Has anyone else gained respect for Anders Fogh Rasmussen?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I used to hate the guy. He was a neoliberal who largely sided with Bush and relied on the far right. But I have to give him credit for standing firm here and making no concessions to his country's freedom of the press unlike Bush who cowardly caved. He's being the strongest leader of out of anyone in this, unlike Bush who surrendered, other European leaders who are being weak, and the leaders of the Muslim countries (yoohoo, you listening Syria?) who aren't doing crap to reign in the mobs.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

(Oh, PS - over 20 of the demonstrators were hospitalized due to police violence, and you're telling me the government didn't do enough? What do you want? A bloodbath? Just fuck off, will you?)

Hmmm, wasn't aware of that. The point I heard a bunch on DU though was that Syria is ran a lot like Iraq under Saddam, Assad's secret police are everywhere, and such riots can't really happen without the tacit support of the government. Think the anti-Japan riots in China a few months back. I think though we need to make a distinction between those engaged in simply demonstrating, and those actually involved in violence, it obviously isn't right if they were simply holding a peaceful protest and were assaulted by the police, but when engaged in riots on this level, only 20 injuries seems like a best case scenario. Even the relatively minor riot my city had 2 years ago had about a dozen injuries, and that didn't involve any buildings being torched.