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!
