Where Are They Now?

syrianperspective.blogspot.com
It's natural to think back on all those prominent personalities who occupied your time and reading material and, then, in a seemingly sudden and violent confluence of time and space, disappeared from your radar screen.  You know the movie: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane.  Have you ever wondered what happened to all those people?  LET'S LOOK AT OUR ROGUES' GALLERY OF NOBODIES:  Here are some examples:


WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO......? 

BURHAN GHALIOUN
Boy, when this guy and some other Syrian exile-felons formed the Syrian National Council, the U.S., Britain, France and all the other NATO riff-raff rushed down the aisles to polish his shoes, brush his coat and clip his nose hairs.  "We recognize the Syrian National Council as a legitimate representative of the aspirations of the Syrian people", or so bloviated former American Secretary of State and SyrPer's Imelda Marcos Award winner for 2012,  Hillary Clinton.  Yawn. 

It didn't take long for this mayfly to disappear after members of his SNC read the charter of the organization and learned that he could not hold on to the position of "Fearless Leader" for more than 2 terms.  He was dumped for some Kurdish professor whose name escapes us at the moment.  The new King-of-Kings is commie stalwart and Syria's own Captain Kangaroo, George Sabra.


AND WHAT HAPPENED TO.....
MANAF TLAS

Major General Manaf Tlas had some real Syrian military bona fides:  son of Syria's longest-serving Defense Minister, Lt. Gen. Mustafa Tlas, he acquitted himself in true Mr. Bean fashion when he managed to completely give away an entire Syrian mountain resort to the Fake Syrian Army.  Oh, he didn't have time for warfare, what with smoking cigars, drinking fine cognacs and posing for fashion magazines.  No. He made a deal with the terrorists which essentially gave them control of the mountain town of Zabadani as long as they promised not to "parade around" with their military hardware or poke fun at him.  

When Maj. General Hafez Makhlouf found out about this "deal", he went ballistic, taking the matter straight to the president who had the "Little General" put under house arrest lest he compromise the Tlas name and the Syrian people.  He is believed to be somewhere in Arabia with his brother, Firas, a gazillionaire who made it rich providing the Qataris with male Bulgarian orphans.

Anybody remember the BBC touting him, in strident Cantabrigian notes,  as "...the most senior member of the Assad regime who defected to the rebel side......."?  What the BBC didn't tell anybody was that the great general was so close to President Assad that he had to ask the guards around his house to let him walk his pet Saluki dog around the block.  He has been asked to play the role of "Miles Gloriosus" at an American high school in pedophile-filled Doha.

AND WHATEVER HAPPENED TO.......

RIAD AL-AS'AD

Accompanied by his trusty sidekick, Abu, the Colonel dons the Cape of  Glory as he prepares to fly straight to his home planet of Zontar.

Just making fun of him is not enough.  Heir to the great Col. Hussein Harmoush, self-declared rebel leader, Commander of the Faithful, World-Swallowing Conqueror, Caliph of Krakatoa, Blithering Idiot,  Al-As'ad made his bones staying out of Turkey's many mental institutions.  For a very short time, he was the world's face of the Fake Syrian Army - often basking in the glow of NATO approbation, surrounded by comely female journalists who declared him "leader of the revolution", "satrap of clap traps", and the like.

Today, it is reported he is clinically depressed due to his unceremonious discharge from the rank of "Generalissimo".  He has been rejected for landed immigrant status in Canada.  Even the Australians won't talk to him.  He is Colonel Nobody.

AND WHAT IN THE HECK EVER HAPPENED TO.....
RIAD FARID HIJAB

Man, he's gotta be important! Look at all those mikes in front of him!  And the flag of the Fake Syrian Army. What could go wrong?

According to unconfirmed reports, the former Prime Minister of Syria is waiting tables in Naples, Italy, at a bistro called "Luigi's" just a wind-draft down from the putrid sulfuric lava pools of Mt. Vesuvius.  Declared by the BBC, again (yawn), as "the highest ranking member of the Syrian government to defect....a certain blow to the legitimacy of President Assad..." (yawn), the BBC, anxious to collect as much venom as possible to please its Qatari child-molesting patrons, even suggested that his "reputation for honesty" was respected by the opposition and that he was a shoe-in for high status with the new (and dreamt-about) government which would lead Syria after Dr. Assad's downfall.  

Forgetting that the office of Prime Minister in Syria only guarantees a good table at "Ali Baba's" restaurant in Damascus, the BBC went on slathering even more stupidity on this wretched little clam of a man.  Where is he?  He is nowhere.

AND FOR PETE'S SAKE, WHAT HAPPENED TO........
ABDO HUSAMEDDINE

Oh boy!  When the BBC got a hold of this, it started to compete with the New York Times over who could make this sow's ear into a silk purse.  To this day, despite the hoopla, most Syrians don't know who he is.
In fact, one Syrian restaurant owner I spoke to a few days ago sheepishly suggested he was Latakia's championship boxing manager.  No!  He is Abdo Husameddine.

Also, tarted up in the outer garments of integrity and "honesty" by a BBC rivened with a newly-discovered legacy of child molestation, he graced television screens for about 4 hours after which he sank like a bag of marbles in my aunt's rear cesspool in Beirut.  Today, he carefully skulks around the streets of Apaydin fearing the vengeance of the Syrian security services - the same agencies who have to be reminded of who Abdo Husameddine really was.