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SANA via EPA
Syrian President Bashar Assad is accompanied by his wife as he poses for a photograph while casting his vote during the referendum on a new constitution in Damascus on Feb. 26.
Amid his violent crackdown on Syria's protesters, president Bashar Assad turned to country music to console his wife and bought songs by Chris Brown and Harry Potter apps on iTunes, while his first lady ordered luxury goods from stores in Paris and London, according to what appear to be several thousand leaked emails.
The Guardian newspaper reported that some 3,000 emails had been obtained from an unnamed Syrian opposition member.
The emails were intercepted from June last year until early February as Assad cracked down on opponents in a revolt that the United Nations estimates has killed 8,000 people. The Guardian said the emails came from the private accounts of Assad and his wife and it had made extensive efforts to verify them.
One email that Asma sent to her husband in late December revealed the stress on the couple as international pressure grew on Syrian authorities to halt the violence.
Refugees flood out of Syria as Bashar Assad's military pummels rebels
"If we are strong together, we will overcome this together ... I love you...," the email read.
'I've made a mess of me'
More recently on February 5, 2012, Assad sent Asma the lyrics to a country song by singer Blake Shelton.
"I've been walking a heartache / I've made a mess of me / The person that I've been lately / Ain't who I wanna be," the first verse read.
According to the Guardian, the exchange was "laden with self-pity."
In July, when his wife emailed that she would be finished by 5 p.m., Assad replied: "This is the best reform any country can have that u told me where will you be. We are going to adopt it instead of the rubbish laws of parties, elections, media..."
Report: Leaked emails indicate Syria president got advice from Iran
Others among The Guardian’s trove of emails apparently reveal that Assad bought a wide range of music on iTunes, including songs by Chris Brown, Right Said Fred and A Tribute to Cliff Richard by 21st Century Christmas.
Deathly Hallows
He also ordered the Harry Potter film Deathly Hallows Part 2 and other Harry Potter apps, in addition to the Walter Isaacson biography of the late Apple founder Steve Jobs.
Assad also appears to have shared a YouTube video with his media adviser that mocks Arab League monitors for being unable to find the regime's tanks, according to leaked emails obtained by a newspaper.
"Check out this video on YouTube," Assad wrote to Hadeel al-Ali, according to the Guardian newspaper. She reportedly responded, "Hahahahahahaha, OMG!!! This is amazing!"
In the spoof video, which the Guardian published, a narrator demonstrates how to disguise a tank in front of an Arab League monitor.
He uses a toy car outfitted with a straw as the tank and a plastic doll to represent the monitor. A stack of biscuits plays the role of a building in the devastated city of Homs.
When the plastic doll appears the narrator in the video removes the straw from the toy car, thus disguising the tank from the monitor.
"Now, as the Arab monitor comes to check whether the Syrian regime has complied with the Arab initiatives or not ... He does not know what is going on," the narrator says.
Syria laying mines on routes used by civilians fleeing violence, group says
Other emails showed that Asma was arranging for the purchase of an Armani lamp from London's posh Harrods store, placing orders for jewelled necklaces from Paris and chasing up on a delivery of furniture to Damascus.
She reportedly spent nearly $16,000 on candlesticks, tables and chandeliers from Paris, the Guardian said. A $4,000 vase also caught her eye, though she was looking for a bargain.
"Pls can abdulla see if this available at Harrods to order -- they have a sale at the moment," she wrote to a family contact in London.
The contact replied, "He bought it. Got 15% discount. Delivery 10 weeks."
The Guardian said it had made extensive efforts to authenticate the emails by checking their contents against established facts and contacting 10 individuals whose correspondence appears in the cache.
"These checks suggest the messages are genuine, but it has not been possible to verify every one," the Guardian said.
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Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world
Msnbc.com staff and Reuters contributed to this report.
Leave a Comment:
Assad: "I like to listen to country music when my wife's gone, the house blew down and my dog died. Oops .... my bad ... I mean when your wife's gone, I've blown your house down and killed your dog.
Let the people eat cake... There will come a time to balance the books assad.
WHO IS "TRYANT" ?
i don't believe a @!$%# whats going on down there, and how it comes our gov calls somebody a dictator because 8000 died(inofficial) but hey....stupid rednecks want hear that....yeehaaaaaaa lets get some kills anyway...i'm sick of this war@!$%# as our arogance......we have our dictators too.....anybody happy bout that ....how many murdering last year counted nationwide...boooo....no security no bill no jobs, but hey let us get some Fajitas from the Alien next corner....please get of the dick
"Assad likes country music"... as do most tyrants! Maybe, if he plays it backward... he'll get his country back!
p.s. Jerome Drake - your post might mean more, if you'd learn how to speak the 'english' language.
sorry i'm german, i was speaking about the propaganda@!$%# going on like our media and goverment...well i'm missunderstood i guess. In the same time aliens are flooding the country and as i said no jobs no security in the country...
PS: I'm trying hard even if this is my first comment on a us page and i apologize 4 my english language....can you speak more than one? friendly from GERMANIA ;)
"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything"
Albert Einstein
Jerome Drake,
Freut mich!
Assad's wife is a British computer scientist.
He does not have many wives like the other oil rich Sunni Muslim rulers. For many Saudi, Kuwaiti and UAE rulers are the models of all the best on earth!
About the credibility and image: who have them including those judging Assad?
His wife looks petrified. I think she knows what he's capable of.
And Assad should also listen to Blake Sheldon's wife song with the lyric, "And I will pull the trigger."
My daughter Lesley's favorite song.
"His wife looks petrified. I think she knows what he's capable of."
I think she is shy instead of afraid. Everything that I've heard is that they have a loving marriage.I think after the insults she gets from ignorant people,she's decided to stay in the background for now.
For some people - liking chris brown and country music may be a good reason to ask for his outster.. ... Just sayin...
The crap they are producing today is hardly country music. Small wonder his brain is so warped he's killing everybody.
That is what I was thinking.
What a surprise! He listens to horrible music and likes kid's movies. I tell you, if I had to listen to Chris Brown and NU country, I would want to kill as well.
Recently released emails show that the United States, the United Kingdom and France have plans in place to launch action against Syria as shown here:
Unfortunately for Syrian civilians caught in the crosshairs, it is believed that air intervention will not take place because "...the U.S. has a high tolerance for killings as long as they don't reach the very public stage..." as they did in Benghazi, Libya.
How dare the "Evil Syrian Dictator" have any musical tastes or personal enjoyments while attempting to defend his country from Western Imperialism / Propaganda! I am so disappointed that Assad does not instead listen to Korn and play Gears of War 3.
KILLLLL HIIIIIIIMMMMMMMMMMMM KILLL HIIMMMMMMM HE LIKES COUNTRY MUSIC BLOOOD BLOOD BLOOD SAVE THOSE CIVILIANS BY ARMING THEM AND LETTING AL QUIADIA EXECUTE THEM i mean liberating them. Whoops, I strayed from the "American" script on how Syria is "suppose" to look.
I mean thats what you -wanted, right, MSNBC?
To whip the "clueless" masses of America into a mindless frenzy to rubber-stamp ANOTHER military adventure that everyone is absolutely sick of?
right on sir
All Assad needs to do now is watch NASCAR and denounce gay rights and maybe McCain and company will back off from wanting to bomb him since he'll be officially classified as a Republican. Of course I might be mistaken, Republicans like Democrats, are sometimes known to eat their own.
Yeah, I guess that "never again" promise America made after WWII was only good for, what, three decades? Four?
Wow moped, yawn, yes they really whipped me into frenzy of hate when I found out he listedned to the worst noise ever called music.
Actually the story had the opposite affect, I figured his days were already numbered from the brain tumor Shania Twain's singing is causing in his head so there is no need to go to war.
I mean it couldn't be at all possible that Americas are waking up and realize that CNN, MSNBC, and FOX news are more or less just -TABLOID- mouth pieces for what is starting to look disturbingly similar to the rise of modern "Naziism", right? RIGHT, guys?
DUDE! Stop eating those shrooms!
DUDE, stop being a sycophant who character assassinates without offering anything to negate what I've posted!
DfromSpencer, Moped was not referring to the magic mushrooms that your thinking about. Instead his comment was relating to another kind of mushroom that is created, human mushrooms, when people watch too much Fox, msnbc, cnn and other kinds of mainsteam media crap. Mainstream media keeps people in the dark while feeding them sh#t and you know what that produces?
Moped.
Why should anyone attempt to negate nonsensible rants?
Seems kind of pointless.
You just point and make fun of them.
maybe MSNBC should have a spell checker. What on earth is TRYANT.
Someone who is trying real hard.
Whereas FLOCK'S NEWS always correctly spells their misinformation.
Harry Potter in the headline? No.
Chris Brown in the headline? No.
Country music in the headline? Check.
The news continues with its misleading titles. Why not use the headline you really want? "Do non-Athiest, primarily Christian people, mostly heterosexuals, mostly American, mostly white, mostly southerners cause all of the evil in the world?".
TherRealTruth.
Yeah, yeah, we get it. White supremacists are under seige by the intolerant tolerant people. We get it.
While you're at it, why not lobby FOX to "Just use the Headline THEY really want?"
White Males Are Supreme Beings. Behave Like They Tell You To Behave.
Have a nice day.
The picture of Assad and his wife voting, has to be prop. He only has one ballot in his hand!
lol... that's no prop my friend! That's the ONLY ballot that's going to be cast! That way, there's no question who wins with 100% the vote! :)
Doesn't surprise me. They're as unhinged as any rulers would be in a situation like this. They don't care. Plain and simple. Why should they? There's the 15% discount to consider... not half a kid pulled out of the rubble on CNN. That's all western propaganda anyway. They're together... they'll weather the storm.
...I'll bet Eichmann thought the SAME thing before his little 1st class love jaunt to Tel Aviv.
In other "news," one of the potential French Presidential candidates has publicly stated a number of terrifyingly similar parallels between our current Government / Media and the -beginning- of Adolf Hitler's fascist totalitarian dictatorship.
Notably - the repression and evisceration of the US Constitution, making protest ILLEGAL, and granting the Fuhrer Obama the explicit magical ability to arbitrarily _murder— anyone, anywhere, for any reason, based on super-secret evidence that no one else can see.
Absolutely nothing bad could possibly come of this at all.
I wonder how you idiots at MSNBC sleep at night or if you are even aware of what you are contributing to.
Most of this country wonder what magic mushrooms you are eating? To spout such idiotic B.S.?
I dunno Dfrom, sounds like Moped is calling it correctly, although I wouldn't single out Obama as George W. Bush, Cheney, John McCain, etc have all contributed to the police state rise.
Cool story bro. And that's why I'll continue to sing the time-honored American chorus of "Go F--k yourself, France."
Hmmmm! Let's see what the current value of the American dollar is! HM! Only about half that of the Euro! Well, that's okay-
Gosh, when one looks at a long-term change of the value of the dollar, it seems to be plunging / trending downward! I wonder what that means, Chris-fu_ckface.
lol, okay buddy. That's why the dollar has been gaining on the Euro like Lance Armstrong gaining on a French cyclist.
lol, it's a pity that any long-term examination of the dollar predicts that it's going to drastically dive into the ground within the next ten years.
lol, yeah buddy, it's also hilarious that most of the "stocks" here in the states are more or less just "games" manipulated by incompetent "toxic" and "destructive" morons who would rather lie endlessly to themselves than actually fix anything.
yeah buddy lol keep dreaming
What DfromSpencer said!!!!!!!!!
Most of this country wonder what magic mushrooms you are eating? To spout such idiotic B.S.?
Sorry, DfromSpencer, This site doesn't discriminate against DBag's that open their mouth without engaging their brain. I've read all of his posts on this topic and still can't understand what's going on in his head. But, just because he has the inalienable right to spout this drivel...... doesn't mean he has to.
Afghan massacre: Soldier flown to Kuwait Just in case u missed the spelling.
World news
Bulent Kilic / AFP - Getty Images
1,000 refugees flee Syria | Leaked emails:
Tryantlikes country musicAlright, who said country music is still country music??? NO, its more like rock, or pop, with a hint of country flavor! This guy, ASS-AD, and his wife Athsma, sure aren't hurting for anything now are they??? Standing there posing for a picture in a five g suite! Must be ruff to have to find a discount on a four g vase? And people here wonder why the people there want him out? This country would end up the same as Syria if Romney gets elected!! The rich are clueless to the plight of the poor and middle classes! And when they are questioned about that disconnection, they stand there looking dumb! They just dont get it, and they never will, until they have had to choose between eating and buying medicine for the sick kid! Dont try and tell people that his "business experience" will save this economy! It will only provide more stimulas to his rich cronies in a proven failed trickle down policy! That is their only plan, their "ONLY" plan! One great man has been destined to help America become the great nation it once was, President Obama! If the Senators and Congressmen will let him do his job, the next four years will prove that statement!
Actually, butterball, the majority of Syrians support Assad.
Moped, everything else you have said here today is totally idiotic, but this one takes the cake. What kind of evidence can you produce that the Syrian people support Assad? Is it the 98% votes he gets in "elections"?
Assad is a Redneck??????
Is he a registered Republican in a Red State?
That's what MSNBC wants you to think. Of course, he could fly on a broom and fight Voldemort, but that wasn't good for the headlines.
Or he could like beating up Rhianna, but they didn't want you to worry with that one either.
Redneck? I don't think many rednecks are Chris Brown fans. You know... that whole racism thing.
Chris, I beg to differ. I live in southern Missouri, in a town populated with about 90% rednecks. EVERY Friday and Saturday night, them good ol' boys start cruising down the main strip and circle around Sonic Drive In and do it all over again. All the while blasting whatever latest mainstream rap is popular at that time. White people are what is keeping the mainstream rap/hip hop genre afloat.
Damn it, Scenester, stop @!$%#ting on Chris' stereotyping!
Hillbilly this Redneck that....I see all the racist & bigoted liberals are out in force today. One question for ya...why is it OK for YOU to use hate speech but not OK for anyone else. Could it be that your nothing more than utter hypocrites????
I don't know about you T. Bill but I also read in the artical that Chris Brown was on there as well, funny I didn't see you make any mention of that asking the question if Assad was a wife/girlfriend beater. Funny how you just glossed right over that part of the story.
Bigot.
Most Red States ARE misogynistic, though. That's where the Chris Brown thing comes in.
Do conservatives ever see that they just shout demands that they not be compared to bad people, while they shout lies and make fantastic, ludicrous comparisons at everyone else?
Have a nice day.
Debs, are you saying that us calling people Hillbillies and Rednecks makes us racist? If so, that's pretty bold considering, you know, I'm white. Also, considering these are people who have rear window decals in all caps that say, "REDNECK" or "Kiss my Redneck ass!"... so, they pretty much label themselves.
I forgot my favorite though, "High class white trash girl". They do it to themselves. Just like rappers that talk about being a gangster and a criminal, they're thugs. To call either of them one isn't being racist or a bigot.
Have to give Kudos, they fixed the spelling fast. Maybe they do read our comments. Mr Sonar guy and myself. Smile life is short.
Seems to me that the best way to rid the stress is to get out of the heat of the kitchen. Either leave or change your ways. Better to make peace with your neighbors that to place the target on your back. Maybe you should send your wife out of the country to protect her, she doesn't seem to have a problem with what you are doing and that makes her a target as well. If you read this then pay attention...........................stop the bull before you get gored!
Assad's wife is really hot. Someone told me she had a career in C&W Music in Nashville before marrying Assad. If they leave Syria, will they move to Nashville so she can pick her career back up?
Assad looks like a cross between an elf and.... Hitler!
When they said the word Tyrant, I assumed they must mean Obama. Now there's a tyrant if ever there was one.
Oh shut the f--k up. You'd be hard-pressed to find a President who has had to battle against more partisan opposition than Obama. And that includes Bush when the Congress was controlled by Democrats.
Oh shut the f- up yourself. Obama had a pretty much lap dog congress for the first two years after he was elected. What battles? To try to fit Reid, Pelosi and Durbin on his lap at the same time?????
heartfire, what does Obama, Bush, Clinton, or George Washington have to do with Assad? Do people like you have anything better, more pertinent, to write about?
Yes, Obama is a tyrant and you are so brutally oppressed that you can sit around all day bitching on the internet about it. Try this act in Syria, you moron.
In reply to chris 629628.. Well if u cant take the heat get the hell out of the kitchen. Or it comes with the territory. Smile life is short.
Okay, assassinate him.
Chris Brown?..well that makes sense..
There is only one ballot because women do not get to vote in Syria either I guess. He is voting for a new constitution and to have it written his way. What is a "Tryant"? I have no idea what it is. Assad is a Dictator (an ad for a one - a** ad). Assad is having a fun party (laughing, joking, singing, drinking, movie night) while his Syrian Army is killing the Syrian people. The news continues with its misleading titles after this short break from the Obumer campaign.
He's killed 8 thousand of his own people. A drop in the bucket compared to Saddam Husein!
Isn't 8,000 enough? Somebody needs to spend a dollar on a bullet so there are not 8,000 more.
I wonder what it is like for those being tortured to know there is no Superman coming to save them.
Shame on the entire world that out of 8 billion people, and hundreds of nations, nobody will step up to the plate knowing he could be defeated and these people saved within a 1 day at minimal cost.
We thought Saddams army would be more difficult; they were the 4th largest army in the world.
Tryant? Weren't they a 70's hair band???
Well it stands to reason that an A$$HOLE like Assad woulod LOVE an A$$HOLE like Chris Brown. A Match made in H E L L !
As Chris Brown bruises his girlfriend(s), so Assad bruises his country.
Country music AND Chris Brown. Wow, that guy has placed himself in the lowest 5% in terms of taste and intelligence, aside from being a mass murderer, of course.
What do you honestly think would happen here if there was a 'revolt' in one or two of our major U.S. cities? I don't hesitate to think that the weapon yielding national guard would be deployed and if things got REALLY hairy, those armed U.S. 'insurgents' would be taken down.
Do you think Russia or China would offer aid to those 'rebel' U.S. citizens in those cities fighting for their 'liberty'?
I am not on one side or the other, just playing devil's advocate.