Syria

Read the exerpt by the Syrian writer. Amazing and troubling.

I recall listening to a radio talk show on a super liberal station during the run-up to the Iraq war. They had callers going on and on about Bush and oil and blah, blah, blah, a bunch of white idiots rallying behind the "Iraqis" (or should I say, Saddam?). At the very end a man calls in, identifying himself as a Syrian, and begins talking about the Baathists in Syria. His voice trembling, he describes his best friend disappearing one night after taking a controversial position on some sort of topic. He and his friend were 19 years old at the time. The man could barely tell the story without crying. The radio host promptly cut him off as it became clear the Syrian man had no trouble with America getting rid of a fellow Baathist in Iraq...out of time he said. Indeed.