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Speaker 1: Hmm, what's committing my war crimes? I'm Robert Evans hosted

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Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards, uh, the show where we tell you

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Speaker 1: everything you don't know about very worst people in all

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Speaker 1: of history. My guest today is Anna Hosnia. Anna, how

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Speaker 1: are you doing? Hello? That's my that's my impression of

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Speaker 1: the bastard we're talking about today. Oh good? Oh that

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Speaker 1: was that was a solid one. Yeah, we're we're talking

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Speaker 1: about Bashar al Assad. Did you like my did you

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Speaker 1: like my themed introduction? Yeah? I did. Actually, that was

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Speaker 1: really wonderful. Thank you, Thank you. A lot of war

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Speaker 1: crime stands in the audience today, Uh, now, Anna is yeah,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, man, a lot of big fans of war crimes. Uh.

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Speaker 1: I'm not really sure where this joke is supposed to go.

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Speaker 1: I guess I can see why you'd be a fan

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Speaker 1: of a war crime. All right, go on. Weirdly enough,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about a guy who has a lot of

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Speaker 1: fans in spite of his war crimes. So what how

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Speaker 1: do you feel about Bashar al Assad? Um? You know,

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Speaker 1: if you ever listen ethnically ambigue as the podcast I host,

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Speaker 1: I talk a lot about how I feel like this

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Speaker 1: all one I came. It all comes down to bad

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Speaker 1: parenting and having a small penis that you are ashamed of,

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Speaker 1: so you take it out on murdering everyone in your country. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that seems like a credible explanation for his war crimes.

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Speaker 1: Small penis bad dead. We'll see if you change your

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Speaker 1: mind at all as we as we go through the

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Speaker 1: episode and talk about his background. All right, I think

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Speaker 1: this is probably the hardest episode of the show for

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Speaker 1: me to write, because I get really angry whenever I

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Speaker 1: read about or think about Bashar al Assad. And I

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Speaker 1: got angry enough that I just like got on Twitter

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Speaker 1: and provoked a fight with a bunch of tankies, which

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Speaker 1: are which are people on the left who defend any

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Speaker 1: war criminal who's not American, and it's it's they're very

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Speaker 1: frustrating people. So that's a weird like subsection of you

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Speaker 1: pull on the left. Why why would you want to

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Speaker 1: die on that hill? They love Twitter though, a lot

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Speaker 1: of them, a lot of them on Twitter. So I

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Speaker 1: guess I'll start reading from my little scripty scripty dude

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Speaker 1: here scripted. I thought you just kind of like he

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Speaker 1: just free bays it off the dom. I've got. I

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Speaker 1: just write some lines down on my hand and then

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Speaker 1: talk for I have very small handwriting, so you can

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Speaker 1: fit about an hour per hand, you know, very like

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Speaker 1: me Mento, but on bastards. It is because I wake

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Speaker 1: up every morning forgetting everything about every bad person in history.

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Speaker 1: Like I couldn't tell you a single thing about Hitler,

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Speaker 1: just the names in my head. For some reason, it's

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Speaker 1: a total mystery. But you know, yeah, that's what We're

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Speaker 1: too familiar. But go ahead. I'm also trying to figure

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Speaker 1: out who killed my wife. Might have been Hitler. That's Memento, right, dude,

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Speaker 1: where is my wife? You know? Classic Hitler line. In

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Speaker 1: the summer of two thousand fifteen, I found myself crossing

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Speaker 1: the Serbian Hungarian border on foot and walking along what

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Speaker 1: was then known as the Refugee Trail. That year, more

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Speaker 1: than a million people, mostly Syrians, fled the blood and

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Speaker 1: chaos of war in the hope of a better life.

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Speaker 1: Over the course of several long days, I helped hand

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Speaker 1: out food and water and advice on where to find

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Speaker 1: holes in the Hungarian border fence. Through it all, I

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Speaker 1: interviewed at least a couple of hundred Syrians citizens, men

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Speaker 1: and women, young and old, anybody who spoke English. They

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Speaker 1: told me horrible stories of barrel bombs killing multiple members

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Speaker 1: of their family in the same day, of torture and

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Speaker 1: regime prisons, of chemical weapons attacks, and the horror of

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Speaker 1: picking up pieces of their neighbors and hauling them away

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Speaker 1: in bags after a bombing. I did the thing it's

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Speaker 1: my job to do, and I wrote about it, and

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Speaker 1: then I went home and I wrote about other things,

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Speaker 1: completely unaware that inside of my own country, a sizeable

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Speaker 1: number of Americans on the left and the right, we're

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Speaker 1: already hard at work rewriting the story of the Syrians

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Speaker 1: Civil War into a tale where the dictator but shar

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Speaker 1: Al Assad was somehow the hero or at least not

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Speaker 1: the very worst guy involved in the whole thing. Uh,

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Speaker 1: some of my listeners may have been probably we have

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Speaker 1: heard variations of that story, especially if you're you're on

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Speaker 1: the far left. So if you're a fan of my

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Speaker 1: show and you're you think, but Charlissa, it's an okay, dude,

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Speaker 1: which is a thing. For some reason, I just asked

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Speaker 1: that you you listen through this till the end and

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Speaker 1: maybe maybe learn a couple of things about this fella.

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Speaker 1: I'm honestly very still stuck on the fact that anyone

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Speaker 1: would think he's a good guy. That's really crazy to me.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm going to need more in full on that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's uh, And I think it's more common to be

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Speaker 1: a little bit fair than instead of saying he's a

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Speaker 1: good guy, they'll say that like he's not nearly as

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Speaker 1: bad as these Lamaster whoever. And it's like, yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: isis is pretty bad, but they didn't kill nearly as

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Speaker 1: many people as char Elasad, Like, I mean, just from

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Speaker 1: what I remember talking about on our own show, it's like,

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Speaker 1: which I'm sure you'll get into, but just like buildings

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Speaker 1: full of body parts, yeah, just unexplained missing people. There's

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Speaker 1: a whole genre of pictures from the Syrian Civil War

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Speaker 1: that's just bags that are are very small, that is

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Speaker 1: like this is a person, Like this is what's left

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Speaker 1: after Yeah, anyway. Bihar al Assad was born on September eleventh,

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five, So we're off to a great start

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Speaker 1: with a great birth date. He was the quintessential middle child,

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Speaker 1: the third of five children. His father, a dude named

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Speaker 1: Hafez al Assad, was a commander in the Syrian Air

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Speaker 1: Force and a powerful man in the Baths political party

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Speaker 1: that had come to power in Syria in nineteen sixty three.

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Speaker 1: Now the Boss are a pan Arab quasi socialist party,

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Speaker 1: although trying to equate both is m directly with any

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Speaker 1: Western political ideology is a little bit of a fools

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Speaker 1: game in my opinion. Uh, Bashar's mother, Anissa, came from

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Speaker 1: a prominent Syrian family, so Bachar grew up with power,

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Speaker 1: wealth and influence. Uh never never, didn't know that, um,

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Speaker 1: But he also grew up as a member of a

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Speaker 1: persecuted minority. The Assad's are an olive white family, which is,

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Speaker 1: the Oloids are a set active Shia Islam that a

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Speaker 1: lot of other Muslims consider heretical for reasons that I

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Speaker 1: don't fully understand. All whites make up about ten percent

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Speaker 1: of the Syrian population. They were traditionally very poor and oppressed,

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Speaker 1: and Bashar's dad, Hafez, is one of those dictators who

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Speaker 1: grew up very, very poor and had to like claw

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Speaker 1: for everything he got in life, kind of like Saddam Hussein.

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Speaker 1: Based on my understanding, his family got into power through

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Speaker 1: a kudata, right, yeah, I mean sort of. It was

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Speaker 1: a little more gradual than that. So by the time.

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Speaker 1: But when Bashar was born, Hafez was not in power,

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Speaker 1: but Hafez was a prominent man, and the bothists were

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Speaker 1: in power. Um. And because the ola Whites, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's the same thing in the United States, members of

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Speaker 1: minority communities, blacks and Hispanics, but also like gay and

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Speaker 1: trans people serve in the military at a much higher

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Speaker 1: rate than the general population because it's a route to

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Speaker 1: not only better economic conditions, but also to like a

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Speaker 1: societal's acceptance for traditionally persecuted groups. And it was the

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Speaker 1: same with the Olive whites in pre Bath Syria so well,

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Speaker 1: the Olio Whites were only about ten percent of the

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Speaker 1: Syrian population that were really overrepresented in the military. And

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Speaker 1: so that is part of how the boss Is coup

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Speaker 1: was successful in sixty three, and Hafez wasn't in charge

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Speaker 1: at that point, but during the coup he wound up

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Speaker 1: in a very high position. How you do it, that's

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Speaker 1: how you do it. So that's where we are right now. Um.

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Speaker 1: While Bachar was still a muling little infant, his father

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Speaker 1: became the Syrian defense minister. Now, Hafez was an incredibly smart,

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Speaker 1: hard fisted political operator, Henry Kissinger considered him a cunning

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Speaker 1: opponent at the negotiating table, and whatever else you say

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Speaker 1: about Henry Kissinger that that means something. Uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: he's negotiated with pretty much everybody who has a Wikipedia

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Speaker 1: page in the in the twentieth century, like um, Hafez

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Speaker 1: seized power gradually and the chaos that came after the

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Speaker 1: disastrous nineteen sixty seven Arab Israeli War and then after

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Speaker 1: a failed attempt to encourage a coup in Jordan in

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy. Haffez's coup at home him is generally considered

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Speaker 1: to have been bloodless. It's euphemistically known as the corrective movement.

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Speaker 1: So that's how Hefez comes to power, is like, we

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Speaker 1: tried a bunch of stuff that didn't work. I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: make ship work. I'm gonna I'm gonna. I'm gonna fix

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Speaker 1: this stuff, don't you worry. Yeah, So now Hafez is

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Speaker 1: in power. Bars like five years old at this point,

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Speaker 1: so such pretty pretty we Yeah, with such confidence, I

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Speaker 1: would never get it well with Hafez. I get the

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Speaker 1: confidence a little bit more because he's this dude who

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Speaker 1: really did grow up like dirt, poor and had to

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Speaker 1: like fight for political power and stuff. So you get

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Speaker 1: why a guy like that, Guy like that doesn't survive

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Speaker 1: unless he's got that kind of just like gut level confidence.

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Speaker 1: But he's the only one in this story who worked

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Speaker 1: for anything, right. Yeah. Now, prior to Heffez, Syria had

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Speaker 1: suffered under a revolving door of unstable and effective regimes,

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Speaker 1: beset by constant military and domestic defeats and bungles. Hafez

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Speaker 1: promised to change all that, but first he promised himself

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Speaker 1: that he would die as the supreme ruler of Syria.

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Speaker 1: To do this, he established an intricately interwoven net of

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Speaker 1: fifteen security agencies, all of them tasked one away or

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Speaker 1: another with monitoring and crushing dissent both within the government

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Speaker 1: and within the populace. We will be referring to this

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Speaker 1: tangled web of secret and not so secret police as

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Speaker 1: the mukabarat, which I hope I'm pronouncing close to correct. Uh.

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Speaker 1: That's the Arabic word for intelligence. It's used generally in

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Speaker 1: a number of Arabic nations to refer to repressive police

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Speaker 1: state agencies. It's also the specific name of the military

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Speaker 1: Intelligence Directorate of Syria. But for the purpose of this

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Speaker 1: episode will be using the mukabra as a broader term

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Speaker 1: for just like the secret police. You know, that's that's uh.

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Speaker 1: The people in Iraq called Saddam's police by the same thing.

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Speaker 1: It's still one of those terms that like, if you

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Speaker 1: know any iraqis like sence chills up people's spines, just

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Speaker 1: like hearing that word yeah, it's it's yeah, it's a

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Speaker 1: it's a bad word. I'd go so far as to say, um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I'm getting it more or less close

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Speaker 1: to right, but you know, it's hard to say Arabic stuff.

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Speaker 1: The only thing. Yeah, Anyway, Fest came to power when

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Speaker 1: I was about five years old, so virtually his whole

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Speaker 1: life has been as the son of a man who,

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Speaker 1: for all intents and purposes, was king of Syria. I

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Speaker 1: found a good Financial Times article that discusses a book

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Speaker 1: called The New Lion of Damascus, which was a vaguely

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Speaker 1: pro a sad book written before the Civil War by

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Speaker 1: an academic named David Lesh, who will be hearing from later.

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Speaker 1: In the book quote, the Syrian leader describes his upbringing

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Speaker 1: as normal, insisting he played soccer with neighborhood children ping

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Speaker 1: pong with his father and his friends mothers came home

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Speaker 1: to chat and cook meals with his mother and Missa.

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Speaker 1: We had two very caring parents, and our happiness derived

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Speaker 1: from having these two caring parents. Assad tells Lesh. But

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Speaker 1: to what extent was Bshar telling the truth? And what

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Speaker 1: did normality mean to him? There was nothing normal about

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Speaker 1: their life, quips a family friend. The children rarely saw

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Speaker 1: their father and they were always protected by bodyguards. Abdel

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Speaker 1: Halim Kadam, the former vice president who resigned in left

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Speaker 1: Syria in two thousand and five, says, the Assad children

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Speaker 1: grew up in an atmosphere where they were targets, but

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Speaker 1: also felt as if they owned the country. So I

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Speaker 1: got a few conflicting views there about how the Assads

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Speaker 1: grew up. I know which one I find credible? Which

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Speaker 1: one the one where he and his brothers and sisters

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Speaker 1: their dad great parents. Let me tell you shocking that

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Speaker 1: a dictator, You know, you don't run into a lot

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Speaker 1: of dictators who were super hands on parents. Yeah, A

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Speaker 1: great way to get your dictator father's attention is to

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Speaker 1: um kill everyone, which is one of the weird things. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean Assad grew up to kill everyone. Um, they're

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Speaker 1: not the kind of dictator kids. Like I'll say this

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Speaker 1: for Hafez, like they're not the word. Well, it's hard

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Speaker 1: to say because, like you, part of me wants to

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Speaker 1: say that the worst case scenario for a tater's kids

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Speaker 1: is like Saddam's son, who was just like raping and

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Speaker 1: murdering for years, but like you know, he probably never

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Speaker 1: killed more than maybe a couple of thousand people, like

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Speaker 1: because he just preferred to rape and murder people with

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Speaker 1: his own hands. Um, whereas Assad killed a lot more people. Um,

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Speaker 1: so I guess so like who's chiller, you know, like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: who's chiller? Who's the cooler dude? Do? Yeah? Do we

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Speaker 1: go with like Ude Hussein orshar Al Assad? Like you know,

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Speaker 1: it's really up in the air at this point because

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Speaker 1: like I doubt us. I doubt al Asad's uh ever

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Speaker 1: raped anybody at gunpoint, which Ude Hussein did for like breakfast. Um,

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Speaker 1: but honestly I get but was a little bit more

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Speaker 1: like a little more uppity. I can imagine I'm being

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Speaker 1: very high mane and he's like, oh no, I need

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Speaker 1: to wash my hands, Like I imagine just being very

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Speaker 1: like like he just cry babing about every little aspect

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Speaker 1: of his life needing to be exactly how he needs

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Speaker 1: it to be. So does that, yeah, does that make

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Speaker 1: him like a worse person than the day who would

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Speaker 1: like at least if Ude is going to murder some people,

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Speaker 1: he's going to pick up an a K forty seven

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Speaker 1: and like shoot them in the face, like from three

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Speaker 1: ft away because he doesn't give a fuck like we

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Speaker 1: team Dream yeah, or I mean, are we team Saddam's

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Speaker 1: parenting or team huff as his parenting Battle of the

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Speaker 1: Dictator Dad's Yeah. So Assad was a Bashar Al Assad

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Speaker 1: was a child of the Cold War. He grew up

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Speaker 1: knowing that he and his people were, you know, one

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Speaker 1: fairly small player in a game board dominated by the

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Speaker 1: U S and the U S s r H. He

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Speaker 1: also saw two Arab Israeli wars as a child, both

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Speaker 1: of which were disastrous for the Arab side of that equation.

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Speaker 1: All this had an impact on the growing Assad, but

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Speaker 1: the most significant historical event of his childhood was probably

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Speaker 1: his father's bombing of the city of Hamma. Now, this

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Speaker 1: happened in night at the end of a long and

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Speaker 1: grinding Sunni rebellion. As a way of ending the fighting

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Speaker 1: with an exclamation point, Huffez pounded the city flat with

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Speaker 1: artillery for days, and then sent bulldozers in to flatten

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Speaker 1: the rubble and anyone buried underneath it. Roughly twenty thousand

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Speaker 1: human beings were murdered in just a couple of incredibly

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Speaker 1: bloody days. The Hamma massacre was until recently, the single

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Speaker 1: deadliest assault by an Arab ruler on his own people

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Speaker 1: in modern history, beating even the Halabja massacre of Saddam

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Speaker 1: Hussein Um. A Guardian writer who witnessed some of the

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Speaker 1: massacre titled his coverage Assad Goes Beyond the Point of

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Speaker 1: No Return, which would not be the last time a

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Speaker 1: reporter mistakenly believed that an Assad had gone beyond the

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Speaker 1: point of no return. Um. Yeah, Like that headline could

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Speaker 1: be used six hundred more times. Yeah. Yeah, there's been

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Speaker 1: what three hundred chemical weapons of strikes in the Assad regime.

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Speaker 1: You could really put that after each one. This has

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Speaker 1: gotta be introl see control v okay, Yeah, copy past that.

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Speaker 1: I do feel like as journalists we have to retire

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Speaker 1: point of no return because it's the same thing with

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Speaker 1: Trump that he keep doing something and be like, oh this,

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Speaker 1: there's no coming back from this, and it's like stop

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Speaker 1: saying that. You don't know, nobody knows. It's almost tempting

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Speaker 1: them to go further, like, well no, yeah, I feel

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Speaker 1: like the only time that's ever been justified is when

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Speaker 1: fucking Hitler shot himself. Then that's it. Yeah, he would,

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Speaker 1: that's the point in our return. Yeah, okay, fair yeah,

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Speaker 1: fair use for that title. God, what a way to

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Speaker 1: go out to be like, oh, I'll just let use off.

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Speaker 1: It's like, oh my god, yea out here and show

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Speaker 1: your face. At least Saddam went out like a g

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Speaker 1: screaming at everybody before they hung him. You know, I

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Speaker 1: guess I'm on. I'm definitely on team Saddam as opposed

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Speaker 1: to Team Hitler. But I feel like nobody but Nazis

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Speaker 1: is ever on team Hitler. So you know, that's a

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Speaker 1: tough one. I don't know if I'll touch that one.

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Speaker 1: It's it's really a bad one to weigh into. Whose team. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would, you know, if I had a time machine

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Speaker 1: picking up these people right before their suicides or executions

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Speaker 1: and then having them fight to the death in a

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Speaker 1: steel cage would be pretty good TV. It should be

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Speaker 1: all of them. And then just throw a dragon in

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Speaker 1: there too. Yeah, just just like a Komodo dragon too,

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Speaker 1: one of those ones that just like bites you with

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Speaker 1: its rotting teeth and so you slowly die over the

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Speaker 1: course of days. Yeah, just s dom bleeding out from

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Speaker 1: a Commodo dragon bite for three days. People take bits

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Speaker 1: tweet at us if you have a UM machine, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you have a time tweeted us, or just come

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Speaker 1: visit us in your time machine, assuming it also can

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Speaker 1: travel through uh space as well as time. Yeah, no

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Speaker 1: judgment on what era you came from your personal business.

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Speaker 1: I mean probably some judgment like if if you if

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Speaker 1: if you listening to this like built a time machine

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Speaker 1: and like eighteen fifty nine instead of like doing something

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Speaker 1: about slavery, a little bit of judgment. Don't bring your

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Speaker 1: plague up in here though, yeah, yeah, don't bring your

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Speaker 1: plague up in here. Uh yeah, or bed bugs either

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Speaker 1: of those. No cholera please, No thanks on the cholera. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we already got plenty of musing like I actually have cholera,

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Speaker 1: and like I found that very offensive for you to

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Speaker 1: ask me not to bring my cholera into the situation

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Speaker 1: cholera pride. Yeah, what color rivet is that? I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's it's a brown one, right. Yeah. So the Hamma

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Speaker 1: massacre helped to ensure Hafez al assad uh nearly twenty

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Speaker 1: more years of uninterrupted rule. It would not be until

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Speaker 1: two thousand eleven that the Syrian state when next face

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Speaker 1: serious resistance. But Char was sixteen years old when his

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Speaker 1: father flattened Hamma. The lesson would have been clear to him,

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Speaker 1: but he was not at this point, being grew to rule.

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Speaker 1: That pleasure went to his younger brother Rafat, who was

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Speaker 1: the heir apparent. Young Bashar's favorite parent was clearly his mother, Anissa.

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Speaker 1: One Western politician described him as a mama's boy more

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Speaker 1: than a papa's boy. Now, there's a lot of debate

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Speaker 1: as to whether or not Assad's mom has been one

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Speaker 1: of the secretly dominant forces in his regime, but it's

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Speaker 1: pretty agreed upon that he was a mama's boy up

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Speaker 1: until her probable death in two thousand sixteen. He was

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Speaker 1: said to call her multiple times a week. This was

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Speaker 1: actually something of a running joke in Syrian society. Syrian

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Speaker 1: internet satirist call him b show or baby Baschar, or

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Speaker 1: at least they did before he had them all murdered.

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Speaker 1: That was hilarious until they all died. And now their

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Speaker 1: body parts exist in small bags. Yeah. Yeah, and now

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Speaker 1: they are filling small sex. Yeah. When Bashar was nineteen,

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Speaker 1: his dad had a heart attack and Rafat tried to

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Speaker 1: seize power. Unfortunately for Rafat, Huffez recovered and sent his

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Speaker 1: eldest boy into permanent exile for his crimes. But Shar's

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Speaker 1: older brother, Bassil became their father's next successor. Now Basil

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Speaker 1: al Assad seems to have been an interesting dude. I

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Speaker 1: found one Psychology Today article which was written by a

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Speaker 1: couple of PhDs and makes the case that Bassil's bullying

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Speaker 1: was a major influence on young Bashar. I don't consider

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Speaker 1: that article supercredible because it's written like ship and it

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Speaker 1: doesn't jell with what people who are close to the

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Speaker 1: family report, but their doctors, so I'll include their opinion

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Speaker 1: on here. Now, young but Shar does seem to have

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Speaker 1: had issues with his brother. Um. I'm an Abdul Noor,

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Speaker 1: who knew U Bashar when he was a young adult,

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Speaker 1: told Financial Times growing up, Bashar was overshadowed by Bassal

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Speaker 1: that seemed to be a complex. He didn't have the

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Speaker 1: charisma of Bassal, who was sporty, was liked by girls,

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Speaker 1: and was the head of the Syrian Computer Society. I'm

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Speaker 1: in claims young Bashar was shot. He used to speak,

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Speaker 1: He used to speak softly, with a low voice. He

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Speaker 1: never asked about institutions or government affairs. Yeah, yeah, Bashar

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Speaker 1: was too much of a nerd to be president of

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Speaker 1: the computer society. Like it's kind of unfair that his

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Speaker 1: sexy athletic brothers also gets to be the computer guy.

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Speaker 1: Because that's one thing everyone agrees on is Bassil was

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Speaker 1: also like the smartest of the Assad boys. Um. He

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Speaker 1: seems like he really got it all. You know. It's

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Speaker 1: so interesting like families like that that like um in power,

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Speaker 1: Like they're so easy, like there's no empathy. That's so

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Speaker 1: easy for them to just drop people out of their family.

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Speaker 1: It's like, how dare you try and seize power? You

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Speaker 1: ain't ever coming back here again. It's like it's your son,

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Speaker 1: you know. I mean, Momar Kadafi would agree with you,

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Speaker 1: because Kaddafi had a kid who tried to overthrow him,

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Speaker 1: who he exiled for a while and then invited back in,

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Speaker 1: so ground him for a while. I don't know. I

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Speaker 1: feel like if my son tried to overthrow me and

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Speaker 1: take over the house, yeah I would. I would exile

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Speaker 1: my son. Yeah, I would exile him forever. Exiling is

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Speaker 1: so aggro it's it's pretty grow. But I've always so,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you and I are going to have an

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Speaker 1: issue at some point because it's always been a dream

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Speaker 1: of mine to exile. Uh, somebody, I'm not surprised by that.

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Speaker 1: So I I really I'm a big, big fan of exiling. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It's it's an art more than a science. But you know,

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Speaker 1: I love it. I love the love the craft. Bashar

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Speaker 1: himself would later claim that his father didn't talk about

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Speaker 1: work at all with his kids. There was a complete

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Speaker 1: separation between politics and family relations in our house. My

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Speaker 1: parents were very keen to make us live as normal

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Speaker 1: lives as we can. So I don't believe that at all. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you were the son of the of the

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Speaker 1: king of Syria. Uh. And it's yeah, it does seem

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Speaker 1: like most of of the people who knew them at

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Speaker 1: that time said like they I mean, it's it's one

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Speaker 1: of those things. Maybe they think they were normal because

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Speaker 1: they don't have any basis for comparison because they grew

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Speaker 1: up the heirs to the throne of Syria. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: I see you, Sophie. Sophie's signaling that it's time for

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Speaker 1: an AD break, and I see her. I was just

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Speaker 1: trying to finish my sentence. Uh this is this is

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Speaker 1: Sophie's in a way exiling me for well, I'm actually

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Speaker 1: going to be exiling all of our listeners to an

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Speaker 1: AD break. So enjoy, enjoy your exile into the the

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Speaker 1: green and bountiful land of capitalist products and services. Products.

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Speaker 1: We're back, We're back. We're talking about bashaw Alissa be

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Speaker 1: today a b shu b shu. Yeah, little baby Bashar.

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Speaker 1: If I was him, that would be my like Twitter

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Speaker 1: handle at It would be amazing to get into Twitter

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Speaker 1: fights about char Alissade with Bashar Alisa. Baby Bachard, you

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Speaker 1: fucking loser. He's like, leave me alone, block boy. He

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Speaker 1: would definitely be a blocker. Yeah yeah. Now, But Shard

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Speaker 1: did not grow up wanting to be a dictator, or

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Speaker 1: at least he gave no impression of having that desire.

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Speaker 1: According to an article in the Atlantic based on interviews

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Speaker 1: with people who knew him, at the time. Quote, but

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Speaker 1: Shard did not seek out recognition or popularity. He had

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Speaker 1: no interest in being in the middle of politics as

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Speaker 1: his brother did. In his school days. He was perceived

424
00:23:29,840 --> 00:23:32,960
Speaker 1: by the Syrian society as a shy, reserved, weak, hesitant

425
00:23:33,040 --> 00:23:35,080
Speaker 1: child who did not inherit any of his father or

426
00:23:35,200 --> 00:23:40,680
Speaker 1: brother's intelligence and leadership. So WHOA, that's like just reminded

427
00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:43,359
Speaker 1: me of The Godfather, like al Pacino's character. How he

428
00:23:43,760 --> 00:23:45,879
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be involved in his like mafia

429
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:47,520
Speaker 1: business and then like next thing, you know, he's like

430
00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:51,399
Speaker 1: slapping Michelle Fifer around. It's like, yeah, a lot of

431
00:23:51,520 --> 00:23:54,640
Speaker 1: people have actually compared him to Michael Corleone. Some people

432
00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:57,080
Speaker 1: compare him to Fredo But yeah, yeah, well, I mean

433
00:23:57,080 --> 00:23:59,760
Speaker 1: because he kind of was he was the he was

434
00:23:59,800 --> 00:24:01,760
Speaker 1: the like like he wasn't really like he was the

435
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:03,600
Speaker 1: heir to a lot of money and stuff, but he

436
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:06,240
Speaker 1: was not the air like he was never considered for power,

437
00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:10,000
Speaker 1: like he was literally his dad's like last choice essentially,

438
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:13,879
Speaker 1: and so he didn't really Yeah, we'll get into that

439
00:24:13,880 --> 00:24:15,560
Speaker 1: a little bit more later, but that is a really

440
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:20,639
Speaker 1: apt comparison. Now. Basil, meanwhile, was exactly the kind of

441
00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:22,800
Speaker 1: kid you'd expect to be a dictator's son. He was

442
00:24:22,840 --> 00:24:25,760
Speaker 1: an avid parachutist. He was an infamous ladies man and

443
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:30,760
Speaker 1: a huge facet of nightlife in Damascus. I think so. Yeah,

444
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 1: the pictures I've seen him, he was a reasonably decent

445
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:36,679
Speaker 1: looking dude. Uh. He was a fit, athletic and charismatic.

446
00:24:37,119 --> 00:24:39,680
Speaker 1: Pictures of Bassel playing sports and looking fly as hell

447
00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:43,480
Speaker 1: worth slathered over many a wall in Syria. Basil owned

448
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:46,400
Speaker 1: a stable of sweet sports cars and torras around town

449
00:24:46,480 --> 00:24:49,480
Speaker 1: on a regular basis. He had a person Oh yeah,

450
00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:53,480
Speaker 1: he loved driving real fast, which we'll talk about a

451
00:24:53,520 --> 00:24:55,280
Speaker 1: little bit more in a second. Uh. He had a

452
00:24:55,320 --> 00:24:59,959
Speaker 1: personality cult that rivaled his father's. Uh. Magi Rafizada Raffi's

453
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:02,359
Speaker 1: it a the author of that Atlantic article and a

454
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:04,720
Speaker 1: guy who grew up in Syria around this time, recalled

455
00:25:05,240 --> 00:25:07,000
Speaker 1: when I was a student in high school, I would

456
00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:09,879
Speaker 1: walk the busy streets of Damascus, Aleppo or Latakia and

457
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:12,720
Speaker 1: find the walls and windows of shops and buildings papered

458
00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:15,800
Speaker 1: with posters and photographs of Basil. His images even were

459
00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 1: even plastered across cars. But there was not a trace

460
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:22,600
Speaker 1: of Bashar's presence. So it's all about Basil in these days,

461
00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:28,119
Speaker 1: all about Basil. Having a good set of like a

462
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:31,920
Speaker 1: good set of hair is like so key to being

463
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:37,399
Speaker 1: a dictator because bashre not a good looking dude. Not

464
00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:39,800
Speaker 1: a good looking dude. Like if you, if you have

465
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:43,040
Speaker 1: any like latent bully instincts, you look at a picture

466
00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:44,479
Speaker 1: of the kid and you kind of want to give

467
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 1: him a swirly, especially when he had that that little

468
00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 1: pencil than mustache. Um, just such a nerd looking kid,

469
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:55,280
Speaker 1: which is weird because Basil was apparently better at computers

470
00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:59,320
Speaker 1: to um. Yeah, Now, for what it's worth, it seems

471
00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:01,360
Speaker 1: like Basil, i'll assad, was one of the better case

472
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:04,679
Speaker 1: scenarios for a dictator's son. He wasn't a mass rapist

473
00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:07,160
Speaker 1: and murderer, or at least not based on what I've read.

474
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:09,880
Speaker 1: I haven't read any allegations like that. It's entirely possible

475
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:12,000
Speaker 1: that he was doing a bunch of terrible ship, but

476
00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:14,119
Speaker 1: it's not like it's He's certainly not like Ude Hussein,

477
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:16,359
Speaker 1: where you hear these stories about him machine gunning people

478
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:19,399
Speaker 1: at parties and stuff. Uh, And he seemed to be

479
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:23,240
Speaker 1: more um honest in interviews like in nineteen eighty eight,

480
00:26:23,320 --> 00:26:27,000
Speaker 1: Bassel gavem an interview uh that I think he was

481
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:30,239
Speaker 1: telling the truth. Uh quote. We saw father at home,

482
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:32,080
Speaker 1: but he was so busy that three days could go

483
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:34,479
Speaker 1: by without us exchanging a word with him. We never

484
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:37,040
Speaker 1: had breakfaster dinner together, and I don't remember ever having

485
00:26:37,119 --> 00:26:39,119
Speaker 1: lunch together as a family, or maybe we did once

486
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:41,800
Speaker 1: or twice when state affairs were involved. As a family,

487
00:26:41,880 --> 00:26:43,639
Speaker 1: we used to spend a day or two in Latakia

488
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 1: in the summer, but then too, he used to work

489
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:47,239
Speaker 1: in the office and we didn't get to see much

490
00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:52,760
Speaker 1: of him. Like that seems totally totally likely. Uh yeah,

491
00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:55,720
Speaker 1: that seems like a credible representation of like growing up

492
00:26:55,760 --> 00:26:58,399
Speaker 1: as a kid whose dad was a workaholic, which you know,

493
00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 1: Bishar will never admit to. So I don't know. Uh,

494
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:06,159
Speaker 1: Basil seems like it seems like he was as decent

495
00:27:06,359 --> 00:27:08,720
Speaker 1: a dude as it's possible to be and be the

496
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:11,760
Speaker 1: son of a brutal dictator who murders twenty people to

497
00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 1: make a point. I guess that's how I'll describe him.

498
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:21,119
Speaker 1: But I never knew the guy like any dictator kids. No, no, no, no,

499
00:27:21,320 --> 00:27:25,440
Speaker 1: we we never never never worked comps. Weirdly, enough. I

500
00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:29,240
Speaker 1: was pin pals with Jaif al Islam, Kadafi's son. We

501
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 1: used to we used to play sudoku over the mail.

502
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:36,600
Speaker 1: But uh, you know that is so you. I've never

503
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:41,160
Speaker 1: heard anything than what you just. I don't, I don't,

504
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:46,119
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't truck with sudoku. I'm not Kiana Reeves, okay,

505
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:49,240
Speaker 1: like any dictator kid. Our sources and how Bashar grew

506
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:52,160
Speaker 1: up are incompleted best. The official party line, at least

507
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:54,720
Speaker 1: is that the Assad children had a modest upbringing. It's

508
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:57,080
Speaker 1: emphasized that Bashar's mother thought this was the right way

509
00:27:57,119 --> 00:28:00,119
Speaker 1: to raise children. However modest they're upbringing. But Shar his

510
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:03,159
Speaker 1: siblings lived in almost total privacy. Pictures and reports of

511
00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:05,880
Speaker 1: their lives were kept fairly mump, with the obvious exceptions

512
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 1: of Rafat and then Bassel. All the Assad kids went

513
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:11,479
Speaker 1: to college in Syria, which is something of an oddity

514
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:13,879
Speaker 1: among an Arab dictator's children. It's more common for them

515
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:16,080
Speaker 1: to like go to school in Europe or whatever. But

516
00:28:16,280 --> 00:28:19,440
Speaker 1: uh Huffez was insistent that they do their college in

517
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:23,479
Speaker 1: uh In country, So Baschar went to medical school as

518
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:27,240
Speaker 1: a young man. According to Ed Schulenberg, Bschar's former supervisor

519
00:28:27,320 --> 00:28:30,399
Speaker 1: at the Western Eye Hospital in London. Baschar decided to

520
00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:33,879
Speaker 1: become an ophthalmologist and eye doctor after reading a book. Quote.

521
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 1: He read a book about blindness and the treatment of

522
00:28:35,880 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 1: blindness and I think the psychology about being blind many

523
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 1: years ago, and it impressed him so much that he

524
00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 1: thought he wanted to become an eye surgeon now. Bashar

525
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:46,960
Speaker 1: al Assad himself claimed, quote, I like the idea of

526
00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:49,600
Speaker 1: working in the humanitarian sector, so medicine was the best

527
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 1: thing to take up. The question that I asked my

528
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: father was I would like to be a doctor. What

529
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:55,400
Speaker 1: do you think? He told me, it doesn't matter what

530
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 1: you do. The most important thing is if you succeed

531
00:28:57,760 --> 00:28:59,840
Speaker 1: or not. So whatever you do, just make sure that

532
00:28:59,880 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 1: you succeed. Holy shit, what to turn your child into

533
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:11,520
Speaker 1: a fucking dictator. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't matter what you do,

534
00:29:11,800 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 1: just succeed at it. If you're going to be an

535
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 1: eye doctor, you better be the fucking best eye doctor

536
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:19,240
Speaker 1: on in Syria. I don't even know. I don't want to.

537
00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:20,880
Speaker 1: I don't want there to be any blind people in

538
00:29:20,960 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 1: the world an eye doctor. Are you kidding me? Keep

539
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 1: the funk out of here now. Some experts on Syria

540
00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:32,120
Speaker 1: and the Assad suspect that char may have had a

541
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:36,320
Speaker 1: different motivation. Dr al Zizer of Tel Aviv University believes

542
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:38,960
Speaker 1: that Bashar's medical ambitions were actually pushed on him by

543
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:41,840
Speaker 1: his father. Quote, one can only assume that Assad, who

544
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 1: himself wanted to be a doctor when he was young,

545
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:46,800
Speaker 1: pushed him in that direction. Um so, I don't know,

546
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 1: like there's three different totally credible, Like all of those

547
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 1: sound very believable to me. Well, I mean, growing up

548
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 1: in a Middle Eastern family, you don't got to tell

549
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:57,240
Speaker 1: me that I was supposed to be a doctor. As

550
00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:00,320
Speaker 1: my father said quickly that I need to go to

551
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:02,959
Speaker 1: med school. And I was like, I can't look at blood.

552
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 1: And he was like, you're gonna need to get over that.

553
00:30:05,840 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 1: I mean you should. You should tell your dad what

554
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:09,920
Speaker 1: I tell my parents, which is that podcasting as the

555
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:13,040
Speaker 1: medicine of the century. You know, that's so true, And

556
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:16,000
Speaker 1: it's funny because like I'm such a dictator of this office.

557
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 1: Now you know you are you are? You are? Go

558
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 1: on before I kill you? You do say that a lot.

559
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 1: We're getting t shirts printed up go on before I

560
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 1: kill you. I'm a podcast dictator. That's fun, Like it's

561
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:40,160
Speaker 1: a fun theme for a podcast. Now, whatever the truth

562
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:42,760
Speaker 1: about why he got into it, But char al Assad

563
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:45,440
Speaker 1: seems to have had a real passion for being an

564
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,200
Speaker 1: eye doctor, and from everything I've read, it seems like

565
00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:50,719
Speaker 1: he was legitimately good at it. This is not one

566
00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:53,120
Speaker 1: of those stories where a dictator's kid becomes like the

567
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:56,440
Speaker 1: head of the sports system like Kadafi's kid and has

568
00:30:56,480 --> 00:30:59,120
Speaker 1: like no idea how to do anything. But shar moved

569
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:02,440
Speaker 1: to London and actus medicine. Like, he wasn't under daddy's

570
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:04,200
Speaker 1: arm when he was in London, he was working at

571
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 1: a real hospital and doing real medical work. And he,

572
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 1: from everything I've read it seems to have been really

573
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 1: good at it and seems to have loved it. Um so, yeah,

574
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:17,120
Speaker 1: he was a pretty solid eye doctor. Uh, he adapted

575
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 1: fully to life in the Western world. You want to

576
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 1: guess what his favorite musician is, Leonard Skinner, Phil Collins?

577
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 1: Oh that is that is a clear sign. You know what?

578
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:35,080
Speaker 1: Nothing annoys me more than him? Was it? Like? What

579
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:39,400
Speaker 1: band was Phil Collins? And again, shit, oh boy, now

580
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:42,160
Speaker 1: we're gonna have the band that Peter Gabriel originally was in.

581
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 1: I think. So. I know he's one of the musicians

582
00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:50,800
Speaker 1: that uh my mom listens to like and your mom

583
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 1: a classic dictator type. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she is the

584
00:31:54,520 --> 00:32:01,200
Speaker 1: gator of Genesis. There we go, fucking Genesis, a band

585
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:04,960
Speaker 1: so bad we forgot it so bad people who liked

586
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:08,440
Speaker 1: it became bad people. Yeah. I hate to say this,

587
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:11,560
Speaker 1: but his second favorite, or at least one of his

588
00:32:11,640 --> 00:32:15,040
Speaker 1: other favorite bands, is a legitimately great band, the Electric

589
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 1: Light Orchestra, which which does break my heart a little bit. Well,

590
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:21,400
Speaker 1: I mean, everyone likes LLO like that. Everybody likes the Llo.

591
00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 1: But now I have this picture in my head of

592
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 1: Bouchard ordering the carpet bombing of of of Aleppo while

593
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 1: listening to Mr Blue Sky, and it, uh it kills

594
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:34,719
Speaker 1: me a little bit inside, but I know it happened.

595
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:38,720
Speaker 1: I'm going to disregard that thought. Yeah. Now, the young

596
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:41,120
Speaker 1: doctor fell in love with London, and he says that

597
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:44,000
Speaker 1: seeing the West helped him to open his horizons. He

598
00:32:44,040 --> 00:32:46,000
Speaker 1: has a lot of positive stuff to say about travel,

599
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:49,400
Speaker 1: which I guess is appropriate because he inadvertently caused millions

600
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 1: of Syrians to travel and see Europe themselves. A little

601
00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 1: bit of a really a joke, just a horrible thing

602
00:32:55,640 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 1: that happened. Uh anyway, Uh, one day, on a foggy

603
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:05,160
Speaker 1: morning in January, Basil Alissat was tearing us through Davascus

604
00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:07,240
Speaker 1: in his sports car. Alright, I said he liked driving

605
00:33:07,280 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 1: fast in his sports car. On the way to the airport,

606
00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:12,400
Speaker 1: his car skidded off the road and he crashed at

607
00:33:12,480 --> 00:33:18,600
Speaker 1: high speed, dying instantly. Now, yeah, that's the end of Basil. Now,

608
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:22,480
Speaker 1: whenever the air apparent of a dictator, especially a dictator

609
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 1: whose first air apparent had tried to overthrow him, is

610
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:29,880
Speaker 1: killed mysteriously in a car crash, it's natural to be suspicious.

611
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 1: But all the credible sources I found seemed to agree

612
00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 1: that this was really just one of those freak accidents

613
00:33:35,560 --> 00:33:37,960
Speaker 1: that happens from time to time and changes the world forever.

614
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:42,600
Speaker 1: Sounds like the son of um, a king uh in

615
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:47,960
Speaker 1: a regime, thought he um was invincible. So it does

616
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:51,080
Speaker 1: sound like that himself killed because he, oh, what do

617
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:55,440
Speaker 1: you know, not invincible. Nope. Turns out that if you

618
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:58,840
Speaker 1: crash a sports car with a shitty safety rating at

619
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:01,280
Speaker 1: like a hundred miles and our uh, the same thing

620
00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 1: happens to everybody. M mmmmmm. The only one of us

621
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:09,719
Speaker 1: that's invulnerable is Keith Richards and he should have known that.

622
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:14,160
Speaker 1: He should have known that now. That same January day

623
00:34:14,239 --> 00:34:16,960
Speaker 1: in nine, Bashar al Assad got a phone call in

624
00:34:17,040 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 1: his London flat. He was told that his brother had

625
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 1: died and that he was now the successor to Hafez

626
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:24,439
Speaker 1: al Assad, and that he would have to return home

627
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 1: to take up the family business. There's a lot of

628
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:29,879
Speaker 1: debate as to why Hafez didn't pick Bashar's other brother,

629
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 1: Maher to rule instead, since Maher was a lot like

630
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:35,720
Speaker 1: Basil and Bashar had expressed zero interest in ever holding power.

631
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:40,200
Speaker 1: But for whatever reason, Huffez picked Bishara and at this

632
00:34:40,320 --> 00:34:44,480
Speaker 1: pla heer the daughter. No. Maher's his other brother, and

633
00:34:44,560 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 1: he's in charge of like the Syrian Republican Guards. So

634
00:34:47,200 --> 00:34:50,759
Speaker 1: he's been like one of the bloodiest military leaders of

635
00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:54,239
Speaker 1: the Syrian Civil War. Um. But there's kind of a

636
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:56,440
Speaker 1: mystery among people who knew the family as to a

637
00:34:56,520 --> 00:34:59,400
Speaker 1: lot of them had expected that, you know, uh, Huffez

638
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:02,080
Speaker 1: was gonna pick Maher to uh to run the country,

639
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 1: but he went with Bashar for some reason. We don't

640
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:07,560
Speaker 1: we don't really have a clear idea why. At this

641
00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:09,759
Speaker 1: point it seemed too many Syrians and to much of

642
00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:12,439
Speaker 1: the outside world, almost like this might be the plot

643
00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:15,120
Speaker 1: of like an unusually gritty Disney movie. Like you can

644
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:17,279
Speaker 1: kind of see the upbeat version of this, where like

645
00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:20,279
Speaker 1: a brutal dictator picks his shy, bashful eye doctors son

646
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:21,920
Speaker 1: to rule in his stead and the kid has to

647
00:35:21,960 --> 00:35:23,799
Speaker 1: fly back from his life in London and learn how

648
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 1: to rule. You make a really fun movie with that

649
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:28,839
Speaker 1: premise where he realizes that like he only ever wanted

650
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 1: to be a doctor, and he gives his country back

651
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 1: to its people and establishes a democracy, and he and

652
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:35,040
Speaker 1: his dad fight at first, but then his dad comes

653
00:35:35,080 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 1: to love freedom and probably writes a skateboard at the end.

654
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 1: I'm imagining this is a nineties movie. Um, it's like

655
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:44,200
Speaker 1: the Goofy movie. Yeah, it's like the Goofy movie but

656
00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:49,480
Speaker 1: with like a brutal dictator. Um. Yeah, it's like a

657
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 1: cross between the Goofy movie and that really bad Michael

658
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 1: Caine movie about a dictator who hides out in like

659
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:58,799
Speaker 1: a ten year old girl's house. What what is that? Yeah,

660
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:00,800
Speaker 1: it's this, it's a it's a on premise this like

661
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 1: girl becomes a pinpal with a brutal dictator of like

662
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:07,919
Speaker 1: a Caribbean nation played by Michael Caine, and he gets

663
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 1: overthrown and he like flees and winds up hiding in

664
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 1: her like tool shad. I think dit Dear Dictator, it

665
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:17,880
Speaker 1: should have been a good movie, but it was just

666
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:21,640
Speaker 1: kind of bad. Um. Like you hear Michael Caine playing

667
00:36:21,640 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 1: like a dictator who's best friends with the little girl.

668
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:25,319
Speaker 1: That seems like it could be a really good movie,

669
00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 1: but it was just it was not. It was not

670
00:36:27,200 --> 00:36:30,879
Speaker 1: a good movie. And uh, I'm sorry because now people

671
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:33,160
Speaker 1: are gonna want it. People are gonna watch Dear Dictator,

672
00:36:33,560 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 1: and they're not going to find it very good because

673
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:39,359
Speaker 1: it's not very good. And I'm sad about that. Yeah,

674
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:43,440
Speaker 1: it really is now, according to Financial Times, in the

675
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 1: real world, uh, and not the fake world of the

676
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:48,359
Speaker 1: Disney movie that I invented about this, but the real

677
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:51,000
Speaker 1: one in which hundreds of thousands of human beings have

678
00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:53,839
Speaker 1: been killed in the most brutal ways possible. Hafez al

679
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:57,200
Speaker 1: Assad basically tried to remake his nerdy doctor son into

680
00:36:57,239 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 1: the spitting image of his dead brother Bassel quote. Assad

681
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:04,600
Speaker 1: underwent a crash course in military and political affairs and

682
00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:07,640
Speaker 1: a successful image making exercise that would make him palatable

683
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:11,520
Speaker 1: to Syrian society. He inherited Basil's friends, Basil's office in

684
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:15,600
Speaker 1: Mount Cossion, overlooking Damascus, and even the Syrian Computer Society,

685
00:37:15,680 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 1: a critical tool that would help him create an image

686
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:19,520
Speaker 1: as a man who could bring progress to a country

687
00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:23,000
Speaker 1: that seems stuck. In the nineteen seventies, Bachard disappeared from view.

688
00:37:23,080 --> 00:37:25,480
Speaker 1: We only started seeing him again in nineteen ninety six,

689
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:28,240
Speaker 1: and he had changed. Even his voice had changed, recalls

690
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:31,840
Speaker 1: Abdel Noir. He was more confident, more muscular in his appearance.

691
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 1: So like made him go away and get a gym membership. Yeah,

692
00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:39,880
Speaker 1: it's like it's the male version of that makeover scene

693
00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:42,880
Speaker 1: where like the curly haired girl who becomes a princess

694
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 1: gets her hair straightened and stuff. They made him take

695
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 1: his pushups off, and they're like, you're gorgeous. Now you're

696
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:51,359
Speaker 1: really going to kill running this country, literally kill kill.

697
00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:54,200
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to literally literally kill more than anyone

698
00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 1: in this century. I wonder if they're like, dude, but

699
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 1: char I heard the country said you weren't cute, and

700
00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 1: he was like, oh god, yeah, maybe because he's not cute. Yeah,

701
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:08,600
Speaker 1: but I mean, of course he has good hair. It's

702
00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:11,440
Speaker 1: not really it's got that. It's like, I mean, who

703
00:38:11,520 --> 00:38:13,320
Speaker 1: knows how real it is. Maybe he lost some of

704
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:15,440
Speaker 1: it and it's hair plugs. Now that statement alone is

705
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:17,400
Speaker 1: probably gonna get me killed by bachar Ela side. But like,

706
00:38:17,520 --> 00:38:20,400
Speaker 1: oh yeah, no, he's got a strike cruiser heading to

707
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:22,279
Speaker 1: your house right now. Like I heard she said I

708
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 1: had hair plugs and she's dead. I mean he has

709
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:30,320
Speaker 1: a full set of hair I'm assuming is real. So

710
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 1: that's usually that's enough. Yeah, it's it's it's I just

711
00:38:34,719 --> 00:38:36,919
Speaker 1: don't notice his hair like It's one of those things

712
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:39,600
Speaker 1: we'll say on this podcast if a if a brutal

713
00:38:39,719 --> 00:38:43,040
Speaker 1: dictator is hot, like Saddam Hussein, good looking young man,

714
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:47,279
Speaker 1: fucking Joseph Stalin, good looking young guy. Hitler always super

715
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:52,560
Speaker 1: weird looking. But yeah, you know Hitler, dude, you have

716
00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:54,920
Speaker 1: to you have to be honest about the hotness of

717
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:59,000
Speaker 1: terrible people. It's otherwise what are your standards? And you know,

718
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:02,040
Speaker 1: but Charli's odd as a not in the hotter knot category.

719
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:06,560
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, it's just that's the hill I'll die on.

720
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:09,240
Speaker 1: He's not a good set of hair, but a face

721
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:12,399
Speaker 1: that looks like an ass crack. Yeah, face that looks

722
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:16,040
Speaker 1: like an ass crack ass crack face being another one

723
00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:21,000
Speaker 1: of his popular nicknames. As the nineteen nineties near their end,

724
00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 1: Hafez al Assad was increasingly sick and clearly nearing death,

725
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:27,279
Speaker 1: he began filling Damascus in other cities with posters of

726
00:39:27,360 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 1: Bashar al Assad labeled Hope, which is not unlike an

727
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:35,240
Speaker 1: Obama campaign poster. Shepherd Fairy got the idea, Yes, Shepherd.

728
00:39:35,360 --> 00:39:39,319
Speaker 1: Shepherd Fairy is a famed Hafez al Assad stand really

729
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:43,520
Speaker 1: a big fan of his marketing uh prowess. While Hafez

730
00:39:43,520 --> 00:39:46,520
Speaker 1: battled leukemia, diabetes and a shitty heart, he trained his

731
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:49,400
Speaker 1: son and stocked the heads of his security and intelligence

732
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 1: agencies with men he could trustman one of his head

733
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:55,520
Speaker 1: spies was a guy who was picked to sell Baschar

734
00:39:55,640 --> 00:39:57,879
Speaker 1: as the hope of Syria. He did this by making

735
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:00,760
Speaker 1: deals with businessmen who wanted more opportunity. He's for financial

736
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:03,960
Speaker 1: gain then the nation's socialist structure would allow, according to

737
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:07,240
Speaker 1: rue La Kleef of the Financial Times, but charl Assad

738
00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:09,920
Speaker 1: became a vociferous critic of bureaucratic corruption, and those he

739
00:40:09,960 --> 00:40:12,759
Speaker 1: recommended were placed in key positions in government. It was

740
00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:14,920
Speaker 1: during this period that I first met him in Damascus,

741
00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:17,400
Speaker 1: a few months before his father died. He was casual

742
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:20,720
Speaker 1: and inquisitive, particularly interested in whether living abroad had deluded

743
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:23,600
Speaker 1: my Arab routes. He spoke about the scourage of corruption

744
00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:26,719
Speaker 1: and serious economic stagnation, and was sympathetic to the cause

745
00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 1: of an outspoken businessman who was being harassed by the

746
00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:32,080
Speaker 1: regime for his political and anti corruption views. It was

747
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:36,920
Speaker 1: impossible to know whether he was sincere, so I don't know,

748
00:40:38,120 --> 00:40:40,759
Speaker 1: late nineties, but he's saying the right things, you know,

749
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:43,960
Speaker 1: which one of Kadafi's kids was sort of doing the

750
00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 1: same thing where he would he got famous for, Like

751
00:40:46,120 --> 00:40:48,759
Speaker 1: I think it was site actually UH where he got

752
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:52,600
Speaker 1: famous for, like criticizing the Kaddafi regime to the international

753
00:40:52,680 --> 00:40:55,680
Speaker 1: press while he was the heir to the regime. UH.

754
00:40:55,880 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 1: And some people thought he was a real reformer. But

755
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:00,880
Speaker 1: like it's become increasingly obvious three time that like, no,

756
00:41:01,160 --> 00:41:03,800
Speaker 1: he was just he knew his dad was going to

757
00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:06,000
Speaker 1: die eventually and wanted to be set up to be

758
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:10,520
Speaker 1: in charge and the game, playing the long game. It

759
00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:14,400
Speaker 1: seems like I don't know if he if Bishar started

760
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:16,160
Speaker 1: out being like, oh, I could be a good leader

761
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:19,239
Speaker 1: and then just went full psycho or if he was, um,

762
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:23,120
Speaker 1: just full psycho, Like I don't get it because it

763
00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:27,200
Speaker 1: sounds like a decent person. But then like you know,

764
00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:30,800
Speaker 1: just in the Michael Corleone way of like what what

765
00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:33,520
Speaker 1: tipped him over the edge? Like was it just his

766
00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:35,440
Speaker 1: father being like this is how it needs to be.

767
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:38,160
Speaker 1: You need to be strong and not weak, Like you

768
00:41:38,239 --> 00:41:40,000
Speaker 1: need to stand up to your people and I don't know,

769
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:42,520
Speaker 1: like cut their heads off if they don't listen to you,

770
00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:45,080
Speaker 1: like I don't. I mean, I guess that's why it's

771
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:50,120
Speaker 1: so secretive. We don't know, but like, yeah, nobody, nobody

772
00:41:50,160 --> 00:41:52,359
Speaker 1: really knows the answer to that question. I Mean, one

773
00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:55,080
Speaker 1: of my theories is just that like there's a lot

774
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:58,680
Speaker 1: of people walking around who could be who could murder

775
00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:01,880
Speaker 1: millions if you put them the position where their continued

776
00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:06,160
Speaker 1: comfort was was dependent upon them maintaining in power of

777
00:42:06,239 --> 00:42:09,560
Speaker 1: a regime like this. Yeah, you know, I actually now

778
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:11,400
Speaker 1: that I realized that, like I've always said, I should

779
00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:13,239
Speaker 1: never be in power because I would take a like

780
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:16,200
Speaker 1: a bribe within seconds, I'm like, yeah, sure, what do

781
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:19,279
Speaker 1: you know? Nobody should be in power. That's that's really

782
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:21,600
Speaker 1: the lesson of guys like Charlie, because if he just

783
00:42:21,640 --> 00:42:24,960
Speaker 1: stated an ophthalmologist probably would have just helped people have

784
00:42:25,080 --> 00:42:27,440
Speaker 1: better eyes, probably would have done that for decades and

785
00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:29,920
Speaker 1: it would have been fine. Power is a hell of

786
00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 1: a drug, man, It's the worst. And I'm I'm a

787
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:36,000
Speaker 1: big pro drug guy, but not power. That's the only

788
00:42:36,120 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 1: drug that I think the d e A ought to

789
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:39,879
Speaker 1: go after. Yeah, that's me. I'm always like, if that's

790
00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 1: what the d IT was for, I would be pro

791
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:45,919
Speaker 1: d e A. If they were just like busting guys

792
00:42:45,960 --> 00:42:48,480
Speaker 1: who were power tripping, Like, sorry, sir, no, you're clearly

793
00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 1: way too high on your own supply. Uh literally a

794
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 1: group in the d A that's like the power dripping dude,

795
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:58,560
Speaker 1: because we're coming for you. The day after Trump gets elected,

796
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:01,160
Speaker 1: they arrest all of America. Uh, like you guys are

797
00:43:01,200 --> 00:43:03,800
Speaker 1: you guys are dealing power to a vulnerable man like

798
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:07,759
Speaker 1: he clearly can't handle this. Our presidents arrested for just

799
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 1: power tripping way to no, no, no, I mean you'd

800
00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:12,920
Speaker 1: have to bust us all for dealing. You know, we

801
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:19,399
Speaker 1: sold him the power. If you want to get high

802
00:43:19,440 --> 00:43:24,080
Speaker 1: at fuck uh, consider getting highest fun on the products

803
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:28,160
Speaker 1: and services that support this program and or show that

804
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:30,200
Speaker 1: was a good That was a good segue, right, Sylvie

805
00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:41,600
Speaker 1: loved it beautiful, all right, products, We're back skis. I

806
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:45,360
Speaker 1: say skis now sometimes because I'm a cool I'm a

807
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:48,759
Speaker 1: cool dude. Because he loved to ski. Man, I've heard no,

808
00:43:48,920 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 1: I actually don't think anyone should ski, dude, Robert, Come on, man,

809
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:58,719
Speaker 1: you don't have to hide it comes everyone sending photoshop

810
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:03,759
Speaker 1: photos Robert's You know, it's funny you say that, because

811
00:44:03,800 --> 00:44:05,440
Speaker 1: when I have a bad day, the only thing that

812
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:08,759
Speaker 1: calms me down is watching hours of ski fails on

813
00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:10,879
Speaker 1: you You just type that on YouTube and it's people

814
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:15,280
Speaker 1: getting horribly injured. But there's ski fails and bass jumping

815
00:44:15,320 --> 00:44:19,960
Speaker 1: fails are like I spent I wonder if most of

816
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:23,680
Speaker 1: those people are dead, like sucker, and then we just

817
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:27,920
Speaker 1: don't no, because like like I spent all week this

818
00:44:28,080 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 1: week watching god knows how many videos of barrel bombs

819
00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:33,680
Speaker 1: detonating in Syrian cities and like horrible things happening to

820
00:44:33,719 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 1: people who did nothing. If you if you're going out

821
00:44:36,160 --> 00:44:39,359
Speaker 1: there to go basse jumping, you know you might funk

822
00:44:39,440 --> 00:44:42,160
Speaker 1: up and kill yourself. So like, I feel like it's

823
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:44,520
Speaker 1: fine for me to watch videos of people hurting themselves

824
00:44:44,800 --> 00:44:47,840
Speaker 1: if if they're putting themselves in that situation. I wouldn't

825
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 1: watch videos of people getting hit by cars and laugh.

826
00:44:50,040 --> 00:44:53,480
Speaker 1: That's horrible. But if you're going into that situation and

827
00:44:53,840 --> 00:44:57,799
Speaker 1: and that like that's something like you've crashing and hurting

828
00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:00,839
Speaker 1: yourself is an integral part of the sport, then it's

829
00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:05,040
Speaker 1: fine for me to laugh at it. I wouldn't. I

830
00:45:05,080 --> 00:45:08,239
Speaker 1: wouldn't laugh at somebody getting hurt playing golf because that's

831
00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:09,520
Speaker 1: not part of the sport. If you get hit in

832
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:11,279
Speaker 1: the face of a club playing golf, that's just a

833
00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:15,279
Speaker 1: horrible accident. But it is. It is a little bit funny, right,

834
00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:20,640
Speaker 1: My My principles are an ironclad. Uh, we're all a

835
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:22,440
Speaker 1: little bit of a monster. This is why I shouldn't

836
00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:24,960
Speaker 1: be a dictator, because I would make people ski just

837
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:27,279
Speaker 1: to watch them hurt themselves. That would be funny. You're like,

838
00:45:27,320 --> 00:45:30,520
Speaker 1: all right, set up the skis, set up the skis,

839
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:37,360
Speaker 1: bury the bananas and snow. Yes, yes, just put a

840
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:41,200
Speaker 1: tree in the middle of the path. It's fine. It

841
00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:43,759
Speaker 1: was clear from the beginning that the young despot in

842
00:45:43,880 --> 00:45:47,360
Speaker 1: waiting was insecure. One of his friends, Walbash was being groomed,

843
00:45:47,440 --> 00:45:49,600
Speaker 1: later said quote. In his early years, he was learning

844
00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 1: on the job and he wasn't confident. He spoke about

845
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:53,479
Speaker 1: some of his father's aids as enemies, and he didn't

846
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:55,960
Speaker 1: have his own advisors. The security people would tell him

847
00:45:56,000 --> 00:45:57,600
Speaker 1: it would be a threat to him because they wanted

848
00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:01,240
Speaker 1: to control him. So, but shars kind of a paranoid,

849
00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:03,120
Speaker 1: scared guy. There's one story I heard from a guy

850
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:05,600
Speaker 1: who interviewed him who like took out his microphone and

851
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 1: Charlotte flinched away from him because he like the microphone

852
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:11,680
Speaker 1: looked just enough like a gun that he like freaked

853
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:15,120
Speaker 1: out because he was just so high strung and paranoid. Um.

854
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:17,320
Speaker 1: So you you'll hear that a lot, that he was

855
00:46:17,400 --> 00:46:21,239
Speaker 1: like incredibly high strung and paranoid and like scared all

856
00:46:21,320 --> 00:46:25,040
Speaker 1: the time. Um. It does really seem like he didn't

857
00:46:25,120 --> 00:46:27,560
Speaker 1: want the job at least at first, just because the

858
00:46:27,680 --> 00:46:29,920
Speaker 1: risk of getting murdered was so high. He'd rather be

859
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:32,720
Speaker 1: back in London listening to E. L O and cutting

860
00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:38,120
Speaker 1: open eyes us Christ. That's the feeling you get. Hafez

861
00:46:38,160 --> 00:46:41,600
Speaker 1: al Assad died on June tenth two thousand, His son

862
00:46:41,680 --> 00:46:44,880
Speaker 1: assumed power shortly thereafter. This was actually forbidden by the

863
00:46:44,960 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 1: Syrian constitution, which required presidents to be at least forty,

864
00:46:48,040 --> 00:46:50,520
Speaker 1: but the constitution was quickly amended to allow thirty four

865
00:46:50,560 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 1: year olds to serve, which was but Shar's age, that's handy,

866
00:46:54,280 --> 00:46:59,800
Speaker 1: very nice. Family runs everything. Yeah, yeah, why even have

867
00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:06,000
Speaker 1: constitution if like, come on, Hafez, don't don't play that bullshit.

868
00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:09,680
Speaker 1: But Char gave an inaugural speech that was everything you'd

869
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:11,600
Speaker 1: want to hear from the new dictator who was replacing

870
00:47:11,640 --> 00:47:14,240
Speaker 1: the old dictator. He said it was time to modernize Syria,

871
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:16,880
Speaker 1: to open up the economy to new businesses and new ideas,

872
00:47:16,920 --> 00:47:19,399
Speaker 1: and to institute a raft of political reforms that would

873
00:47:19,440 --> 00:47:22,360
Speaker 1: allow political parties and previously unheard of levels of dissent,

874
00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:26,239
Speaker 1: maybe even something that vaguely approached freedom of speech. His

875
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:31,040
Speaker 1: inaugural speech promised democracy, transparency and touted the desperate need

876
00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:35,120
Speaker 1: for constructive criticism and creative thinking. And to back that up,

877
00:47:35,360 --> 00:47:38,880
Speaker 1: it even included criticisms of Hafez al Assad's regime. The

878
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:42,400
Speaker 1: international media obligingly ate this up. I found an article

879
00:47:42,440 --> 00:47:45,560
Speaker 1: published the day after his inauguration by Mid East Realities.

880
00:47:45,680 --> 00:47:48,719
Speaker 1: It was titled Bashar al Assad. They say he's a

881
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:57,680
Speaker 1: gentle man. Okay, okay, prop prop propaganda, prop prop prop

882
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:01,720
Speaker 1: ganda um quote. He's a thirty five year old media

883
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:05,880
Speaker 1: shy ophthalmologist who loves Phil Collins, speaks fluent English and

884
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:08,120
Speaker 1: is in no rush to get married, and expresses a

885
00:48:08,200 --> 00:48:11,200
Speaker 1: keen interest in Israeli high tech. Although he was never

886
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:14,200
Speaker 1: the favorite son, Bashar Asad next week will be declared

887
00:48:14,239 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 1: heir to his father Hafez. Sounds a little bit like

888
00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:23,480
Speaker 1: TM like like fucking Perez. Hilton wrote this. Yeah. What

889
00:48:23,560 --> 00:48:26,440
Speaker 1: occurred next has been dubbed by some as the Damascus Spring,

890
00:48:26,840 --> 00:48:29,359
Speaker 1: which is accurate and that it did not last very long.

891
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:32,800
Speaker 1: Political prisoners were freed, European advisers were brought in to

892
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:36,200
Speaker 1: help perform the government. Young technology minded Syrians who happened

893
00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:38,440
Speaker 1: to be friends with Bashar Whill brought into exciting new

894
00:48:38,520 --> 00:48:41,520
Speaker 1: positions within the regime. For the first time, Syria's new

895
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:44,440
Speaker 1: ruler allowed his people to access the Internet such as

896
00:48:44,480 --> 00:48:47,040
Speaker 1: it existed at the turn of the millennium. New political

897
00:48:47,120 --> 00:48:49,920
Speaker 1: parties were allowed to form, and liberal intellectuals were allowed

898
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:53,040
Speaker 1: to form political discussion groups and even published some literature.

899
00:48:53,480 --> 00:48:56,440
Speaker 1: The months immediately after Assad's inauguration were proved to be

900
00:48:56,600 --> 00:49:00,440
Speaker 1: the absolute high point of Syrian civil liberties, according to

901
00:49:00,520 --> 00:49:03,720
Speaker 1: Joshua Landis of the University of Oklahoma's Middle East Study

902
00:49:03,800 --> 00:49:06,360
Speaker 1: Center quote, of course, it didn't take more than a

903
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:09,160
Speaker 1: few weeks before people were demanding regime change because the

904
00:49:09,239 --> 00:49:11,880
Speaker 1: regime was so corrupt. It's stunk. The whole thing stunk,

905
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 1: so any kind of critique had to lead to regime change. Basically,

906
00:49:16,440 --> 00:49:19,719
Speaker 1: if you start picking at the problems in Syrian society,

907
00:49:20,160 --> 00:49:21,839
Speaker 1: all of them come back to the fact that an

908
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:25,759
Speaker 1: incredibly corrupt criminal regime isn't charge so like you really

909
00:49:25,920 --> 00:49:31,280
Speaker 1: can't allow criticism. Sorry, this just back to the Tinder

910
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:35,800
Speaker 1: profile thing. If was on Tinder, he would probably have

911
00:49:36,080 --> 00:49:40,520
Speaker 1: every woman murdered who swiped no on him. Yeah, I

912
00:49:40,560 --> 00:49:43,600
Speaker 1: mean absolutely could I think that would be punishable by death?

913
00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:47,120
Speaker 1: Yeah I could. I could imagine. I can imagine about

914
00:49:47,200 --> 00:49:50,320
Speaker 1: half of the men on tender being dictators if you

915
00:49:50,440 --> 00:49:54,000
Speaker 1: follow that she rates Dogs account on Twitter, where it's

916
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:56,160
Speaker 1: just like women getting threatened with murder by guys they

917
00:49:56,239 --> 00:50:00,239
Speaker 1: turned down after it a bad date, like fucking boy,

918
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:02,320
Speaker 1: I believe that exists, but I feel like for my

919
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:05,279
Speaker 1: own sanity, I should not check it out. You don't

920
00:50:05,360 --> 00:50:08,200
Speaker 1: need to. But I think there's a lot of people

921
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:10,600
Speaker 1: out there, a lot of men, some women, I'm sure too,

922
00:50:10,640 --> 00:50:12,120
Speaker 1: but a lot of men who, if they had an

923
00:50:12,160 --> 00:50:16,799
Speaker 1: air force would uh would absolutely bomb a lot of people. Um.

924
00:50:17,719 --> 00:50:19,600
Speaker 1: That's why no one should have an air force except

925
00:50:19,640 --> 00:50:22,040
Speaker 1: for that that that air force pilot who drew the

926
00:50:22,080 --> 00:50:25,840
Speaker 1: sky dick of Washington. That guy, that guy gets an

927
00:50:25,840 --> 00:50:29,200
Speaker 1: air force, he knows what to do with him. Yeah.

928
00:50:30,120 --> 00:50:32,800
Speaker 1: About six months into the Damascus Spring, in January of

929
00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:36,239
Speaker 1: two thousand one, Serious Information Minister declared the idea of

930
00:50:36,360 --> 00:50:40,840
Speaker 1: civil society to be an American term. President Assad warrant

931
00:50:40,920 --> 00:50:44,040
Speaker 1: the Reformist movement quote. When the consequences of an action

932
00:50:44,120 --> 00:50:46,879
Speaker 1: affect the stability of the homeland, there are two possibilities.

933
00:50:47,120 --> 00:50:49,760
Speaker 1: Either the perpetrator is a foreign agent acting on behalf

934
00:50:49,800 --> 00:50:51,720
Speaker 1: of an outside power, or else he is a simple

935
00:50:51,800 --> 00:50:55,200
Speaker 1: person acting unintentionally. But in both cases a service is

936
00:50:55,239 --> 00:50:58,279
Speaker 1: being done to the country's enemies, and consequently both are

937
00:50:58,320 --> 00:51:01,400
Speaker 1: dealt with in a similar fashion, irrespective of their intentions

938
00:51:01,520 --> 00:51:06,440
Speaker 1: or motives. So anyone who is attacking the regime in

939
00:51:06,440 --> 00:51:08,960
Speaker 1: any way, is either a foreigner trying to bring us

940
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:11,160
Speaker 1: down or a dumb person. But I have to deal

941
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:14,520
Speaker 1: with both foreign spies and dumb people the same way.

942
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:18,839
Speaker 1: Pay attention to that reasoning. Yeah, that reasoning will come

943
00:51:18,880 --> 00:51:22,520
Speaker 1: back a little bit later in this time now. A

944
00:51:22,600 --> 00:51:25,279
Speaker 1: couple of months later, Bishar imprisoned ten members of a

945
00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:28,600
Speaker 1: Syria is extremely milk toast political opposition. A lot of

946
00:51:28,640 --> 00:51:30,239
Speaker 1: these were like the people he'd freed at the start

947
00:51:30,280 --> 00:51:33,160
Speaker 1: of the Damascus Spring. This started a trend of serious

948
00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:36,279
Speaker 1: president reimprisoning all the people he'd freed. One year after

949
00:51:36,320 --> 00:51:39,120
Speaker 1: assuming power, he approved a new press law which gave

950
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:42,160
Speaker 1: the government total control over everything printed in Syria, from

951
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:45,680
Speaker 1: magazines to pamphlets. Many experts now say the whole idea

952
00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:48,120
Speaker 1: of the Damascus Spring was never more than a pr

953
00:51:48,200 --> 00:51:50,520
Speaker 1: move to gain international support for the regime in its

954
00:51:50,560 --> 00:51:54,120
Speaker 1: early days. Others say it was undertaken earnestly, but resistance

955
00:51:54,160 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 1: from old hardliners within the Syrian government forced Bishar to

956
00:51:57,120 --> 00:51:59,879
Speaker 1: back off on his youthful dreams. It's hard to say

957
00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:02,160
Speaker 1: where the truth lies, but there was evidence from the

958
00:52:02,239 --> 00:52:04,680
Speaker 1: earliest days of Bashar's presidency that he was going to

959
00:52:04,760 --> 00:52:07,839
Speaker 1: be just as brutal as his dearly departed dad. One

960
00:52:07,880 --> 00:52:10,960
Speaker 1: of his first moves was to send his security forces

961
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:13,560
Speaker 1: into the city of Latakia, which was a stronghold for

962
00:52:13,640 --> 00:52:16,560
Speaker 1: his exiled brother Rifat, who for some reason was allowed

963
00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:18,759
Speaker 1: to remain the vice president despite being kicked out of

964
00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:21,480
Speaker 1: the country forever. But Shar had many of her fat

965
00:52:21,560 --> 00:52:25,600
Speaker 1: supporters disappeared. He also deposed the Prime Minister Mahmoud al

966
00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:28,839
Speaker 1: Swabi and charged him with corruption, which was probably true,

967
00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:31,080
Speaker 1: but no true reform Mahmood than for any other high

968
00:52:31,160 --> 00:52:34,839
Speaker 1: ranking Syrian official. Mahmood committed suicide in his cell within

969
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:40,239
Speaker 1: weeks of Bashar's inauguration, So you know, starting things off

970
00:52:40,320 --> 00:52:47,839
Speaker 1: with some murder. Okay, it's foreshadowing, almost as if it's foreshadowing,

971
00:52:47,960 --> 00:52:51,120
Speaker 1: but I don't. I don't foreshadow sub Texas for cowards.

972
00:52:51,719 --> 00:52:54,880
Speaker 1: The Namascus Spring was short lived, but this American September

973
00:52:54,960 --> 00:52:56,600
Speaker 1: of two thousand one would go on to have a

974
00:52:56,719 --> 00:53:00,800
Speaker 1: much longer lasting impact on Bashar's regime. Like all Arab leaders,

975
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:02,480
Speaker 1: in the wake of nine eleven, he was forced to

976
00:53:02,560 --> 00:53:05,680
Speaker 1: make some difficult decisions, but Shar had to thread the

977
00:53:05,760 --> 00:53:07,840
Speaker 1: needle of working with the US just enough to not

978
00:53:07,920 --> 00:53:10,840
Speaker 1: get regime changed himself, while also standing up to America

979
00:53:10,960 --> 00:53:14,279
Speaker 1: enough to maintain support at home, and most importantly, doing

980
00:53:14,360 --> 00:53:16,160
Speaker 1: his part to ensure that Iraq was enough of a

981
00:53:16,200 --> 00:53:18,959
Speaker 1: debacle that Bush wouldn't have the political capital to funk

982
00:53:19,000 --> 00:53:22,080
Speaker 1: with the Syrian regime. But char al Assad was by

983
00:53:22,120 --> 00:53:25,600
Speaker 1: all accounts, very successful in this, and two dozen four

984
00:53:25,640 --> 00:53:28,240
Speaker 1: the Bush administration started to slam him hard for allowing

985
00:53:28,320 --> 00:53:30,640
Speaker 1: his country to basically act as a highway for foreign

986
00:53:30,719 --> 00:53:34,640
Speaker 1: fighters to enter Iraq. This was somewhat overblown because only

987
00:53:34,719 --> 00:53:37,640
Speaker 1: five to ten percent of Iraqs and surgeons were foreign fighters.

988
00:53:38,040 --> 00:53:40,399
Speaker 1: But those foreign fighters tended to be the ones who

989
00:53:40,400 --> 00:53:42,200
Speaker 1: actually killed the most people. They were the most of

990
00:53:42,239 --> 00:53:46,520
Speaker 1: the suicide bombers and the really dedicated fighters, so some

991
00:53:46,680 --> 00:53:48,440
Speaker 1: reason to be pissed at that, and he definitely led

992
00:53:48,480 --> 00:53:51,359
Speaker 1: a lot of people through. By the time w came

993
00:53:51,400 --> 00:53:54,040
Speaker 1: down really hard on Syria, he had his hands so

994
00:53:54,200 --> 00:53:56,600
Speaker 1: full with the disastrous occupation of Iraq that there was

995
00:53:56,680 --> 00:53:58,720
Speaker 1: really funk all he could do to Bashar al Assad,

996
00:53:59,160 --> 00:54:02,160
Speaker 1: which made a sad feel safe saying things like this quote,

997
00:54:02,520 --> 00:54:04,600
Speaker 1: some see me is bad, Some see me is good.

998
00:54:04,800 --> 00:54:06,680
Speaker 1: We don't actually care what terms they use. It is

999
00:54:06,760 --> 00:54:08,759
Speaker 1: not right to apply this term to Syria. I mean,

1000
00:54:09,080 --> 00:54:11,640
Speaker 1: look at the relationship that Syria has with the rest

1001
00:54:11,719 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 1: of the world. If you have good relations with most

1002
00:54:13,680 --> 00:54:15,400
Speaker 1: of the world, you are not a rogue state just

1003
00:54:15,480 --> 00:54:19,200
Speaker 1: because the United States says you are, which, you know,

1004
00:54:20,239 --> 00:54:25,160
Speaker 1: given the timing, not totally unfair, but anyway, Bashard's regime did,

1005
00:54:25,200 --> 00:54:28,000
Speaker 1: of course, allow sealfest insurgents to pass through the country.

1006
00:54:28,120 --> 00:54:30,720
Speaker 1: These Sunni extremists gradually built up a base of support

1007
00:54:30,760 --> 00:54:33,120
Speaker 1: in parts of Syria. More than a decade later, they

1008
00:54:33,160 --> 00:54:36,160
Speaker 1: would wind up forming the foundation of the terrorist group ISIS.

1009
00:54:36,600 --> 00:54:38,879
Speaker 1: At the time, letting them fester seem like a smart

1010
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:42,520
Speaker 1: way for Bashar to attack America while maintaining plausible deniability.

1011
00:54:43,239 --> 00:54:45,839
Speaker 1: Assad was also willing to work with the United States, though,

1012
00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:48,960
Speaker 1: particularly when it came to exercising one of his regime's

1013
00:54:49,040 --> 00:54:52,520
Speaker 1: great strengths, its ability to torture the funk out of people.

1014
00:54:53,160 --> 00:54:55,279
Speaker 1: See in the wake of World War Two, an S

1015
00:54:55,480 --> 00:54:58,920
Speaker 1: s Man Alois Brunner immigrated to Syria in an effort

1016
00:54:58,960 --> 00:55:01,600
Speaker 1: to escape being hung for his many, many, many war crimes.

1017
00:55:01,920 --> 00:55:04,680
Speaker 1: Now Brunner was the number one aid and the very

1018
00:55:04,920 --> 00:55:09,080
Speaker 1: best man of Adolf Eichmann, the single dude most responsible

1019
00:55:09,120 --> 00:55:13,040
Speaker 1: for executing the Holocaust. Brunner himself was wanted for his

1020
00:55:13,120 --> 00:55:15,520
Speaker 1: direct complicity in the murder of a hundred and thirty

1021
00:55:15,600 --> 00:55:19,840
Speaker 1: thousand Jews, but Shard's father, Hafez al Assad, welcomed Brunner

1022
00:55:19,880 --> 00:55:23,279
Speaker 1: into the Syrian intelligence establishment with open arms. Now they

1023
00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:26,759
Speaker 1: later fell out, and Brunner did fortunately die horribly in

1024
00:55:26,840 --> 00:55:29,600
Speaker 1: a Syrian prison, but for years he was an integral

1025
00:55:29,680 --> 00:55:33,360
Speaker 1: part in building up serious intelligence infrastructure, and most importantly,

1026
00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:36,960
Speaker 1: he taught the Syrian government how to torture people. So

1027
00:55:37,080 --> 00:55:41,239
Speaker 1: that's cool, literal Nazi helping helping build the bones of

1028
00:55:41,280 --> 00:55:44,600
Speaker 1: your torture department. Now, where this gets even more fucked

1029
00:55:44,680 --> 00:55:49,080
Speaker 1: up is because the Syrian intelligence agencies learned Brunner's lessons

1030
00:55:49,120 --> 00:55:51,800
Speaker 1: about how to torture people well enough that the CIA

1031
00:55:51,880 --> 00:55:54,160
Speaker 1: eventually came to them for help. A lot has been

1032
00:55:54,160 --> 00:55:56,839
Speaker 1: written about the CIA's own terrible torture programs, but most

1033
00:55:56,880 --> 00:56:00,319
Speaker 1: people don't know that we outsourced awful lot, probably even

1034
00:56:00,360 --> 00:56:03,000
Speaker 1: the majority of the torturing we did to other nations.

1035
00:56:03,520 --> 00:56:06,799
Speaker 1: Syria was considered the very best of these Robert Baer,

1036
00:56:06,960 --> 00:56:09,799
Speaker 1: a former CIA agent who worked extensively in the Middle East,

1037
00:56:09,920 --> 00:56:12,880
Speaker 1: later told the Guardian quote, if you want a serious interrogation,

1038
00:56:13,000 --> 00:56:15,560
Speaker 1: you send a prisoner to Jordan's. If you want them tortured,

1039
00:56:15,760 --> 00:56:18,160
Speaker 1: you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear,

1040
00:56:18,320 --> 00:56:20,480
Speaker 1: never to see them again, you send them to Egypt.

1041
00:56:20,960 --> 00:56:24,040
Speaker 1: So Syria is the CIA is like these guys, like

1042
00:56:24,239 --> 00:56:26,879
Speaker 1: we can torture, Like not trying to be humble here.

1043
00:56:27,120 --> 00:56:31,640
Speaker 1: We can torture some dudes. But these guys, they're the Kareem,

1044
00:56:31,800 --> 00:56:34,320
Speaker 1: Like the CIA is the Kareem Abdul Jabbar of torture,

1045
00:56:34,640 --> 00:56:38,400
Speaker 1: but like Sirias, the Michael Jordan's. That's so fucking crazy.

1046
00:56:38,480 --> 00:56:43,160
Speaker 1: Why would you ever that ship out loud? Wait, Robert

1047
00:56:43,200 --> 00:56:46,360
Speaker 1: bat Yeah, he's been very critical of a lot of

1048
00:56:46,400 --> 00:56:48,840
Speaker 1: aspects of the intelligence. Like I think he's trying to

1049
00:56:49,360 --> 00:56:51,560
Speaker 1: be a decent person and tell people about things they

1050
00:56:51,600 --> 00:56:54,080
Speaker 1: need to know about. I thought he was. It felt

1051
00:56:54,080 --> 00:56:56,000
Speaker 1: like he was like bragging, Like let me tell you,

1052
00:56:58,400 --> 00:57:01,680
Speaker 1: I think he's very sort of cogent le and honestly

1053
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:04,440
Speaker 1: talking to the Guardian about like this is how the

1054
00:57:04,520 --> 00:57:07,480
Speaker 1: torture program works. You go to Syria, if you want

1055
00:57:07,520 --> 00:57:10,120
Speaker 1: people to like, I'm glad he said it. Someone needs

1056
00:57:10,200 --> 00:57:12,640
Speaker 1: to like. I'm not gonna say everything Robert Bear has

1057
00:57:12,640 --> 00:57:14,680
Speaker 1: done in his career has been fine and above board,

1058
00:57:14,719 --> 00:57:18,760
Speaker 1: but I'm glad that information is out there. Oh, it

1059
00:57:18,840 --> 00:57:21,520
Speaker 1: gets worse. The U S would regularly send people that

1060
00:57:21,600 --> 00:57:24,480
Speaker 1: apprehended to Syria with lists of questions for the interrogators

1061
00:57:24,520 --> 00:57:27,280
Speaker 1: to work through while they brutally tortured our captives. One

1062
00:57:27,360 --> 00:57:30,160
Speaker 1: of these people was Maher are Are, a Syrian and

1063
00:57:30,320 --> 00:57:33,280
Speaker 1: Canadian citizen, on his way home to Canada after a

1064
00:57:33,360 --> 00:57:36,520
Speaker 1: vacation in Syria. In two thousand two, Maher was detained

1065
00:57:36,600 --> 00:57:40,040
Speaker 1: by US authorities at JFK Airport under charges of being brown.

1066
00:57:40,720 --> 00:57:43,320
Speaker 1: Mayer was not a terrorist, but the U S Intelligence

1067
00:57:43,320 --> 00:57:45,440
Speaker 1: agencies thought he might be, so they sent him over

1068
00:57:45,560 --> 00:57:48,760
Speaker 1: to Syria. Here's hell. A US judge later summarized what

1069
00:57:48,840 --> 00:57:52,080
Speaker 1: happened to him quote. During his first twelve days in

1070
00:57:52,160 --> 00:57:55,440
Speaker 1: Syrian detention, are Are was interrogated for eighteen hours per

1071
00:57:55,520 --> 00:57:58,600
Speaker 1: day and was physically and psychologically tortured. He was beaten

1072
00:57:58,640 --> 00:58:00,600
Speaker 1: on his palms hips and low, we're back with a

1073
00:58:00,640 --> 00:58:03,600
Speaker 1: two inch thick electric cable. His captors also used their

1074
00:58:03,640 --> 00:58:05,640
Speaker 1: fists to beat him on his stomach, his face, in

1075
00:58:05,720 --> 00:58:08,400
Speaker 1: the back of his neck. He was subjected to excruciating

1076
00:58:08,440 --> 00:58:10,680
Speaker 1: pain and pleaded with his captors to stop, but they

1077
00:58:10,680 --> 00:58:12,640
Speaker 1: would not. He was placed in a room where he

1078
00:58:12,680 --> 00:58:15,280
Speaker 1: could hear the screams of other detainees being tortured, and

1079
00:58:15,400 --> 00:58:17,120
Speaker 1: was told that he too would be placed in a

1080
00:58:17,240 --> 00:58:20,840
Speaker 1: spine breaking chair, hung upside down an attire for beatings,

1081
00:58:21,040 --> 00:58:24,160
Speaker 1: and subjected to electric shocks to lessen his exposure to

1082
00:58:24,240 --> 00:58:27,280
Speaker 1: the torture. Or are falsely confessed, among other things, to

1083
00:58:27,400 --> 00:58:30,040
Speaker 1: having trained with terrorists and Afghanistan, even though he had

1084
00:58:30,080 --> 00:58:32,480
Speaker 1: never been to Afghanistan and had never been involved in

1085
00:58:32,640 --> 00:58:39,280
Speaker 1: terrorist activity. Cool so cool. We Uh, that's one of

1086
00:58:39,360 --> 00:58:42,160
Speaker 1: those things. It's both like if you on the US,

1087
00:58:42,880 --> 00:58:45,680
Speaker 1: if you're like a patriotic American who gets like two

1088
00:58:45,760 --> 00:58:48,960
Speaker 1: up your own ass about how bad these Arab dictators are,

1089
00:58:49,320 --> 00:58:52,320
Speaker 1: like our government was happy to use them to torture people,

1090
00:58:52,640 --> 00:58:56,280
Speaker 1: But also like if you're a leftist getting to uppity

1091
00:58:56,320 --> 00:58:59,600
Speaker 1: about Bashar al Assad being an anti imperialist, he was

1092
00:58:59,680 --> 00:59:02,760
Speaker 1: fine to torture people for the CIA. Fuck all of them, like,

1093
00:59:03,400 --> 00:59:05,800
Speaker 1: fuck all of them, well, I mean just getting picked

1094
00:59:05,840 --> 00:59:09,400
Speaker 1: up for being brown is just you know, yeah, the

1095
00:59:09,600 --> 00:59:14,840
Speaker 1: fuck yeah, it's it's all very frustrating. Over the early odds,

1096
00:59:14,920 --> 00:59:18,600
Speaker 1: Bishar gradually grew into his role as supreme ruler of Syria.

1097
00:59:18,800 --> 00:59:21,600
Speaker 1: He allowed the US to forces Yeah, there we go,

1098
00:59:21,760 --> 00:59:25,120
Speaker 1: there's our boy. Uh. He allowed the US to forces

1099
00:59:25,160 --> 00:59:27,919
Speaker 1: soldiers out of their years long occupation of Lebanon, something

1100
00:59:28,000 --> 00:59:31,040
Speaker 1: he felt he should have received more international gratitude for doing.

1101
00:59:31,440 --> 00:59:34,240
Speaker 1: In two thousand six, Hezbollah, a group heavily supported by

1102
00:59:34,240 --> 00:59:37,040
Speaker 1: the Syrian government, went to war with Israel. It did

1103
00:59:37,120 --> 00:59:41,240
Speaker 1: not go well, but Hezbollah survived, which was widely seen

1104
00:59:41,280 --> 00:59:44,240
Speaker 1: as a victory. U Bashar saw this a proof that

1105
00:59:44,320 --> 00:59:46,960
Speaker 1: his regime was now safe. If America and Israel could

1106
00:59:47,000 --> 00:59:49,400
Speaker 1: not take out Hezbollah, they surely would not be able

1107
00:59:49,440 --> 00:59:51,880
Speaker 1: to remove him from power. This wound up being a

1108
00:59:52,080 --> 00:59:55,720
Speaker 1: completely accurate guess. Uh. David Lesh, a professor of Middle

1109
00:59:55,760 --> 00:59:58,120
Speaker 1: East history who met with Bishard dozens of times during

1110
00:59:58,160 --> 01:00:01,959
Speaker 1: this period, recalls his evolution quote in May two thousand seven,

1111
01:00:02,160 --> 01:00:05,440
Speaker 1: amid Bashar's reelection and a referendum to another seven year term,

1112
01:00:05,520 --> 01:00:07,960
Speaker 1: I noticed something in him that I had not detected before,

1113
01:00:08,320 --> 01:00:12,040
Speaker 1: self satisfaction. Maybe this is inevitable in a neo patrimonial

1114
01:00:12,160 --> 01:00:14,760
Speaker 1: authoritarian state, and maybe he was getting his due after

1115
01:00:14,840 --> 01:00:16,920
Speaker 1: such a tough ride. But Bashar has been a very

1116
01:00:17,040 --> 01:00:20,800
Speaker 1: unpretentious leader, even self deprecating. Despite being surrounded by very

1117
01:00:20,880 --> 01:00:24,600
Speaker 1: dangerous circumstances, he never seemed to take himself too seriously. Indeed,

1118
01:00:24,680 --> 01:00:26,880
Speaker 1: one time I asked him to talk about his greatest

1119
01:00:26,880 --> 01:00:29,760
Speaker 1: accomplishments to date, and he responded that perhaps we should

1120
01:00:29,760 --> 01:00:32,120
Speaker 1: spend more time on his biggest failures. He is not

1121
01:00:32,200 --> 01:00:35,320
Speaker 1: a commanding figure at first glance. Soft spoken, gregarious, with

1122
01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:38,120
Speaker 1: a childlike laugh, he does not fit the typical profile

1123
01:00:38,200 --> 01:00:40,720
Speaker 1: of a dictator. This was even the case when he

1124
01:00:40,800 --> 01:00:43,480
Speaker 1: ran unopposed in a referendum. Visiting a polling station, I

1125
01:00:43,560 --> 01:00:45,560
Speaker 1: observed that each voter had to check the yes or

1126
01:00:45,640 --> 01:00:48,000
Speaker 1: no box in public amid a band playing and people

1127
01:00:48,040 --> 01:00:50,880
Speaker 1: singing pro Bishar tuns. It would be an intrepid voter

1128
01:00:50,920 --> 01:00:53,880
Speaker 1: who would check no, especially with security personnel, no doubt

1129
01:00:53,920 --> 01:00:57,000
Speaker 1: watching closely. The ba Shar posters draped over almost every

1130
01:00:57,080 --> 01:00:59,240
Speaker 1: standing structure and out of every window, and the I

1131
01:00:59,400 --> 01:01:01,960
Speaker 1: love bisha are in English and Arabic pens pendance and

1132
01:01:02,000 --> 01:01:05,960
Speaker 1: billboards belied his issuing of such cultish popular behavior to date.

1133
01:01:06,240 --> 01:01:09,280
Speaker 1: But Shar understood that the vote to re elect him

1134
01:01:09,360 --> 01:01:11,640
Speaker 1: was not an accurate barometer of his real standing in

1135
01:01:11,720 --> 01:01:13,920
Speaker 1: the country. He said it was more important to look

1136
01:01:13,960 --> 01:01:16,360
Speaker 1: at turnout rates for voters, as those who did not

1137
01:01:16,560 --> 01:01:19,000
Speaker 1: vote were more than likely to have voted no. According

1138
01:01:19,040 --> 01:01:22,280
Speaker 1: to Syrian estimates, the voter turnout rate was still a

1139
01:01:22,400 --> 01:01:26,600
Speaker 1: very favorable response for Bashar. I'm so stuck on how

1140
01:01:26,920 --> 01:01:32,280
Speaker 1: they just described him self deprecating. You know, Lesha is

1141
01:01:32,280 --> 01:01:35,200
Speaker 1: an interesting figure because he wrote a very pro Bichard

1142
01:01:35,240 --> 01:01:37,439
Speaker 1: book before the Civil War, and then after the Civil

1143
01:01:37,480 --> 01:01:39,960
Speaker 1: War wrote some really anti Bashar stuff like came around

1144
01:01:40,000 --> 01:01:41,360
Speaker 1: to be like Okay, no, this guy is a monster

1145
01:01:41,920 --> 01:01:44,000
Speaker 1: and and has been one of the more useful figures

1146
01:01:44,040 --> 01:01:46,880
Speaker 1: in trying to analyze the question you asked earlier, like

1147
01:01:47,040 --> 01:01:49,320
Speaker 1: was he always a monster? Like how did this this

1148
01:01:49,640 --> 01:01:52,000
Speaker 1: like happen? Like what was the switch? It sounds like

1149
01:01:52,160 --> 01:01:54,240
Speaker 1: the way that guy described him, he's like a real

1150
01:01:54,440 --> 01:01:59,640
Speaker 1: Jekyl and Hide character, Like there's literally there's literally a

1151
01:01:59,680 --> 01:02:03,120
Speaker 1: stuff the uh called Bashar al Assad jekyl and Hide

1152
01:02:03,240 --> 01:02:06,000
Speaker 1: or something like yeah, like no, like it's it's what

1153
01:02:06,320 --> 01:02:08,280
Speaker 1: you're saying is like really valid because a lot of

1154
01:02:08,360 --> 01:02:12,280
Speaker 1: people have had these same sort of realizations. Um, there's

1155
01:02:12,440 --> 01:02:16,880
Speaker 1: enough hild like giggle, it's like the fun. Yeah, but

1156
01:02:16,960 --> 01:02:19,280
Speaker 1: there's enough stories about him that paint him in that

1157
01:02:19,440 --> 01:02:21,360
Speaker 1: light for me to think, Okay, well they're probably not.

1158
01:02:22,080 --> 01:02:24,920
Speaker 1: They have no reason to lie because like Lesha's you know,

1159
01:02:25,120 --> 01:02:28,240
Speaker 1: it's been pretty pretty decent about like, yeah, I got

1160
01:02:28,360 --> 01:02:32,920
Speaker 1: him wrong and stuff like either it was a facade

1161
01:02:33,000 --> 01:02:36,440
Speaker 1: he deliberately put up, or a guy like that is

1162
01:02:36,480 --> 01:02:41,360
Speaker 1: perfectly capable of killing half a million people. Yeah, you know,

1163
01:02:41,960 --> 01:02:44,680
Speaker 1: you kind of pick which one you want to believe,

1164
01:02:44,960 --> 01:02:48,600
Speaker 1: But one of the two seems to be the case now.

1165
01:02:48,920 --> 01:02:51,520
Speaker 1: But Charol Assad was optimistic about his ability to keep

1166
01:02:51,560 --> 01:02:55,240
Speaker 1: a sodding. During the Obama administration, US foreign policy and

1167
01:02:55,240 --> 01:02:58,040
Speaker 1: in public will had turned hard away from intervention. The

1168
01:02:58,080 --> 01:03:01,040
Speaker 1: new president had promised to withdraw troop from Iraq. Senator

1169
01:03:01,160 --> 01:03:03,320
Speaker 1: John Carey was sent to Damascus to meet with Bihar

1170
01:03:03,480 --> 01:03:07,640
Speaker 1: and restart Syrian Israeli peace negotiations. Over the next few years,

1171
01:03:07,720 --> 01:03:10,080
Speaker 1: Carrie and Assad hung out a lot, speaking regularly on

1172
01:03:10,160 --> 01:03:13,760
Speaker 1: the telephone. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie also became friends.

1173
01:03:13,800 --> 01:03:20,840
Speaker 1: With the Assads. This was reveal your face. What Yeah,

1174
01:03:20,920 --> 01:03:27,040
Speaker 1: you didn't call that one, did you? What the fuck? Oh?

1175
01:03:27,480 --> 01:03:29,800
Speaker 1: You are about to get what the funk here? Um?

1176
01:03:30,680 --> 01:03:35,320
Speaker 1: This next bit is quite quite the ride. Wait what year? This?

1177
01:03:36,320 --> 01:03:40,440
Speaker 1: This is two thousand, like eleven? That is the fuck,

1178
01:03:40,560 --> 01:03:45,800
Speaker 1: brand Jelina, Dude, I hope Bascher broke them up. I

1179
01:03:45,920 --> 01:03:48,600
Speaker 1: hope so too. I hope so too, and I hope

1180
01:03:48,640 --> 01:03:52,440
Speaker 1: that uh he provided no emotional support when they were

1181
01:03:52,480 --> 01:03:58,960
Speaker 1: going through that. Yeah now brand Alina's uh friendship with

1182
01:03:59,440 --> 01:04:02,480
Speaker 1: the Assad was revealed in a February two thousand eleven

1183
01:04:02,600 --> 01:04:06,240
Speaker 1: Vogue article titled A Rose in the Desert about Ozma

1184
01:04:06,280 --> 01:04:10,720
Speaker 1: al Assad Bashar's wife. Oh the fucking pros you're about

1185
01:04:10,800 --> 01:04:15,840
Speaker 1: to hear and oh it's bad quote. When Angelina Jolie

1186
01:04:16,040 --> 01:04:18,320
Speaker 1: came with Brad Pitt for the United Nations in two

1187
01:04:18,400 --> 01:04:21,240
Speaker 1: thousand nine, she was impressed by the First Lady's efforts

1188
01:04:21,280 --> 01:04:25,760
Speaker 1: to encourage empowerment among Iraqi and Palestinian refugees, but alarmed

1189
01:04:25,800 --> 01:04:29,040
Speaker 1: by the Assad's idea of safety. My husband was driving

1190
01:04:29,080 --> 01:04:31,840
Speaker 1: ass All to lunch, says Ozma al Asad, and out

1191
01:04:31,880 --> 01:04:33,480
Speaker 1: of the corner of my eye, I could see Brad

1192
01:04:33,520 --> 01:04:36,520
Speaker 1: Pitt was fidgeting. I turned around and asked, is anything wrong?

1193
01:04:37,080 --> 01:04:40,240
Speaker 1: Where's your security? Asked Pitt? So I started teasing him.

1194
01:04:40,400 --> 01:04:42,560
Speaker 1: See that old woman on the street, that's one of them,

1195
01:04:42,640 --> 01:04:45,160
Speaker 1: and that old guy crossing the road that's the other one.

1196
01:04:45,320 --> 01:04:48,320
Speaker 1: They both laugh. The President joins in on the punchline.

1197
01:04:48,520 --> 01:04:50,840
Speaker 1: Brad Pitt wanted to send his security guards here to

1198
01:04:50,880 --> 01:04:54,320
Speaker 1: come and get some training in that. In that funny,

1199
01:04:56,320 --> 01:05:04,280
Speaker 1: I can all fuck themselves. I I hate everybody in

1200
01:05:04,400 --> 01:05:08,160
Speaker 1: that story. That's the worst thing in that old lady.

1201
01:05:09,280 --> 01:05:11,560
Speaker 1: It's like, are you fucking kidding me? You're gonna murder

1202
01:05:11,680 --> 01:05:14,160
Speaker 1: all these people suits, Like all of these people will

1203
01:05:14,160 --> 01:05:16,240
Speaker 1: be dead from barrel bombs in like a year and

1204
01:05:16,280 --> 01:05:19,160
Speaker 1: a half now. The whole article was filled with fawning

1205
01:05:19,200 --> 01:05:22,040
Speaker 1: praise for sirious first Lady. In case that excerpt doesn't

1206
01:05:22,040 --> 01:05:24,000
Speaker 1: give you a clear idea of the tone, here's the

1207
01:05:24,120 --> 01:05:33,520
Speaker 1: opening paragraph, fucking strap in on a quote. Yea asm

1208
01:05:33,600 --> 01:05:37,480
Speaker 1: Alissad is glamorous, young, and very chic, the freshest and

1209
01:05:37,560 --> 01:05:40,440
Speaker 1: most magnetic of first ladies. Her style is not the

1210
01:05:40,560 --> 01:05:44,320
Speaker 1: coutra and bling dazzle of Middle Eastern power, but aliberate

1211
01:05:44,440 --> 01:05:48,280
Speaker 1: lack of adornment. She's a rare combination, a thin, long

1212
01:05:48,400 --> 01:05:51,600
Speaker 1: limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with

1213
01:05:51,760 --> 01:05:55,640
Speaker 1: cunning understatement. Paris Match calls her the element of light

1214
01:05:55,760 --> 01:05:58,440
Speaker 1: in a country full of shadow zones. She is the

1215
01:05:58,560 --> 01:06:05,960
Speaker 1: first Lady of Syria. How you doing there? I know

1216
01:06:06,400 --> 01:06:13,000
Speaker 1: that is Is this article still online? No? No, I

1217
01:06:13,040 --> 01:06:15,840
Speaker 1: think I think the I think they should have left

1218
01:06:15,920 --> 01:06:18,200
Speaker 1: it up so they could be eternally shamed. There are

1219
01:06:18,320 --> 01:06:20,120
Speaker 1: copies of it, and I will link you to the

1220
01:06:20,600 --> 01:06:23,720
Speaker 1: way Back Machine archive because people should read it and

1221
01:06:24,240 --> 01:06:27,080
Speaker 1: throw shame on Vogue for the rest of time. That

1222
01:06:27,320 --> 01:06:30,640
Speaker 1: is such a dangerous description of a human being who

1223
01:06:30,680 --> 01:06:35,240
Speaker 1: has made who's basically involved in some monstrous city. That

1224
01:06:35,520 --> 01:06:39,160
Speaker 1: is the journalistic equivalent of getting blackout drunk and then

1225
01:06:39,280 --> 01:06:43,000
Speaker 1: driving a truck down the main thoroughfare of town like that.

1226
01:06:43,320 --> 01:06:49,000
Speaker 1: That's like morally equivalent. The reason that I hope, honestly,

1227
01:06:49,040 --> 01:06:51,200
Speaker 1: if I saw Brad Pitt and he looked like ship

1228
01:06:51,400 --> 01:06:53,040
Speaker 1: and he was like, yeah, I'm just not going through

1229
01:06:53,080 --> 01:06:55,280
Speaker 1: a good time, I'd be like, yeah, you should never

1230
01:06:55,400 --> 01:07:02,200
Speaker 1: go through a good time ever again. Fucking couple. Yeah, yeah,

1231
01:07:03,040 --> 01:07:07,040
Speaker 1: gross and it gets grosser. The Vogue article praise Syria

1232
01:07:07,120 --> 01:07:09,720
Speaker 1: for being the safest country in the Middle East. In

1233
01:07:09,840 --> 01:07:13,440
Speaker 1: August two thou eleven, The Hill Reports reported that lobbying

1234
01:07:13,520 --> 01:07:16,600
Speaker 1: firm Brown Lloyd James had been paid five thousand dollars

1235
01:07:16,640 --> 01:07:19,040
Speaker 1: a month by the Syrian regime to publish and manage

1236
01:07:19,080 --> 01:07:23,600
Speaker 1: that Vogue article. So that makes sense. The puff piece

1237
01:07:23,720 --> 01:07:26,760
Speaker 1: ended with a few paragraphs about the Assads celebrating Christmas

1238
01:07:26,840 --> 01:07:30,800
Speaker 1: in Damascus. I think you'll find this very heartwarming, Anna quote.

1239
01:07:32,760 --> 01:07:36,560
Speaker 1: Two hundred children dressed variously as elves, reindeers, or candy

1240
01:07:36,640 --> 01:07:39,640
Speaker 1: canes share the stage with members of the National Orchestra

1241
01:07:39,720 --> 01:07:41,800
Speaker 1: who are done up as elves. The show becomes a

1242
01:07:41,840 --> 01:07:44,440
Speaker 1: full on songfest, with the elves and reindeer and candy

1243
01:07:44,480 --> 01:07:47,040
Speaker 1: cames giving all their hallelujah and joy to the world.

1244
01:07:47,720 --> 01:07:50,520
Speaker 1: The carols slide into a more serpentine rhythm. An Arabic

1245
01:07:50,640 --> 01:07:53,280
Speaker 1: rap group takes over, and then it's back to Broadway mode.

1246
01:07:53,400 --> 01:07:56,520
Speaker 1: The President whispers, all of these styles belong to our culture.

1247
01:07:56,880 --> 01:08:00,520
Speaker 1: This is how you fight extremism through art. Breast bells

1248
01:08:00,560 --> 01:08:03,400
Speaker 1: are handed out. Now we're all singing jingle bell rock.

1249
01:08:04,800 --> 01:08:08,200
Speaker 1: Audience members shaking their bell, singing, crying and laughing. This

1250
01:08:08,400 --> 01:08:10,560
Speaker 1: is the diversity you want to see in the Middle East,

1251
01:08:10,640 --> 01:08:13,600
Speaker 1: says the president, ringing his bell. This is how you

1252
01:08:13,720 --> 01:08:19,360
Speaker 1: can have peace. I'm sorry, Okay, let's die first, He says.

1253
01:08:19,479 --> 01:08:23,439
Speaker 1: All these styles are from Syrian. Well, I mean Syria

1254
01:08:23,479 --> 01:08:25,640
Speaker 1: has like it's got Christians and it has you know,

1255
01:08:25,760 --> 01:08:28,519
Speaker 1: Arabs rapping and stuff. That he was trying to say that,

1256
01:08:28,640 --> 01:08:30,920
Speaker 1: like all of these religions are part of our culture

1257
01:08:31,040 --> 01:08:37,800
Speaker 1: and like, you know, we made that broadway. If if

1258
01:08:37,880 --> 01:08:41,000
Speaker 1: he had actually opened up Syria and not murdered hundreds

1259
01:08:41,000 --> 01:08:43,160
Speaker 1: of thousands of people, it would be a heartwarming story.

1260
01:08:43,680 --> 01:08:49,120
Speaker 1: But you know, on January twelve, less than one year

1261
01:08:49,160 --> 01:08:52,320
Speaker 1: and exactly one Christmas after the publication of that Vogue article,

1262
01:08:52,680 --> 01:08:55,599
Speaker 1: Syrian regime forces shot a hundred and two people dead

1263
01:08:55,640 --> 01:08:58,680
Speaker 1: in protests across the country. They shot ninety eight more

1264
01:08:58,760 --> 01:09:02,679
Speaker 1: people dead on January. On February four, two thousand twelve,

1265
01:09:02,720 --> 01:09:05,680
Speaker 1: almost exactly a year after that Vogue article, Bashar al

1266
01:09:05,680 --> 01:09:08,840
Speaker 1: Assad ordered his artillery to fire indiscriminately at the city

1267
01:09:08,920 --> 01:09:11,240
Speaker 1: of Halmes, killing more than four hundred civilians in a

1268
01:09:11,320 --> 01:09:14,639
Speaker 1: single bloody day. Now we're getting a little bit ahead

1269
01:09:14,640 --> 01:09:17,000
Speaker 1: of ourselves. On part two, we'll talk about the Arab

1270
01:09:17,120 --> 01:09:19,799
Speaker 1: Spring and how Bashar's regime went from playing it openness

1271
01:09:19,880 --> 01:09:23,080
Speaker 1: to murdering hundreds of thousands of people. For now, I

1272
01:09:23,120 --> 01:09:25,600
Speaker 1: want to note that Vogue eventually pulled their profile of

1273
01:09:25,680 --> 01:09:28,560
Speaker 1: Ozma al Assad. In an interview with The Atlantic, the

1274
01:09:28,640 --> 01:09:31,320
Speaker 1: Stories editor, a guy named Chris Knudson, said, quote, we

1275
01:09:31,439 --> 01:09:33,920
Speaker 1: felt that a personal interview with Sirius first Lady would

1276
01:09:33,960 --> 01:09:36,400
Speaker 1: hold strong interest for our readers. We thought we could

1277
01:09:36,439 --> 01:09:39,920
Speaker 1: open up that very closed world a little bit. Are

1278
01:09:40,000 --> 01:09:44,880
Speaker 1: you fucking kidding me? Yeah? You funk off man, I

1279
01:09:44,920 --> 01:09:48,040
Speaker 1: have an idea. Suck my dick. Sorry I don't you know,

1280
01:09:48,520 --> 01:09:54,519
Speaker 1: but you fuck you. The closest thing that article gets

1281
01:09:54,640 --> 01:09:58,880
Speaker 1: to like acknowledging the horribly dark side of the Syrian

1282
01:09:58,920 --> 01:10:01,960
Speaker 1: regime is by saying it there are shadow zones and Syria.

1283
01:10:02,040 --> 01:10:04,280
Speaker 1: But it only mentioned shadow zones to talk about how

1284
01:10:04,360 --> 01:10:08,599
Speaker 1: pretty Ozma Allissada is so doesn't really count. It's like, Wow,

1285
01:10:08,720 --> 01:10:13,040
Speaker 1: she's so gorgeous around all these body parts. She looks

1286
01:10:13,040 --> 01:10:16,880
Speaker 1: so pretty next to these Macabra police torturing people. God,

1287
01:10:17,040 --> 01:10:20,800
Speaker 1: look at her, compared to like that, like severed head.

1288
01:10:21,080 --> 01:10:25,400
Speaker 1: Isn't she Gorges super good next to this pile of limbs?

1289
01:10:25,680 --> 01:10:30,360
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Everyone involved in that article should take

1290
01:10:30,400 --> 01:10:34,200
Speaker 1: a strong, hard look at themselves in the mirror. Yeah,

1291
01:10:34,280 --> 01:10:39,400
Speaker 1: they really ought to. Now, Anna, you feel like plugging

1292
01:10:40,000 --> 01:10:43,920
Speaker 1: your plugables? I feel like dying. Uh. You know you

1293
01:10:44,040 --> 01:10:48,400
Speaker 1: can find me Anna host me on Twitter A and

1294
01:10:48,560 --> 01:10:51,040
Speaker 1: and A H O S S and I E h.

1295
01:10:51,200 --> 01:10:54,799
Speaker 1: I will be tweeting NonStop and Angelina and Brad asking

1296
01:10:54,920 --> 01:10:57,840
Speaker 1: to explain themselves. Uh. And you can also listen to

1297
01:10:57,960 --> 01:11:01,559
Speaker 1: my podcast with sharn you Nez. We host a podcast.

1298
01:11:01,680 --> 01:11:04,960
Speaker 1: They're called Ethnically Ambiguous. Check it outsall Middle Eastern news

1299
01:11:05,000 --> 01:11:08,080
Speaker 1: and politics and hey, you know, maybe well we'll get

1300
01:11:08,200 --> 01:11:11,720
Speaker 1: in depth on how to get Angelina and Brad on

1301
01:11:11,760 --> 01:11:15,920
Speaker 1: the show and corner them. Yeah, oh man, that could

1302
01:11:15,960 --> 01:11:20,000
Speaker 1: be our new podcast, is just cornering Brad Pitt and

1303
01:11:20,040 --> 01:11:23,160
Speaker 1: Angelina Jolie and making them feel bad. I do wonder

1304
01:11:23,240 --> 01:11:25,599
Speaker 1: if he ever got his bodyguards out there to train,

1305
01:11:25,720 --> 01:11:29,320
Speaker 1: and if they're all psycho killers. Now yeah, yeah, I

1306
01:11:29,439 --> 01:11:33,080
Speaker 1: hope so, I hope. I hope for Brad's sake he did,

1307
01:11:33,479 --> 01:11:37,000
Speaker 1: because we are going to be throwing some rotten food

1308
01:11:37,080 --> 01:11:41,800
Speaker 1: at him, Um, that is the plan. So I'm Robert Evans.

1309
01:11:41,840 --> 01:11:43,439
Speaker 1: You can find me on Twitter at I right, okay.

1310
01:11:43,560 --> 01:11:47,679
Speaker 1: You can find this podcast on Twinstagram's the the both

1311
01:11:47,720 --> 01:11:50,120
Speaker 1: the social meds at at Bastard's pod. You can find

1312
01:11:50,200 --> 01:11:53,040
Speaker 1: us on the web at behind the Bastards dot com.

1313
01:11:53,720 --> 01:11:56,200
Speaker 1: I have another podcast called it Could Happen Here, which

1314
01:11:56,280 --> 01:11:59,479
Speaker 1: is about what if a civil war but in America?

1315
01:12:00,040 --> 01:12:04,120
Speaker 1: And it's also a real bummer like this podcast. So

1316
01:12:04,240 --> 01:12:06,680
Speaker 1: if you like being bummed out, maybe you like it.

1317
01:12:07,040 --> 01:12:09,560
Speaker 1: Let me let me guess Angelina is running like a

1318
01:12:09,680 --> 01:12:14,200
Speaker 1: Confederate army. Now, yes, yes, yes, Angelina Julie head of

1319
01:12:14,280 --> 01:12:18,800
Speaker 1: the neo Confederate forces. That is so her like. It's

1320
01:12:18,800 --> 01:12:24,120
Speaker 1: the obvious man. Yeah. Could you imagine a tabloid headline

1321
01:12:24,160 --> 01:12:27,000
Speaker 1: being like Angelina in charge of the Gate Army were

1322
01:12:27,040 --> 01:12:34,200
Speaker 1: like tabloid such lies? Also T shirts ke public Behind

1323
01:12:34,240 --> 01:12:37,519
Speaker 1: the Bastards design me a go on or I'll kill

1324
01:12:37,640 --> 01:12:40,720
Speaker 1: you shut Yeah. Yeah, we need to get the cash podcast,

1325
01:12:40,800 --> 01:12:47,920
Speaker 1: Dictator podcast, Dictator shirt Daniel play me off. I'm not

1326
01:12:48,040 --> 01:12:50,120
Speaker 1: hearing anybody playing me off. I don't know the fill

1327
01:12:50,160 --> 01:12:52,720
Speaker 1: in your own music in your head. Uh and go

1328
01:12:52,880 --> 01:12:55,360
Speaker 1: do something decides to listen to this podcast because it's over.