Syrian emails say American psyche is 'easily manipulated'

In an insight into the contempt shown for international public opinion by those advising the Syrian leader, one of his media aides suggested "the American audience doesn't really care about reforms. They won't understand it and they are not interested to do so". Sheherazad Jaafari, a Syrian press attache based in New York, listed points for Assad to consider in preparing for the high-profile interview and urged him to quash "the idea" of violence being perpetrated by the regime against the Syrian people. The US media "think that bloodshed is done by the government to attack the 'innocent civilians' and 'peaceful demonstrators'," she wrote. References by the president in the interview to "armed groups" … "is extremely important", she added. During the interview with Walters, Assad repeatedly denied the regime was killing its own citizens. "We don't kill our people … no government in the world kills its people unless it's led by a crazy person," he said. The emails were hacked by the cyber group Anonymous and leaked to the Israeli news organisation Haaretz. More than 70 inboxes of aides were accessed. Jaafari, a press attache at the Syrian mission to the UN, sent the memo to aides in Damascus. According to Haaretz, she wrote: "The idea of violence has been one of the major subjects brought up in every [US media] article. They use the phrases 'the Syrian government is killing its own people', 'tanks have been used in many cities', 'airplanes have been used to suppress the peaceful demonstrations' and 'security forces are criminals and bloody'." It went on: "Bloodshed is another subject brought up in the American media. There is no mention of how many 'soldiers and security forces have been killed'." Jaafari advised mentioning "the huge economical and political transformation" in Syria in the past 11 years, and said Assad should acknowledge mistakes made at the beginning of the uprising. "American psyche can be easily manipulated when they hear that there are 'mistakes' done and now we are 'fixing it'." Comparison should be made with the way US police dealt with protests against Wall Street. In the US, she wrote, "there are courses and schools that specialises in teaching police men and officers how to torture criminals and 'outlaws'.... We can use Abu Ghraib in Iraq as an example." Damascus - The Guardian