "Hahahahahahaha, OMG!!!"

If there is any hint that al-Assad has any misgivings about the human cost of his political survival, it comes in an e-mail that attaches an iTunes download of a country song by Blake Shelton, with the lyrics written out for Asma: "I've been a walking heartache / I've made a mess of me / The person that I've been lately / Ain't who I wanna be."

Al-Assad and his wife have been deftly playing international public opinion from the beginning. A Washington Post article in April 2000, a few weeks before he became president, describes him as "soft-spoken and congenial, a fan of Faith Hill and Phil Collins ... mapping his own path by trying to address the social and economic demands of the next generation." Two months later, The New York Times explained that "thanks to an orchestrated campaign in the state news media to credit him with fighting corruption and promoting a more open economy, Dr. Assad also is seen as a beacon of hope for a new, more relaxed Syria."

The image held for years, even if the reforms never quite arrived. In 2005, the Bush administration withdrew the American ambassador to Syria, and European countries froze relations with Damascus for its role in the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

But the Obama administration and many in the Washington establishment and in Europe still believed that al-Assad was a closet reformer. As recently as April, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said members of both parties "believe he's a reformer." And Sen. John Kerry, who has met al-Assad about half a dozen times, said he expected that al-Assad would enact meaningful reforms.

Over the years, al-Assad's wife, Asma, cast a spell on the media. In February 2011, Vogue magazine published a glowing spread about the fashionable first lady entitled "A Rose in the Desert." The article explained that "In Syria, power is hereditary" but called the al-Assads "wildly democratic."

Asma has always been key element of the propaganda effort. Former Bush administration official Flynt Leverett praised al-Assad, saying, "I think who a man marries says a good deal about him." The first lady, he said, "is going to bring exposure to absolute world-class standards and practices in the globalized economy of the 21st century."

Clearly, Bashar and Asma al-Assad are creatures of the modern world. They watch YouTube videos, shop online and use secret e-mail pseudonyms. I bet they're buying the latest iPads. But those in the West who believed that their modernity meant they would bring democratic reform got it all wrong.

What their experience in the West taught them was not a love of democracy and human rights. Instead, it showed them how to manipulate the media and how to create an image that would let them rule by the old-fashioned ways of dictatorship: by imprisoning and killing opponents. Anyone who believed otherwise was taken for a fool.
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These people make me sick! :mad:
 
Why is it that people in power can't even write properly?

Why do sociopaths gravitate towards the top?
 
Nah, it's fine dude. As long as it's not americans doing it ;)
 
killadoob said:
Read this article guys and tell me what you think

http://tomorrowsnews.net/?p=2384
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What I think is you should get a new life and stop believing all the one-sided BS you love to believe. I am 100% sure you also believe in the 911 conspiracy ;)

@bout the OP: All fanatical and mad dictators cum oppressors should be crucified. But waht to do about Putin, the devil in disguise. I actually like the guy but i think he is more dangerous and clever than most believe he is.
 
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'I'm the real dictator,' declares Assad's wife

http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/2012/03/20/i-m-the-real-dictator-declares-assad-s-wife

Asma al-Assad, the British-born wife of Syria's president, told a friend she was the "real dictator" in the family, according to leaked e-mails that suggest she holds a cherished place in the leader's inner circle.

Despite the ambitions she expressed before the uprising for liberalising Syria, Assad, 36, displays no misgivings about the regime's bloody crackdown, which has accounted for most of the estimated 8000 lives lost.

Her correspondence with Bashar al-Assad, his aides, friends and family portrays her as highly supportive of her husband.

In an e-mail to a family friend on January 10, she praised a speech the president gave for conveying a sense of being "very strong; no more messing around".

In another, she complains that ABC News unfavourably edited an interview with him.

On January 17, she circulated an e-mail cracking a joke at the expense of the people of Homs, shortly before a regime onslaught that would claim hundreds of lives there.

The people of the city have long been the target of derision by other Syrians.

Asma al-Assad's "dictator" comment was made partly in jest during an exchange with a friend about how much attention spouses typically pay to each other.

"As for listening, I'm the real dictator, he has no choice ..." she wrote on December 14. Her use of the word "dictator" in reference to her husband suggests that she understands how others regard him.

Reuters reports that rebels fought government forces in Damascus yesterday in the most violent gun battles the Syrian capital has experienced since the start of the year-long revolt against Assad.
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Finally hackers are going after people who deserved to be hacked! Good find. Only someone pretty disgusting will still support Assad in anyway.
 
Can you really call it "hacking" when their e-mail password was "123456"? :D
 
Guantanamo said:
God I hope you are joking.
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Sorry, I got it wrong, his password was "12345" ;)

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...nts-email-hacked-his-password-was-12345.shtml

Syrian President's Email Hacked... His Password Was 12345
from the kind-of-thing-an-idiot-would-have-on-his-luggage dept
Well, this is rather incredible. With the news that Anonymous hacked the offices of the Syrian President and dumped a ton of emails online... comes the news that the hack was insanely easy. Why? Because, apparently, the password was 12345. No joke. Of course, that's considered one of the worst passwords of all time. And, as pointed out by Lauren Weinstein, this is the exact same password that was immortalized by Dark Helmet (the original one, rather than our local Techdirt hero) as being the stupidest password he's ever heard -- and the "kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!"
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[video=youtube;JSZTPuJ14Ro]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JSZTPuJ14Ro[/video]
 
/facepalm

i seriously hope that this is propaganda, or that man is not fit to run a country. he sounds like 90% of most mybb members :erm:
 
I have no idea how to handle any of this news. The media seems bias in both views, I'm reading things that make no sense. It's like it's an information war with both sides covering things up :erm:
 
smalltownsky said:
I have no idea how to handle any of this news. The media seems bias in both views, I'm reading things that make no sense. It's like it's an information war with both sides covering things up :erm:
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There is no way to tell who is lying but use the western logic perhaps.

The west says it, so it's true and anything else are lies. Then you will know without doubt like gary and co.
 
killadoob said:
There is no way to tell who is lying but use the western logic perhaps.

The west says it, so it's true and anything else are lies. Then you will know without doubt like gary and co.
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from what i've read of the western reports it's as if they're making the situation appear worse than it actually is. i mean people are dying, but i've read reports where they make it sound like a massacre and that people aren't fighting back, i originally thought that this was genocide from the reports i had seen, now i see that it's quelling of rebels. i also see that it wasn't Assad's email alone, but other individuals also whose password was set to 12345, which sounds like incredibly pathetic IT infrastructure.

He always just came across as smarter than the emails that are coming out make him to be, I mean my partner and I send out more formal emails than he does, to our family :erm:
 
smalltownsky said:
from what i've read of the western reports it's as if they're making the situation appear worse than it actually is. i mean people are dying, but i've read reports where they make it sound like a massacre and that people aren't fighting back, i originally thought that this was genocide from the reports i had seen, now i see that it's quelling of rebels. i also see that it wasn't Assad's email alone, but other individuals also whose password was set to 12345, which sounds like incredibly pathetic IT infrastructure.

He always just came across as smarter than the emails that are coming out make him to be, I mean my partner and I send out more formal emails than he does, to our family :erm:
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Well i also see it as the west making things out to be more than they are, all the deaths in syria come across as massacres with no rebels being killed but constant reports of fighting make me think otherwise.

Also he has not allowed the media in which makes it a bit dodge but i would not trust the likes of cnn and co after the iraq debacle.
 
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