Texas Professor And Bashar Assad, Sitting In A Tree
Written on January 22, 2005
Reneé just handed me a copy of last Sunday’s “Life” section from the local Express-News wherein columnist Susan Yerkes gushes over Trinity University Middle East history professor David Lesch, “a widely recognized Middle East expert.” He lamented the “lack of post-war planning” and demanded that the United States immediately withdraw from Iraq “in an orderly way.”
So what has professor Lesch been doing in his spare time? Vacationing with Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad, of course! Assad invited Lesch to bring his wife and son to spend their vacation with the dictator after Lesch wrote a fawning biography titled Bashar al-Asad: The Next Lion of Damascus?
For those who may have forgotten, Assad rules the Ba’ath Party in Syria, the same group that dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Saddam and Bashar were as close to bosom buddies as national leaders can get in the Middle East, and there were widespread reports that Iraq had shipped it’s weapons of mass destruction into Syria, who then further moved them into Southern Lebanon for possible use by Hamas and Hezbollah against Israeli civilians.
Nice guy, that Bashar. Just ask Amnesty International, which has composed an informative dossier on Syria. Notice the word “torture” shows up quite often.
Lesch teaches today at Trinity University here in San Antonio, Texas.
Cross-posted to Lone Star Times.