Syrians to US Ambassador Ford: Piss Off

July 27, 2012

Tags: Facebook, Ford, Social Media, Syria
Posted in: Democracy, Embassy/State

The US can’t contain its glee over the ongoing chaos and destruction in Syria. A massive bombing that killed senior officials, an act that would have instantly been labeled terrorism anywhere else, was delightfully lightly commented on by the White House. Atrocities are occurring on all sides (it is too complex to simply refer to the ongoing free-for-all as “both” sides, as if this was a sporting match) but the US seems to single out nasty things done by the government while downplaying those by the other side(s), including a growing who’s who of Middle East terror groups.

While more-or-less openly supporting chaos, the US still feels the need on a random summer Friday to play at the same tired rhetoric of “democracy and freedom” (“daf”) that it trots out now and then. Today’s trotter is US ambassador to Syria in exile Robert Ford. Ford is an old State Department hand, with plenty of mileage in the Iraq fiasco to his credit, and rumored in fact to be the next ambassador nominee to Iraq.

Ford’s address “to the Syrian people” takes place in English and on Facebook for some reason. He is not Lincoln or Pericles. While it is barely worth the effort itself of the mouse click, the comments below it, many purportedly from Syrians, are worth your time.

One writes “Our memory is LONG LONG LONG Mr. Ford, who the hell do you think you are messing with?” while another is more to the point in saying “piss off Ford.”

Read the whole thing yourself now on freaking Facebook and of course feel free to comment yourself.

Bonus: It appears that most Americans are ignoring this “address” by Ford, confusing “Syria” with Siri the Apple robot voice or Suri, Tom Cruise’s child.

Full Disclosure: Yeah, OK, I commented appropriately on Facebook. Also, Ford was Deputy Chief of Mission in Baghdad while I served in Iraq, and almost fired me over the idiotically wasteful “Sheep for Widows” project I opposed, as outlined in my book.

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