BartBlog

I’m here in Syria right now, and one of the big questions that journalists are asking both here and in America seems to be, “Is President Bashar Assad a good guy or a bad guy?”
Hard to tell.
Some people love him and some people hate him. As for me? I have mixed feelings about Assad.
I’m over in Damascus this week to serve as an observer for Syria’s presidential election. And I have discovered a few things so far:
First, under Assad’s government, anyone can get free medical care, free cancer medicine and a free eduction up through college — and with no usurious student loans attached either. To paraphrase the famous Pussycat Dolls, “Dontcha wish America’s government was hot like that!”
Second, after American and NATO militarists spent billions of dollars on sponsoring Al Qaeda and various other Islamic inquisitionalist/terrorist groups and those responsible for 9-11, and then encouraging these creepy guys to terrorize, brutalize and butcher Syrian civilians, bomb 300 Syrian schools and seize Syrian oil fields, then guess what the logical result might be? “Now Syrians really really really do not like the American powers that be.” Got it in one.
And so yet another country that used to be friendly to the USA now bites the dust. Yet another country now joins a really really really long list of other countries all over the world who already hate hate hate the American military-industrial complex. Wall Street and War Street.
Assad used to go along to get along with Wall Street and War Street. But those days are now long gone.
Now Assad and the Syrian people are fighting for their lives against a well-armed and well-trained group of brutal and fanatical butchers who are (literally in some cases) cannibalizing Syria.
If you were a Syrian citizen, who would you vote for in this election? What would you do if it was your home, your family and your city being attacked? I think that the answer is obvious. http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/06/03/365384/bombs-and-ballots-in-damascus/
So. Here I am in Damascus, being an official election observer — as compared to those other unofficial foreign-fighter/terrorist/fanatic election observers from 87 countries who are here as guests of the U.S., Britain, Turkey, France and Saudi Arabia. And these brutal unofficial election observers’ instructions are simple. “Off with their heads!”
But hopefully mine will still remain attached.
PS: I am so honored to be here now in this joyful time of the Syrian elections — but I don’t really have the time or technology to write about all the amazing things that I have seen and heard here. But after I have digested all the intake I’ve absorbed recently in this amazing country, I do plan to write about it in more depth — and after I can get access to a larger keyboard of course.