Nadim Houry Quotes
He’s [Bashar al-Assad, Syrian President] a different kind of bloodthirsty dictator, the kind who shops on line on his iPad. He’s sort of Arab Dictator 2.0
Quoted in The New York Times, September 18, 2016
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This statement was made before the 2012 Syrian Revolution.
Paul tended to be one of the very few Republicans who did not favor American intervention in Syria.
The convoy was heading for the city of Alleppo that had been under siege by the government for weeks. 22 UN Aid Workers were killed and half the cargo was destroyed. Syria had been in a Civil War for a number of years, and the Government of Bashar al-Assad had committed one atrocity after another. A cease fire had been agreed to and the UN notified all parties to the war about the humanitarian convoy’s schedule and route. It was not known whether the government had decided to attack the convoy to put more pressure on the people in Aleppo to end their rebellion or the attack was made by local commanders of government troops who did not want to see the pressure on Aleppo lifted.
He served as a liaison with the Russian military officers after WWII. As a result he developed friendships with some who told him much about Stalin.
The basis of his complaint essentially was that he and his military and supports were no worse than the guys why they were killing and if they did not continue fighting and kikking, they themselves would be killed. While there was some truth to that, Assad was one of the worst dictators of the post WWII era. His indiscriminate shooting, shelling and air strikes on women & children, hospitls and schools, and the use of poison gas was enough to justify the image of him as a "bad guy".
Nadim Houry is Human Rights Watch's deputy director of its Middle East and North Africa division, and he is director of the Beirut office. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, Houry served as deputy counsel for the Volcker Commission, where he spent more than a year conducting fact-finding missions in the Middle East as part of the United Nation's corruption inquiry into the Oil-for-Food Programme. An attorney by training, Nadim worked as a corporate lawyer for Shearman & Sterling in New York for two years. He is fluent in Arabic and French. Articles Authored SEPTEMBER 18, 2015 Commentary Lebanon’s Silence over Sabra and Shatila is Shameful Published in The Daily Star SEPTEMBER 10, 2015 Commentary Police Brutality in Lebanon Published in Executive Magazine MARCH 16, 2015 Commentary (Un)happily Ever After Published in Executive Magazine DECEMBER 15, 2014 Commentary Making Local Ceasefires Work in Syria Published in Open Democracy DECEMBER 11, 2014 Commentary The Unsung Heroes Published in The Daily Star
