NOVANEWS
I have asked Syrian friends to ask people there to describe their life under Assad to share with the US. Here are some excerpts of one – they all have similar stories of reforms and feelings of safety – and it shows a surprising link between Benghazi and Syria: “I have lived over 20 years in perfect peace and safety. There was almost no crime here at all. No drug dealers, smugglers, bank robbers, car jackers, porno stores, store robberies. The things we worried about here were health problems, or car wrecks.
I can tell you that from 2000 to 2007, the first term of Dr. Bashar Al Assad, he did not make any glaring mistakes, or scandals. He made huge and sweeping reforms and progress. For example: civil servant wages were increased, repeatedly. Hospitals, schools, roads and infrastructure were completed.
When 2007 came, and his term was over, I was really expecting that President Al Assad would make a switch to full democracy, and make a free election, and change the constitution to reflect new ways. But he did not. They followed thru the normal constitutional procedure, and he was re-elected.
I still felt that he was so educated, modern and dynamic, that it was only a matter of time that he would revolutionize Syria, and go with open elections. The term is every 7 years, so he chance would be in 2014.
Then in 2010 a huge natural gas field, largest in the world, was discovered off-shore of Syria. Contracts were signed with Russia to retrieve the gas. Then suddenly, without warning, March 2011 in Deraa, Syria a ‘revolution’ began.
Was it revolution, or was it ‘regime change’ financed by foreign countries, in order to procure that gas field?
The leader of that revolution in Deraa, which is a very tiny, insignificant town on the Jordanian border, was an Islamic cleric. This middle aged man, who had never accomplished anything noteworthy in his life, suddenly was ‘inventing’ freedom in Syria?
Guess where that man lives today? He lives in Benghazi, Libya. What would a middle aged, cleric, from a very tiny town in Syria, be doing thousands of miles away in a totally foreign country, Like Libya, which is even more un-safe to live in than Syria? Why would he move there, of all places on earth?” (pic is of one of many HUGE pro-Assad rallies that never made it on the US media)
I can tell you that from 2000 to 2007, the first term of Dr. Bashar Al Assad, he did not make any glaring mistakes, or scandals. He made huge and sweeping reforms and progress. For example: civil servant wages were increased, repeatedly. Hospitals, schools, roads and infrastructure were completed.
When 2007 came, and his term was over, I was really expecting that President Al Assad would make a switch to full democracy, and make a free election, and change the constitution to reflect new ways. But he did not. They followed thru the normal constitutional procedure, and he was re-elected.
I still felt that he was so educated, modern and dynamic, that it was only a matter of time that he would revolutionize Syria, and go with open elections. The term is every 7 years, so he chance would be in 2014.
Then in 2010 a huge natural gas field, largest in the world, was discovered off-shore of Syria. Contracts were signed with Russia to retrieve the gas. Then suddenly, without warning, March 2011 in Deraa, Syria a ‘revolution’ began.
Was it revolution, or was it ‘regime change’ financed by foreign countries, in order to procure that gas field?
The leader of that revolution in Deraa, which is a very tiny, insignificant town on the Jordanian border, was an Islamic cleric. This middle aged man, who had never accomplished anything noteworthy in his life, suddenly was ‘inventing’ freedom in Syria?
Guess where that man lives today? He lives in Benghazi, Libya. What would a middle aged, cleric, from a very tiny town in Syria, be doing thousands of miles away in a totally foreign country, Like Libya, which is even more un-safe to live in than Syria? Why would he move there, of all places on earth?” (pic is of one of many HUGE pro-Assad rallies that never made it on the US media)
