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The movie of the life of US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford is going to be great. I just hope it ends well.
Supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have thrown tomatoes and eggs at US ambassador Robert Ford as he met an opposition figure in Damascus.
Veteran politician Hassan Abdul Azim said about 100 protesters tried to get into his office as Mr Ford arrived and then surrounded it, trapping them both.
US officials said the “mob was violent” and seriously damaged embassy vehicles, but that Mr Ford was unharmed.
Ford has been a real hero in all of this. He has set foot in some of the most besieged cities in the country, spoken out for freedom of assembly and civil rights, and as you see here, risked personal safety in service of these principles. At first he was decried by neocons and Republicans for, well, being a Barack Obama appointee. Conservatives believed that simply having an ambassador in Syria was a gift to the Assad government, and they blocked Ford’s appointment. But Ford has now changed the minds of even the most ardent conservatives.
“I really changed my mind on this,” said Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“He has done some things that are just really impressive. He’s gone to places where the protesters are. He’s been roughed up a few times. I had the impression that he wouldn’t be quite strong enough, and I’ve been proven wrong.”
Ford’s recess appointment expires at the end of the year, and some ardent conservatives still may block him. They would be silencing the most important voice on the side of the protest movement and against the repression of the Assad regime. In the meantime, Ford is going about his dangerous work, and while the regime-supporting mob didn’t physically harm him this time, next time Ford may not be so lucky.
The UN Security Council votes today on a resolution calling for an end to violence in Syria.
16 Comments
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Wow, I have lived to see Inhofe admit to being wrong about something. Maybe there’s hope for action on climate change?
Nah.
Let’s see. US ambassador putting his life on the line doing thankless tasks.
How did that work out?
Wow — he seems like a gutsy, principled person. A US ambassador who didn’t get his post by donating buckets of money? Who’da thunk it?
At least Wilson got some publicity.
In other news, Mrs. Obama buys paper towels at Target.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled broadcast.
“I really changed my mind on this,” said Sen. James M. Inhofe,
How about that, I didn’t think this android had a functioning brain, I thought it was a Borg like corrupted memory chip. Better watch it, Inhofe, public regret and other human like acts will get you re assimilated by the Collective.
Resistance is futile.
The PR guys for George H W Bush – the elder murderous bastard – got word out that GHWB loved to munch on Pork Rinds.
It wasn’t until Dim Son’s last term that Sr. Bush admitted that it wasn’t true. He didn’t really eat pork rinds after all.
Who’d a thunk it?
Like Mrs. $350,000/year corp lawyer shops at Target? I believe that, don’t you?
Good for him.
Perhaps he could take a plane and do the same for the protesters on Wall St.
I’m sure they would be happy for the moral support.
If he was doing his job as an ambassador that spoke to the current government of Syria instead of talking to opposition leaders who want to overthrow the government making people wouldn’t be throwing tomatoes at him. I wonder what would happen to a foreign ambassador who went to see a American who was against our current government and decided to offer that person or persons some advice on how to circumvent the U.S. government. They would probably be told to leave immediately or be charged with spying and the American would definitely be charged with cooperating with a foreign government or worse “Treason”
Send him to Bahrain. Those folks need help there too.
At an enormous personal cost.
The U.S. should stick out of Syria. If people there have a successful rebellion, great. But there’s nothing positive an American government, more stained in Arab blood than any Middle Eastern regime, can contribute to the region except benign neglect.
This drama takes attention away from attacking Iran. While Obama’s henchmen (e.g. Chu) and Israel are talking up the immediate, dangerous “Iran threat,” Robert Ford is keeping attention on Syria. Go Bob.
You know what will happen….carpet bombed.
But like you pointed out what is he doing meddling in Syria’s internal.
Was there ever a country before with so much hypocrisy for policy.
Wonder what other peoples of the World really think of our USA,anyone think they notice the immense hypocrisy ?
We constantly do this, all over the world. It doesn’t matter if it is a Asian, Middle Eastern, Latin American or European country. We constantly are in other countries business while ours goes straight to shit.