Bashshar speaks

I have not watched the speech but read excerpts.  It struck me that this classist propaganda of the regime persists and colors the rhetoric of the regime media: the notion that the uprising is undertaken by poor Syrians and the more insulting notion that poor Syrians can be bought to kill.  This line is intended to appeal to the classist sentiments of middle and upper class Syrians some of whom dismiss the poor protesters as "Abu Shahhatah" (the folks who walk wearing flip-flops, literally Father of Sandals or flip-flops).  In reality, people in Syria may kill for ideology or for sectarian motives (and on both sides).  Also, the cowardly regime has not changed: Bashshar would rather insult the people of the Gulf rather than attack the Saudi or Qatari royal families (he spoke about countries that have not "yet entered" the age of civilization).  He also referred to "regional role" in order to avoid naming Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Those brutal regimes are also cowardly and always desperate for under-the-table deals.