It’s been a while, so we should check in and see what our favorite dictator and his humble bride are up to. When last we left Bashar and Asma al-Assad, they were hunkered down eating spiced humus on their palatial veranda and railing against the foreign conspiracy that was intent on taking down their benevolent rule. Their tack appeared to be one of waiting for the whole revolution thing to blow over.
So, where are we at today? Pretty much nowhere different, really. According to a report in the Telegraph, Bashar got in front of his sham parliament and condemned yet another massacre he says was perpetuated by foreign terrorists. Of course. What else would he say? Go back through all of the grass roots uprisings against despotic regimes over the last several decades and all of the ones that actually posed serious problems for demagogues were accused of being chock full of evil-doers from outside the vulnerable borders of the blessed motherlands.
According to Bubba Bashar, the terrorists that attacked and slaughtered about 80 people in Houla last week were not sanctioned by him or his cronies and not even “monsters” would launch such a strike. He went on to say that “The issue is terrorism. We are facing a real war waged from the outside.” Soooo, how come you’re not asking for help from the international community to shore up your defenses against these external terrorists? Coalitions have been formed to deal with such threats to other legitimate governments. No? We seem to remember Saddam moaning about the same bullshuck. Good luck with that sorry story, honey. Nobody’s listening.
Round 1: Four down and two to go! Then, let’s move on to round 2!
We predicted that the al-Assads would be gone by summer. Well, summer isn’t over until mid-September, so there’s still plenty of time for something or other to happen. In the meantime, we outsiders will continue to wag our fingers and say things like “Say, could you scale back that whole killing stuff a bit?” or “See? Now THAT’s why you didn’t get invited to HRH Elizabeth I’s 60th!”
Yeah, we know. It’s easy to say “send in the drones!,” but obviously regime changes can be volatile. We have no real answers, so we’re just armchair-coaching, but for crying out loud, enough is enough. People like Bashar al-Assad aren’t misguided idealists making bad decisions for good reasons. They are selfish and cruel barbarians that don’t give a crap about the people they have the obligation to protect! Damn!
Well, the good news, we suppose, is that … wait, there really isn’t any good news. All we know is that when the dust finally settles, there are going to be a lot of very bad things happening to the people that are currently shooting their guns. And the Arab Spring stumbles on …
According to the distributor, Paramount Pictures, The Dictator will “tell the story of a dictator who risked his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed.” Larry Charles, who previously directed Borat and Brüno, will direct this film. Also starring, Ben Kingsley (we like Ben) and Anna Faris (we like Anna).
Incidentally, anyone watch the 
yourselves.
Syria’s imploding and there isn’t much help yet from outside. Maybe it’s best in the long run. A groundswell internal revolution is more to matter to the citizens than external pressure (we’ll see if that’s true as we watch Egypt and Libya evolve over the next few years by comparison to Iraq).
comicsagogo.com
