The buzz around Barbara Walters' interview of Assad airing tonight has been focused on the following line from the dictator: "We don’t kill our people … no government in the world kills its people, unless it’s led by a crazy person." If you're interested in seeing Assad lie to your face and laugh about it, you can watch the above footage, though the Sky News segment on the plight of Homs posted here serves well as rebuttal. In terms of productive interviews, one can read a discussion with Burhan Ghalioun, leader of the opposition Syrian National Council. Maysaloon worries about the challenges of governance for Ghalioun after Assad:
Something has been bothering me for the past few days. Nobody seems to be interested in the shape of a post-Assad Syria. Outraged comments about Bourhan Ghalioun's promises to break ties with Iran and Hezbullah, or to negotiate a return to the Golan Heights, have drowned out any questions about how the Syrian National Council would address Syria's grinding economic and social issues. There is some mythical word, freedom, which is bandied about as if it would fix everything once we attain it. But Syria has many problems that will need to be addressed urgently. These are: A deficient, if not highly damaging, judicial and political system; endemic corruption, environmental degradation and desertification; poverty; a potential for an enormous crime wave once the regime collapses; and how they intend to build bridges across the communities and tribes that make up Syria's patchwork society.
Below, Assad's troops amuse themselves by plucking out a captive's moustache hair by hair:
These Aleppo residents yesterday didn't appear convinced by Assad's "man of peace" act:
Nor do these people in Hama, protesting two days ago:
Perhaps they've seen this extremely graphic video of what Homs has begun – a charnel house strewn with mangled bodies:
And yet these protestors in Daraa face a charge from Assad's thugs head-on:
The Dish 