Syria forms new government; key posts unchanged

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad issued a decree forming a new government Saturday, but it will be headed by a key loyalist and the foreign, defense and interior ministers kept their jobs.

The move comes as fears mounted that the conflict was aggravating regional tensions. Turkish President Abdullah Gul said Saturday his country would take "necessary" action against Syria after Syrian forces shot down a Turkish military plane.

Syria's new government is headed by Riad Farid Hijab, a former agriculture minister and a loyalist member of the ruling Baath Party.

A deadly uprising has convulsed Syria for more than a year, and Assad has promised to enact political reforms. He vowed after the May 7 parliamentary elections to make the government more inclusive to politicians from other parties.

But the appointment of Hijab and the decision to keep the key posts unchanged raised questions about the commitment to that pledge.


Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hP5P8puvcZXgq-2PN1MMAJax2p_Q?docId=4c7f775f96024d2ea4fec621a1cf1f2e

[may3rd]

1. ....seems to me there is a more popular cry for change

The WORLD CAN'T WAIT

[stockholmer]

5. If by change you mean an empiric US/UK/NATO invasion and 100's of thousands dead

I can think of a few places that might not share your view (say Iraq, Afghanistan, parts of Pakistan, Somalia, Libya, etc come to mind in terms of recent events). If you look at CIA-aided coup d' etats, and think close to the US, hmmm, Chile, Honduras, Haiti, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, etc. As for the country this Syria contrivance is really aimed at, just look at what the CIA/MI6 coup of Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 did to Iran.

Syria (and I am no fan of Bashar Assad) is an incredibly complex, polyglot society, full of long bubbling-below-the-surface, thousand year-old divisions of all types (ethnic, tribal, religious, etc). A true civil war there will quickly spill over into Lebanon, and that one took close to 20 years to partially settle.

How arrogant of the West to think they can bomb and shoot people into a western style of democratic governance. It has never worked in a non-western setting before, and it will not work now. All it does is slaughter the native population by the bucketload, whilst enriching the banksters and their defense contractor quislings (with the US et al. citizens paying for it all with both their own blood and money).

Oh, and create millions more of new enemies, but I guess that is simply called keeping the reserve teams of new cannon fodder/drone targets full.

[MADem]

2. Does he think people are stupid? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss? Please! nt

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

3. You just don't get it, do you?

C'mon, see the change?

They're REORGANIZED dammit! They're DIFFERENT now!

Sheesh!

[MADem]

4. Yes, with that cattle prod pointed at me and that gun to my head, why yes!

I DO see the difference! Ah, yes, we ...ZZZZZZZZZT!....begin anew!!! ZZZZZT ZZZZZZZT!!! All hail the reorganized government of Syria!!!