Charlie Rose

blank  04/14/2012 11:04 PM Report

"you cannot be an arsonist and a fireman at the same time" the truth is everybody is always being manipulated there's no way around it it's just a fact of life BUT i think they should do like china (i don't know what the current situation in syria is) and initiate a democratic process at the village and county level then people will feel like they have some influence on their surroundings and are involved and there's something that they're working towards and as they become successful at that at self governing and learning how it works and cities and counties are successfully doing that in regions it can expand up to 'state' levels etc this way people can feel like the sky is the limit and they can build up from the ground and others watching in other areas can be like we want to be successful at this too and this might preoccupy them while reforms can take place at the national level and also different ideas can be created and tried out on a small scale and people can learn from each other what really works

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12290

just a thought i gotta go i can't type my eyes are bugging on text

AdamAndEve  04/14/2012 03:57 PM Report

Dear Charlie, interviewing a representative of a thuggish mafia regime does only harm to the show. This guy lies about everything that has been going on for more than a year in Syria and he is representing a president who belongs to a family that has killed more than 100K Syrians in more than 40 years of their rule. However, I agree with Mr. Jaafari on one thing that no government kills its own people a ligitimate one that is, but not the one that he represents of course which stole the rule by the power of arms and will not give it up exccept by the power of arms (according to its former defence minister Tlass in Der Spiegel Feb 2005).

Hombre57  04/14/2012 11:47 AM Report

Charlie I always held lots of respect for you and your show, but after watching a representative of a mafia regime, namely Mr Jaafari on your show Wednesday, I have the following observations:

The Syrian Assad regime spanning over 42 years from father to son, has killed more Americans than those killed by the 9/11 attack. Starting with the Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut to the killing of over 4,000 of our finest in Iraq.

This regime over 4 decades killed over 200,000 Syrians and more in Lebanon and Iraq.

Not only is this regime the main source of terrorism, but it also acts as a major conduit for money laundering of drug cartels & international mafia through its complex web of finances that it had crafted in the last 40 years.

Yet, this thug was being presented in your show as a gentleman through his smooth style and talk and basically allowed him to continue with his lies and deception. I hope this is not an attempt to polish this bloody image and rehab a regime that should be isolated and tried at the world tribunal.

nerrawg  04/14/2012 10:52 AM Report

"No government would kill its own people"

Not that there was much credibility to what you were saying before, but any illusion of this being an honest representation of the perspective from the Syrian government ended here. With no due respect ambassador, your statement is so completely refuted by historical fact that it becomes clear that this is propaganda exercise to the fullest extent, with no intent on enlightening us to the actual thinking and policies of your government.

Governments have not only killed their own people, they have killed loyal servants on whims, false pretences and simply to meet the quotas on how many people they need to kill in at a given time. The NKVD under Stalin is one such example, who not only killed thousands of army officers loyal to Stalin, but also killed each other and did so simply to fulfil previously mandated quotas. I would eat my hat if someone could explain any sane logic to those actions. Its sole purpose was to create terror in a population.

Now fast forwarding a bit, how do you explain the underlying logic behind firing thousands of 122mm shells directed towards a general geographic area without the use of forward army observers? Surely if your aims are to fight foreign armed insurgents you must have the most incompetent officers and army in the world, no???

markandrei  04/13/2012 05:35 AM Report

When one feels the constant need to organize his speech with numbers, one does a poor job at concealing the lack of effort on one's part to really partake into a real discussion. I had the unpleasant impression of being read a list of reductive and manipulative "bullet points" on his agenda.

Gelles  04/13/2012 04:21 AM Report

I entered into Google, "centrist" opinion on American policy for Syria, and again for a second search, "center-right" opinion on same.

The first search offered "leave it alone, America stinks as badly as Syria"

The second search offered, "side with the rebels enough to give them a chance to bring more human rights to Syria."

Admittedly, American polled opinion is very close to an even split between "Do Nothing" and "Do Very Little by way of forcing Syria to become our ally or suffer the consequences."

There appears to be very little support for my pro-human rights policy that may even be more aggressive than the so-called Bush/Obama policy for America to take a chance for human liberty and against totalitarianism.

When I was young, Joe Kennedy was a "do nothing to stop Hitler" kind of guy. So was Charles Lindbergh before he was chastised by his president and Japan and Hitler went to war against us.

Is today significantly different? I think John McCain and John Gelles are together on this. We are both together with Joe Lieberman.

Jonathan Steele offers a compromise -- hoping for peace not war as our savior. He is a Guardian (UK) columnist, roving foreign correspondent and author. He is no enemy of the people. But, were this our Civil War of 1861, he might have second guessed Abraham Lincoln. Were he in Obama's shoes, he might be even more a peacenik than our president. I remain with Obama on foreign policy, but am not sure where that is. As I say, I'm also with McCain and Lieberman.

Gelles  04/13/2012 03:23 AM Report

There is great merit in the idea of unity within democracies to protect them from their worst enemies. This idea accepts that people will differ over much but must try to agree with their own government over more -- if possible.

Syria is no friend to movements that support human rights in nations rather than dictatorial practice with no plain love for human beings as sovereign to any degree at all.

I say the Syrian situation can be left to our legitimate government to deal with. Only if our government is grossly fighting democracy abroad ought we to take sides against it. Even then, doubt must be resolved in favor of our side not the other side. We cannot have individual sovereignty in America and expect to survive on planet earth.

mutex  04/12/2012 05:17 PM Report

I wish someone would have asked Lincoln to get specific about when the level of innocent deaths would be too high to continue the military operations during the U.S. Civil War. I would like to know how many foreign journalists are in the United States without visas advocating the overthrow of the Obama administration. I would also like to know how the U.S. 'success' in Iraq resulted in a Prime Minister who stays in office after losing the election but elections in Iran or Syria are decried as undemocratic...and of course nothing is said of elections in Saudia Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar etc. or even our latest effort in spreading freedom and democracy, Libya. I would also like to know what the Syrian military and police force are supposed to do while the foreign armed rebel forces are firing at them. Assad may in fact be a dictator but I've yet to hear an adequate explanation of how or why he is any worse than the rest of the dictators the U.S. does business with and in many cases calls allies.

Saultxyca  04/12/2012 04:36 PM Report

Don't invite more ludicrous headfaking from a character like al-Ja'afari. When Syria allows foreign journalists easy and unrestricted access to the country, and unrestricted human rights' monitoring and humanitarian aid — forget monitors at its next presidential "election" ... then and only then will Syria and its farcical emissaries get any benefit of the enormous doubt. Until then, Syria remains an alarming "sovereign" police-state.

RobertBierma  04/12/2012 03:12 PM Report

I wish you had asked Bashar Ja'afari to get specific about when the level of innocent deaths would be to high to continue the military operations of the regime. I wish you had him define in morale terms how he personally and how he believes his government makes that judgment.

tabs  04/12/2012 02:51 PM Report

Mr Ja'afari is a loyal soldier of the regime who is defending the indefensible. It is a hard thing for him to to swallow and for one to watch.

Ellen_Dibble  04/12/2012 02:34 PM Report

I imagine if the Syrian dissent can get its act together, they would be pleased to be the master of Ja'afari as well. How many ambassadors of nations in critical crisis points have come for interviews that are NOT "deceiving, manipulating," and so forth. It seems to me to be part of the job description of anyone in such a position. There were a great number of times when I was shouting at my TV in outrage at what seemed to me TOTALLY indefensible statements, and the interview would have stopped right there if I had been present there to fume and generally have a melt-down. But I wasn't there. I could throw slippers and wait for what's next. Those two were in very tight control, and no, it's not easy to read the "subtext," at least for the common TV viewer, but we could watch and try hard not to make uninformed judgments. If we were inclined that way, we might not have watched at all. The ambassador admits that there have been a few innocent victims, but they unfortunately are being used by the Saudi government, the Bahraini government (right?), and the Turkish government as paid human shields. Something like that. The next slipper flies.

Then there was the idea that because two-thirds of the planets governments did not come to Turkey to discuss the Syrian situation, a democratic majority of nations is fine with the situation; likewise in the United Nations. This is not ostracism; this is akin to winning the election.

As to journalists: We are a sovereign power, and journalists have to wait in line like everyone else for a visa.

We noticed that.

EdBYanam  04/12/2012 02:01 PM Report

Bashar Ja'afari.

I hope everybody knows by now, why Bashar Al-Assad choose Mr. Ja'afari, beside being Shiat, he has the same deceiving, manipulating, and stubborn personalty like his master.

He lives in his master's horizon, and a lire by nature, he is arguing stuff the whole world will see it, but they don't, and always have somebody else to blame but himself, and his master.

Ellen_Dibble  04/12/2012 01:29 PM Report

This was fascinating to watch, impressive. I thought I heard that Charlie Rose would go to Syria THIS weekend to interview Bashar al Assad if Ambassador Ja-Afari could clear that, and the ambassador said that Bashar al-Assad does want to make his views known -- which is not the same as wanting to be in dialogue, whether with Syrians outside Alawite and non-dissenting Syrians, or with, say, a Mike Wallace. But I guess our Charlie Rose is no Mike Wallace, which is to say he guides the dynamics in ways that are nonconfrontational. He found an awful lot of common ground, so to speak, with this ambassador and Syria in general. No transcript could capture this, the use of rapport, the understanding of how far to go (I'm sure on the part of the ambassador too) and when. Wow.

mutex  04/12/2012 12:11 PM Report

Someone needs to help me out here because I don't understand this issue on any level. Why would it be responsible for the leader of any country to "step down" and cede power to unelected rebels backed by foreign governments? How is that working out for Libya? If the countries backing the rebels and trying to overthrow the Syrian government were truly interested in democracy and human rights they would be calling for elections, not providing arms and propaganda which only make the violence worse. As Mr. Ja'afari says, "you can't be both the arsonist and the firefighter". How would the U.S. react (let alone the likes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and the rest of the Arab States) if outside forces were arming opposition forces in their countries? There is a sizable number of people in the U.S. that would like to see Obama "step down". Imagine if Russia and/or China started arming them? Would Mr. Rose see nothing wrong with this? But the hypocrisy and deceit doesn't end there. When Saudi Arabia sent troops and tanks into Bahrain to put down peaceful protests with force where were the cries for justice by western governments and the mainstream media? When the U.S. kills thousands of civilians through drone attacks, covert operations and the 'collateral damage' of its now routine preemptive wars where is this outrage and principle which is seemingly reserved only for its enemies? Mr. Rose says that any leader who kills his own people has lost the legitimacy to lead but our own history is filled with killing and violence against anyone who stands up to our government from the slaughter of the American Indians, to the lynching of the blacks, the violent crack down on civil rights protesters in the south and the anti-war demonstrators at the Democratic convention in Chicago, to Kent State, to the Watts Riots, to Ruby Ridge and Waco...to even the recent pepper spraying of college students engaged in peaceful protest. We don't have to guess how our country would react to armed insurrection, we have a long history that documents that we reserve our 'humanitarian principles' to use as tools to deride foreign leaders...and only those foreign leaders who don't take orders from us. To say, as Mr. Rose implied, that 'world opinion' is against the Syrian government when he well knows the pressure applied by the U.S. and its allies against any country that has the audacity to stand up to it is more than slightly disingenuous. As the Mr. Ja'afari stated, this is about a group of wolves at the door, sensing weakness, and wanting to "do political business". This agenda of hegemony is so thinly veiled that only the most devout of true believers is unable to clearly see it for what it is. How is it legitimate for the U.S. to back dictators like Mubarak and the Saudi Royal family for decades and now have the temerity to call for the violent overthrow of Assad? I would much prefer that the U.S. be forthright enough to discard the pretense of humanitarian principles and just announce 'bow down before us or die'.

REMant  04/12/2012 12:11 PM Report

I don't think the ambassador is being duplicitous. Reports indicate a cessation of fighting, tho some are demonstrating and the govt has not withdrawn. Tho I can't say anything about what has happened in the country the past year, I can say something about the way it is being presented. The US, England and France have killed their own citizens, and so has any country which has fought a civil war. They are usually disputes about what constitutes legitimate government, in other words revolutions, as opposed to coups. I would not assume that even a dictatorship, as CBS interjects at every opportunity, is any less legitimate than a monarchy, and monarchy, has been a legitimate form of govt for thousands of years, even if it is not elected, and, as Montesquieu, Tocqueville and Foucault remarked, it occasionally resorts to threats and force. Every govt in the world does at sometime or other in order to enforce its laws. It would be nice if countries could govern consensually, but men are not angels, as Madison remarked, and Lincoln echoed in 1861.* Much of this talk then falls into the category of treason, and it has not been just talk. In addition, as in Turkey and Egypt, Syria is, or was, protective of its minorities, as well as, governed by one. What would happen if governed by the majority is anyone's guess. I would surmise, however, from reports that the govt has felt from the beginning that police was insufficient, and that this spiraled out of control, that is, if it was not instigated from without to begin with, which is certainly within the realm of possibility.

*"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend it.' I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."