Syria's Assad insists the world is lying

Syrian President Bashar Assad

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has defiantly rejected widespread allegations his government is waging a brutal crackdown on opposition protesters.

In an interview with ABC News' Barbara Walters, the increasingly isolated Assad answers a question about children being dragged from their homes and arrested with a simple, "I don't believe you."

"Every 'brute reaction' was by an individual, not by an institution, that's what you have to know," he told Walters. "There is a difference between having a policy to crack down and between having some mistakes committed by some officials," said Assad, acknowledging, backhandedly, that some violence against protesters might have occurred.

He flatly denies, however, giving any orders to his security forces "to kill or be brutal."

"We don't kill our people... no government in the world kills its people, unless it's led by a crazy person," Assad said.

The United Nations said in a recent report that at least 4,000 people have been killed, almost all of them protesters. Myriad videos on YouTube have shown armed police and pro-regime militias opening fire on crowds of unarmed protesters.

Assad dismisses all the evidence as fiction, suggesting to ABC that, "most of the people that have been killed are supporters of the government, not the vice versa." He said 1,100 police and soldiers had been killed in the clashes.

Walters seems to have been a rare exception to the rule regarding foreign journalists in Syria. Assad's government has allowed virtually no international reporters into the country, and it is safe to assume that while Walters was in Syria, she was under tight control and close watch by Syrian security forces.

To get a rare, first-hand glimpse of what's really going on inside Syria, CBS News correspondent Clarissa Ward posed as a tourist to cross the nation's border.

Ward's series of special reports on "The Evening News" show, undeniably, that there is a large protest movement going on, and those taking part live in constant fear of attack from police, soldiers and heavily-armed, pro-regime militia members who show up in civilian clothes at opposition gatherings.

Many Syrian soldiers have defected to the opposition, and they tell CBS News that orders from superiors to use violence on Syrian civilians were, in some cases, what prompted their defections.

Video: Inside Syria, The Free Syrian Army
Video: A rare look inside the Syrian revolution
Clarissa Ward: Sneaking into Syria

[silvalgal]

So, Bashar al-Assad didn't order the terror and killing ... but he evidently can't stop the atrocities, either. What kind of head of state is that? Syria needs to disclose and account immediately.

[silvalgal]

Bashar al-Assad is in a bunker, just like Hitler, and they share a mustache.

[silvalgal]

Bashar al-Assad's first stooge, his wife, Asma, and their three children fled Syria, allegedly with billions, for London months ago, soon after her controversial cover feature in American Vogue, and when things started to get violent in that small Levantine country. The Syrian leader's wife fled because of the violence, as diplomats stated at that time, saying she was not expected to return to Syria any time soon, and some said never to return. Now how can it be that her husband claims ignorance of the excessive terror and killing in his country? Assad and his cronies have ample access to satellite media; his cousin owns one of those companies. Assad must be feigning insanity ... or he really is the "crazy person" he appears to be in the ABC interview with Barbara Walters, ditto in earlier interviews with Charlie Rose.

[dudelookslikeachimp]

Assad is lying and so is the world accusing him. The "peaceful" protesters still want his blood. Having only sticks and stones does not make a gathering mob peaceful even when their opponent have machine guns and the will to use them.

But its seems the news wants us to swallow another 50 revolutions than claim democracy while clearly telling insiders that democracy is only a step to draw outside support for the real plan. In this case the next step will be a genocidal contest between 3-4 major power factions including Christian and Hezbollah. And who ever wins plans for a strict regime that make Assad rules seem mild if you are not a devout follower of that religion or philosophy.

[venusvegasvada]

What a weasel.

[Samlv]

Let them burn.

[gadfly65]

I guess he'll deny right up to the moment the people whom he isn't oppressing bring him to a brutal end such as Qaddafi suffered.

[hamiltongrad]

And too, There is a historical direct link between this group of thugs running Syria and Nazi Germany. Why did the West allow them to go free and remain in power is a mystery, probably having to do with oil. Sadly we have all paid the price.
The people who take over may be worse.

[hamiltongrad]

MEMO TO THE WORLD: 1. Pres. Bush and Condi promised us revolutions to drain the swamp of the Arab Middle East/ now for better or worse. 2. People who know, are afraid that without any history of democracy or Tolerance of others, this would result in an even worse situations, for minorities, and neighbors, as Islamic Fascism, like the Muslim Brotherhood, would take over, beig the most ruthless- like the Commies in Russia in 1910.
3. The only true Democracy in this part of the world is Israel, for whom all things are blamed, no matter what. When the next round of being set up, please recall these BARBARIC methods, killing and torture layed upon their own people and ask WHY ?
4. The world does not need another Terrorist State.

[14FREEK]

Don't they have CNN in Syria?