Charlie Rose interview with President Bashar Assad

 

Charlie Rose interviewed Syrian President Bashar Assad at the presidential palace in Damascus on Sunday morning . I watched a re-run of the interview on PBS this Monday evening.

In the American judicial system a person is presumed to be innocent until proved to be guilty. This interview was about as close to a jury trial of an accused giving testimony  to a prosecution lawyer as we will ever get in the furor over Syria's revolution and the use of chemical weapons.

As one who admires Charlie Rose's intellect, along with admiration of President Obama and the enmity I've accumulated about Syria as an evil force against Jews and other peoples of peace, I assumed that the eye doctor transformed by circumstance into a dictator would appear true to form and reveal his ambitions to rule the world at any cost including the lives of his fellow countrymen.

Of course he may be a very clever maniacal liar despite the fact that the media portrays him to be not well groomed in political discourse, awkward and weak chinned, certainly no match for Charlie Rose who has interviewed the world's most brilliant people!

So why did our knight of the media seem so desperate to get answers to support his original premise when his subject provided almost reasonable alternatives which, at least so far, have not been dis-proven?  Of course, the accused blamed terrorists, such as Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood for his problems and their possible use of chemical weapons in order to put blame on the Assad government. What proof did Charlie have to present about that?  Certainly our own government has not put that possibility to rest, yet.

We westerners should always be aware of the evils of both Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.  Remember it is the Muslim Brotherhood which has caused so much turmoil in the revolution in Egypt and destroyed any semblance of  democracy in that newly enlightened nation along with seriously damaging our relations with that nation who was once our ally.

In this sense, Syria is one of the few nations in the middle east which has a secular government in that it is not subject to or bound by religious rule. It is true that the people are primarily Muslims, but their government, like our own, does not favor one religion over another. To us, this should not be a fault, but a blessing!

So, as a member of the jury, I can not say that Bashar Assad is guilty or innocent of the crimes he is being tried for. All I can say is that there are many interests who want to find him and his government guilty in my country.  But without further proof, I must let him off the hook.

As an epilogue, let me say that I hope our Obama, Putin and Assad all agree to put Syrian biological weapons under the security of the United Nations and avoid any further escalation of the war. 

I should also note that the Syrian civil war has cost an estimated 100,000 lives. Our own Civil War in 1861-1865 cost over 600,000 American lives!




 

Shades of Grey - The Koch Brothers

My knowledge of the brothers Charles and David Koch stem from my left-sided fellow progressives. So, of course, the Koch boys are universally known as evil, power hungry monsters who single-handedly finance the entire fascist right wing of our national bird.

However, recently my bro-in-law 'borrowed' from his laundromat the December 24, 2012 issue of Forbes which featured "Inside the Koch Empire".  He passed it on to me and, I confess, ....I read it.

Turns out that there are four Koch brothers. Fred, the eldest who is 79, a graduate from Yale drama school and with no particular interest in business, lives in Monaco collecting rare books, fine art and opera manuscripts. 

Charles, whose photo is on the cover of the magazine, was next oldest at 77.  He is our vilified MIT graduate with a masters in chemical and nuclear engineering and is also chairman of Koch industries.  KI is an empire which "....boasts 60,000 employees, 4000 miles of pipeline and enough refinery capacity to supply 5% of the U.S. daily fuel demand. KI makes Lycra and Stainmaster carpet, Brawney paper towels and AngelSoft toilet paper [Georgia Pacific]."

And then there are the 72 year old twins, David and Bill who also graduated from MIT with the same degrees as Charles. David is a co-owner of Koch Industries with brother Charles but is less involved with running the business. Rather, his interests are focused upon politics and philanthropy. Bill (and Fred) was forcefully bought out of the business and started his own energy company called Oxbow Carbon.  This reminds me of Ernest, Julio and Joseph Gallo in California where Ernest and Julio focused upon wine and Joseph made cheese.

The article is quite long and in much greater depth than I can produce here, but the part I found most interesting was the strong libertarian beliefs learned from their father resulting in the 'greying' of their business oriented conservatism!

For example; Charles co-founded the libertarian think tank, the CATO Institute, and later they funded George Mason University's Mercatus Center. They also have financed much of the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation and several other conservative groups. 

Yet, surprisingly David Koch is a supporter of gay marriage and opposes the war on drugs!  The brothers are now actively fighting federal corporate welfare! Why? ....because they don't want to be invested in any industry "dependent on unpredictable federal largesse"!  Their only business involvement with that was the federal subsidy on ethanol where they reluctantly(?) profited (quoth the raven, "Nevermore").  They suggest that the only way to get rid of lobbyists is to  "...get government out of the business of giving goodies."  Of course, the definition of "goodies" is the real question!

Everyone on both sides are well aware that both the 'left' and the 'right' are controlled by extremists and thus our nation is at a legislative impasse. I find that more and more often, I don't agree with a particular progressive position.... yet, I don't think that I'm moving to the right! 

Perhaps this article about the Koch brothers can show us that 3 second sound bites (bytes?) are not the answer to solving our problems. Whether you agree with the the Koch philosophy.... or not, it is obvious that there are areas of agreement which can be pursued. Perhaps you can't turn an elephant's trunk into a donkey tail, but maybe we can start with some of those things we agree upon.  [AlG]