Word: assad
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Anyone who thinks the death of Syria's ruler Hafez Assad [WORLD, June 19] has dealt a blow to peace in the Middle East is wrong. Assad wanted to force Israel to meet all his demands before the two countries resumed talks. Syria's economy is a shambles, and its people live in poverty. Assad murdered and tortured his own people. JERRY LEVY Walnut Creek, Calif...
...Assad's only legacies were terror and fear. He squandered his country's available resources and mutilated its economy. In the early 1980s, his army killed 20,000 innocent people in the northern Syrian city of Hama. I went to Hama last year, and I could still see the fear in the people's eyes. Some legacy! ADAM FARRA, AGE 14 Ann Arbor, Mich...
...smoothness with which Bashar Assad is being elevated to his late father's job as ruler of Syria must be generating some envy in the two other prominent heirs waiting to succeed a parent as head of state--Prince Charles and George W. Bush. Of the three countries involved, Syria, which is supposedly a socialist republic, seems to be the only one that still observes the monarchical line of succession in unreconstructed form. Bashar Assad is in line for the top job simply because his elder brother was killed several years ago. The only other person claiming...
Although it isn't clear how Bashar Assad, a young man who was trained as an ophthalmologist, can combine his own specialty with that of his father ("Actually, that letter you read as F in the bottom line is E, so the nurse here will take you into the next room and one of our technicians will shoot you in the back of the head"), his succession has been virtually taken for granted. The other two heirs lack this unobstructed path to the top job. Before Charles can even think about ascending to his rightful position, he has to continue...
...remain good-humored while dealing at a press conference with a trick question that is obviously designed to see if he knows the difference between Austria and Australia. In either situation, it would be perfectly natural for the heir in question to think to himself, "How come Bashar Assad didn't have to go through this sort of nonsense...