[net.politics] Assad and a "moral" appeal

yoavh@nsc.UUCP (01/10/84)

I find the suggestion that Assad was moved by the moral stand supposedly
staked out by Mr. Jackson (well known for his warbling of "We Shall 
Overcome" with that famous humanitarian Yassir Arafat) amusing.

Tell me, do you think that "moral appeals" hold much weight with a man
who
	- massacred 5 to 20 thousand residents of the Syrian city of
	  Hama (depending on whose numbers you believe - Mr. Assad is
	  a little too busy being impressed by moral appeals to let 
	  foreign observers in to count up the bodies).

	- applauded politely at a recent Ba'ath youth militia rally as 
	  male and female scouts bit off the heads of snakes and strangled
	  puppies (a striking display of youthful idealism and vigor recently
	  broadcast on Syrian state television).

	- in a statement to the Syrian stooge congress in 1973 praised the
	  mannner in which Syrian troops murdered Israeli POWs.