Syrian Government Extracts Foliage from Rectal Orifice

You'll forgive me if I'm unconvinced by this story.

DAMASCUS, SYRIA – Long scorned as tools of state propaganda, Syria's print and television media are experiencing the most thorough shake-up in more than four decades.

Journalists are growing bolder as traditional red lines blur, taboos are broken, and fear of imprisonment over printing material critical of the regime recedes. Although censorship still exists, the easing of restrictions is giving new freedom to journalists and paving the way for a more robust media.

Unusually, the impetus for change is coming from Syria's recently appointed information minister, Mehdi Dakhlallah, a former newspaper editor.

"This is new, this is very new," says Ziad Haydar, Damascus correspondent of the Al-Arabiya Arabic satellite channel and Lebanon's As-Safir newspaper.

The changes rippling through the Syrian media were illustrated last month with the publication in Syria's Tishreen newspaper of an article containing unprecedented criticism of the feared mukhabarat, or secret intelligence service.

Step number one: allow the Syrian media to have more control. Step number two: establish free and legitimate elections. Step three: beach volleyball tournament.

The money shot?

Mr. Haydar of Al-Arabiya says that for the first time he is free to record interviews with people from banned political parties on previously taboo subjects. "They say how they want to abolish the security law, free political prisoners, see the return of exiles, and hold free elections," he says. "I don't feel the tension while working anymore. I can go on air at any moment and talk about anything." (Emphasis added by The Fly)

There are Syrians, Arab Syrians, who want to hold free elections in Syria. When Iraq holds their elections at the end of the month, how much harder do you think it will be for their Syrian neighbors to keep the people under the heel of the mukhabarat's boot?

The terrorists fight us because they understand that we love freedom, and they're afraid. Middle Eastern governments support the terrorists because freedom means the end of their guaranteed power, the end of their absolute authority, and they're afraid.

The Middle East is changin'. Freedom is like the spirits released from Pandora's Box, and now that it's slowly taking hold in Iraq and Afghanistan, there's no putting it back.