Syria's Assad blames foreign plotters for unrest

[Little Tich]

Source: CBC News

President denies orders to shoot at protesters and has no plans to resign

Syria's President Bashar Assad again blamed a "foreign conspiracy" for causing unrest in his country, but he told the nation they are failing.

Assad was giving his first speech Tuesday since agreeing last month to an Arab League plan to halt the government's crackdown on dissent.

He repeated his past claims that a foreign conspiracy is behind the unrest and said: "Nobody is deceived anymore."

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/01/10/syria-assad-speech.html

[ellisonz]

1. Murderer. n/t

[pampango]

2. Aljazeera: Syria's Assad hits out at Arab League

Syria's embattled president Bashar al-Assad has hit out at the Arab League over the organisation's observer mission and other Arab-led efforts aimed at ending the country's months-long deadly unrest. In a speech lasting more than an hour and a half, Assad said the unrest which began last March had inflicted a "heavy cost" and accused "foreign conspirators" of working to destabilise the country.

The League has suspended Syria and sent a team of monitors to assess whether the regime is abiding by an Arab-brokered peace plan agreed to by Assad last month. The moves were seen as humiliating for Syria, which considers itself a leading force of Arab nationalism.

However, Assad said his country would not "close doors" to an Arab-brokered solution to the 10-month crisis as long as it respected Syria's sovereignty.

Striking a defiant tone, Assad urged Syrians to remain steadfast, telling them that "victory is near" and that outside forces had been unable to "find a foothold in the revolution that they had hoped for".

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/01/2012110977499290.html

It's reassuring to know that "outside forces had been unable to "find a foothold in the revolution that they had hoped for"'. That means that the demonstrators represent the true will of the Syrian people.

One wonders if by "respecting Syria's sovereignty" Assad really means "allow me to remain as dictator because my father gave this job to me".

[tabatha]

3. Video: Peaceful protests continue following Assad’s speech

Young kid leads the chanting in Daraa following Bashar al Assad’s speech; Others kick a poster of Bashar with his late father, Hafez al Assad, who took power in 1971 and died in 2000.

[tabatha]

4. Syria’s protesters are on their own

By: Brian Whitaker

The Arab League’s much-heralded meeting to review the “progress” of its monitoring operation in Syria came and went on Sunday with barely a whimper. A few more monitors will be sent but unless Syria agrees to an extension, which seems unlikely, the mission will end on 19 January with the presentation of a report.

It’s difficult to see where the league can go from there, except by admitting failure and passing its files to the United Nations.

When the Assad regime accepted the league’s peace plan last month, after weeks of prevarication, it agreed to end the violence against peaceful protests, withdraw the army from towns, release political prisoners and start a dialogue with the opposition. The ill-prepared monitors were then sent in to assess its compliance.

The regime’s insincerity about this was never in much doubt. Apart from some token gestures it has made no real effort to comply, and the killings and arrests have continued. At the same time, though, the presence of monitors does seem to have emboldened the protesters and helped to keep Syria in the headlines.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/09/syria-protesters-arab-league?CMP=twt_gu

[Odin2005]

5. LOL, sadly, some here would agree with this fucker.

[ferrisd]

6. intersting report

Very sad what is happening in Syria. In the end Assad is going to get the same thing the other dictators received as well: justice. Hopefully it is just a matter of time.


Intersting report I found just now, some actual insights from Syria.

&quot CNN) -- Ever since the Syrian unrest began 10 months ago, it has been difficult for the rest of the world to verify reports from inside the country.

The government has been placing restrictions on international journalists and refusing many of them entry at all.

But just recently, short-term visas were issued to a number of journalists so they could follow the dozens of Arab League monitors already in the country. The journalists' presence was demanded by the Arab League as part of its agreement with Syria, according to Nic Robertson, CNN's senior international correspondent."

read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/09/world/meast/syria-robertson-qa/index.html?hpt=hp_c2